Mark Steyn Covers Crawfordapalooza
Here's
his take:
Sadly, the media don’t seem to enjoy the annual joke. So, with no showbiz types to hand in the Greater Waco area, someone had the bright idea of importing a little entertainment. These days, come August and the cry goes up, ‘Hey, let’s do the show in George W. Bush’s barn.’ When it comes to political theatre, Crawford now finds itself playing host to the nation’s most critically acclaimed summer stock.
Last year it was former Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who took up residence outside the Bush ranch and demanded the President come out and denounce the Swift Boat veterans. Cleland, also a Vietnam vet and a triple amputee, was outraged that anyone would impugn Senator Kerry’s war record and was impugning Bush for not impugning the Swift vets for impugning Kerry. Anyway, the President never did come out to meet Cleland. He may still be there for all I know.
This year’s performer in residence is Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year. Mrs Sheehan is now very anti-war and has pledged to stay camped out in Crawford all August until the President has the guts to come out and see her for a face-to-face meeting. So far he’s sent his national security adviser and deputy chief of staff out to see her, but that’s like Clinton sending Janet Reno and Sidney Blumenthal to Carly Simon’s party. These no-name stand-ins were trying to ‘bullsh*t us into submission,’ complained Mrs Sheehan.Hat Tip:
Ankle-Biting PunditsAn aside here. Some of the newspapers on-line are getting more agressive about requiring registration, including the London Spectator, where this article was originally published. You can try BugMenot, but chances are in a day or so they've deleted those accounts. This strikes me as incredibly stupid and short-sighted. If you find that it's annoying to get an article at the Spec, or the NY Post, surf on over to the
Free Republic, where they quite commonly post the entire text of popular articles and columns. You're going to see more of us linking over there and not to the websites of the newspapers if this trend continues.
