Posted on 12/31/2005 5:49:13 PM PST by kristinn
CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.
SNIP
This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.
SNIP
Ronald Reagan chopped wood and rode horses, Bush's father sailed off the shore of Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bill Clinton jogged. For George W. Bush, clearing brush projects the image of a cowboy president, a tough rancher fighting the elements to survive. That is, of course, the White House's projection; the president's critics take a dimmer view.
"Most likely he's doing that to show the media he's got a chain saw," joked Larry Mattladge, who raises Black Angus cows three-quarters of a mile from the Bush ranch and built his fence rows out of cedar posts. "It's a man's thing. Brush clearing is not only for the young at heart, it's for the young. It's to show he's a Texan."
Presidential historian Robert Dallek said: "This is part of his macho image. Obviously this is nothing Bush has to do. He's the son of a rich man who doesn't have to spend his time cutting underbrush."
SNIP
"He shouldn't have time to be clearing brush," said Kay Lucas, a grandmother and antiwar activist who drives 25 miles a day to care for the Crawford Peace House, a gathering spot for Cindy Sheehan and her protest against the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This from a paper who refuses to acknowledge that we are at war after 9-11.
May good ol' fashioned cedar fever infest these idiots from January to December.
Congress is allowed a vacation, but not the President. HYPOCRITES!!!
He probably pretends the trees are MSM reporters!
Did the WaPo ever criticize Clinton over his vacations? Vacations where he had to freeload on some rich FOB because the parasite and his wife never even owned a home of their own till leaving the White House?
365 days on his secluded ranch? Is this number accurate? and, most of those days are not your traditional day off. Every day POTUS works.
Hey, I wonder if that's Salt Cedar he's clearing?
Further, the idea of a presidential vacation is a joke - he's never more than seconds form a phone and is constantly working while in Crawford.
Happy New Year kristinn! See you at CPAC!
"He shouldn't have time to be clearing brush"
Of course he should, unless he's a pinhead micromanager like Bozo the peanut farmer. Besides, how can he think clearly if he's not rested and clear-headed? Exercise is great for the little grey cells.
Anybody remember any demonrats saying that Beelzebubba "shouldn't have time" to be committing adultery in the Oval Office?
They're faced with three more years of reporting from Crawford. They came so close to vacation at Martha's Vineyard and Jackson Hole and Paris.
Hell can be a righteous thing....
The press should have to live in tents while in Crawford. I'd drive over just to see that.
Bush lied...trees died?
Maybe golf or tennis would be acceptable to these twits. Whose business is it how he spends his time off and gets exercise? I think this person has run out of anything meaningful to report.
More proof that a slimy Leftist "journalist" can't even recognize hard work when he sees it first hand. Just like he can't understand "heroism" when he sees it first hand. Secretly, these "journalists" are not at all that far removed from self-loathing suicide. I just wish they would spare us the fruits of their psychosis and just do it already.
Yeah. He was even involving himself in the scheduling of the White House tennis court. What a disaster that sweater-wearing, light-turning-offing, goober-raising dope was.
Bill Clinton should not have enough time to have Monica give him blow jobs.
They are making up for the fact that they never reported on Clinton's massive cocaine abuse and philandering during his "R&R's".
That presstitute is just an urban animal who has not the slightest clue of why taking a chainsaw or an axe to one's land to either improve the land or make someting from a tree would appeal.
Consdier this: for most of us the only opportunity to gazr on something unseen by any other man is when we open a log with a band milll, or a chainsaw.
I just cut off a Lysiloma about three feet thick, with a fork made of 2.5 foot thick prongs. The wood is simply beautiful and will make superlative tables.
Same with an even larger oak in Miami, alongside my friend's home.
A 40+ yeear old Stihl 070 still starts on the first pull and powers a 54" bar.
I do understand Bush's cutting with a chainsaw when he doesn't "have to." So does the rest of AMerica's non-Blue state urban Liberals.
But, like most Americans, I'm not a Liberal presstitute.
Sorry about forgetting the SPELL button. :-(
Happy New Year to you, too! See you at CPAC.
I love that my President goes out and does manly things. And if I had to deal with even half the nimrods Bush has to deal with, I'd want to work out some aggression with a chainsaw, too.
Good for him.
Oh, and the "he shouldn't have time" comment? Foolish for a million reasons. I want my President's head to be clear. Exercise and old fashioned hard work are excellent ways to accomplish that.
Of course the left isn't familiar with that concept.
They are already reaping their just rewards. Their stuck-on-stupid reporting and editorial staff just don't get it yet.
It's gardening, ranch style. These reporters do need to get out of their bubble and see how the rest of the country lives.
"Sorry about forgetting the SPELL button."
Yeah, I thought everybody knew that "presstitute" is spelled, "treasonous tofu-chomping media scumbag."
I do lots of things I don't "have to". But I like hard work, I like getting my hands dirty, I like doing things myself, it's a great stress reliever, and it's great exercise. I'm sure the President feels that way, too.
Screw the press. Bunch a manicured soft bodies.

"The story is essentially true, even if the facts had to be made up due to lack of actual evidence"
I thought Bill hurt his knee tripping on some stairs when he was on vacation :-)
"He shouldn't have time to be clearing brush," said Kay Lucas, a grandmother and antiwar activist who drives 25 miles a day to care for the Crawford Peace House...
Kay Lucas should bicycle to work a Real Job.
How true. I relish their misery, and wish it upon them ten-fold each of the next three years. President Bush ought to go one step further and open a conference center in Death Valley.
Lisa Rein must truly be one bitter, mean spirited and empty individual.
Drunk on a golf outing according to Buzz Paterson.
Have any of these idiots got a memory more then 5 minuits?
This is how he relaxes, its his version of R & R.
Then again, this is the same media that thinks its news that the President has an iPOD.
Like maybe some of the progress being made in Iraq? That our military is meeting its recruitment goals? Anything else?
Lisa Rein apparently doesn't know any people in her circle of liberal elite who do their own yard work.
She doesn't hide it well, does she?
Mega Barf Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had Lucas spent more time exersizing and minding her eating habits (as President Bush has done), instead of spewing bile, she might not have become a hateful, fat, ugly, disgusting slob. But that seems to be what becomes of most Leftist cows.
LOL! I do recall some reporting of this. Did this occur at the Lawford residence? Something about blowing out a knee carrying a "friend" down a flight of stairs? This could not have been Hilary, which would have required a half-ton crane.
My recollection is that he was visiting at the home of that Aussie golfer(Great White Shark guy) got drunk and stumbled down some stairs and tore up his knee. A real man's man, that Billyboy. Ptui.
I can understand why the President does this- brush clearing. Something like that can be really therapeutic. Me personally, I like beating the hell out of things with a hammer but you know- I can see where the chainsaw thing would relieve some tension too.
This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the President goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.
I can feel their pain. ;-)
And I relish it.
There are some people like Bush who find hard physical labor a very good way to relieve stress.
Beleive me, chopping cedar is no picnic.
They'd be happier if he was hob knobbing with the Hollywood elite on Martha's Vineyard.

Off topic but cedars in Texas?
Hell yeah! You can sit on the porch and watch them grow! Amazing how they can fill up a perfectly good pasture in no time at all!
Off topic but cedars in Texas?
OK, here's one for ya what is the market price for West Coast cedar log in Japan with clear grain and no knots?
I haven't a clue, FRiend!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.