We're not playing cowboy anymore

[rodeodance]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/08/17/ranch/index.html

We're not playing cowboy anymore

The readers write, and what a lot of them are writing these days is this: We should stop referring to a certain 1,600-acre parcel of land in Texas as a "ranch."

Mission accomplished.

From the beginning, the presidential-getaway-as-ranch has been a construct, a way to make a millionaire from Yale look like some kind of workaday cowpoke. Just before Bush left Washington for his latest vacation, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the trips to Crawford give the president time to "shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds."

It's not clear how many heartland folks Bush is hearing as he roars through Crawford in a motorcade of air-conditioned SUVs. And it's not like the locals are welcome to cross the Secret Service barricades and hang out with him back at the former pig farm he calls home. As the Christian Science Monitor noted a few years back, the Bush property is located seven miles outside of Crawford, and you can't see much of it even if you make the trek out: "Orange signs posted along the narrow road warn 'No Stopping,' 'No Standing,' 'No Parking,' and when people do try to stop, there's not much to see except a pop-up security barrier at the gate.".........

[Carla in Ca]

1. I read that earlier, thanks for posting it.

Yet another 'image' problem. I wonder how many people realize it is all for show...what a schmuck.

[Mist]

2. Someone on another thread used "plastic Ponderosa" for the

ranch. Works for me! Got that nice alliteration thing going. Wish I could remember who it was, to give them credit.