MSNBC: Bush dresses SOBERLY but candidates keep distance

[Bluebear]

Since taking office Mr Bush has spent part or all of 384 days in Crawford, according to CBS news.

By Edward Luce and Caroline Daniel in Washington

American television viewers are being treated to a new spectacle – the sight of their president, George W. Bush, dressed in a suit on his Texan ranch in Crawford. Mindful of the potential negative publicity of taking a holiday in the midst of the crisis in Lebanon, Mr Bush has cut short his traditional August break to just 10 days and is avoiding the traditional photo-opportunity of clearing brush in his trademark cowboy hat and jeans.

His White House team, some of which has decamped to Crawford with him, is doing its best to create the impression that this is a working holiday. At the weekend Mr Bush huddled with Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to discuss the Middle East crisis.

On Thursday he will kick off a mid-term congressional election campaign visit to Green Bay, Wisconsin. And on Friday he will host a Republican National Committee reception in Crawford. He returns to Washington on Sunday. "There is a lot going on right now and unfortunately it does not provide enough time or space for an extended vacation," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman.

But Republican consultants doubt Mr Bush's industrious vacation schedule will have an impact on his low approval ratings, which have remained below 40 per cent for most of the last year. Frank Luntz, probably the most influential Republican pollster, said Mr Bush had yet to shed the image of incompetence that many Americans derived from his response last year to Hurricane Katrina, which struck America's south-east coastline when he was holidaying in Crawford....

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14246970/

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Of course...

The press will not be invited to a photo op of Dear Leader laying face down on the floor, passed out in a widening puddle of his vomit and urine.

The man knows how to kick back. Just not for attribution.

[El Supremo]

2. "huddled with Condoleezza Rice" Ahah! n/t

[TlalocW]

3. Just what purpose does clearing brush serve?

Removal of a fire hazzard? Removal of obstacles to allow cattle to graze in more spots? What? We see him every damn year clearing brush, but I don't see any purpose past the photo-op aspect. Now if he could actually build a fence, that would be something.

TlalocW

[soothsayer]

8. He should go to NOLA if he wants to do something useful

[wordpix2]

4. instead of dealing with the Iraq debacle * created, he's campaigning for

his fellow idiot repukes during his "industrious vacation."

It's probably better that he's campaigning than "focusing" on the ME in his moronic way.

[rustydog]

5. That is about the ONLY thing Bush can do "soberly"

[Bluebear]

6. Precisely. nt

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

7. I've got to K & R. I was in Crawford last year at this time. Cindy Sheehan

delivered the first punch and Katrina nailed him. I had the honor of standing with Sheehan to call out the coward in chief as he drove by us as fast as he possibly could.

My favorite quote from the article:

In remarks that caused embarrassment to the White House last week, Michael Steele, a Republican Senate candidate in Maryland, said: "In 2001 we were attacked and the president is on the ground with his arm around a fireman – a symbol of America. In Katrina, the president is at 30,000 feet in an airplane looking down at people dying. And that disconnect sums up for me the frustration that Americans feel."

MKJ

edited to add: "soberly" is definitely a telling choice of words for the headline.

[Drum]

9. "...in his trademark cowboy hat and jeans."

trademark my ass. not his trademark, at any rate. bush is a poser.