Gone Fishin'

As of this posting, Mr. Bush is closing in on a year’s worth of vacation out of five years worth of presidency. While he's been getting his hands dirty with soil and branches, Carol Sheehan has been camped outside his vacation spot in Crawford, Texas asking for no more than a private dialogue with the president. Ms. Sheehan has been praised by the left and vilified by the right. She is now the symbol and voice to the anti-war movement which until now has felt crushed into silence by strong and outspoken heartland support for Mr. Bush. Now, those who are and have always been opposed to the war feel a surge of strength and solidarity that the anti-war point-of-view must have its place in the public forum.

The right is lashing out that she is somehow undermining the efforts of “our boys” in Iraq. If Bush had simply given her the opportunity to speak directly to him, briefly and with secret service agents present, the whole affair might have gone unnoticed. Is it possible that Mr. Bush himself has unwittingly given fuel to the anti-war movement by opting to “clear brush” on a daily basis rather than talk to one grieving mother whose son was-and is-one of “our boys”?

Perhaps in the fall when we all literally or figuratively return to school, both Mr. Bush and Ms. Sheehan can write essays entitled "What I Did On My Summer Vacation". My guess is that while Mr. Bush has been strutting around in his cowboy hat, wide belt buckle and blue denim shirt for the cameras, in the privacy of his ranch he's been quaking in his leather cowboy boots from the tremors caused by Mr. Sheehan's modest campsite on the shoulder of a dirt road.