A Texas vacation in name alone

CRAWFORD, Texas – It was hardly a restful week down here on the prairie in President Bush’s hometown.

The president flew down Aug. 3 for a 10-day respite, much shorter than his usual month. .

No, there was no Hurricane Katrina like last year to make him look like he was shirking his duties. And Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war protester whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, didn’t get anywhere near the media attention she did last summer, although she was here for part of the time.

But the fighting in Lebanon continued, as did the violence in Iraq. And while Bush was able to get in several bike rides around his 1,600-acre ranch in 100-degree heat, much of his time was taken up with slow-moving United Nations diplomacy to bring about a cease-fire in Lebanon.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley, after meeting with Bush, expressed optimism that a U.S.-French plan to do just that would be passed by the U.N. Security Council on Monday or Tuesday.

On Monday, Bush, in an obvious effort to not look like he was on vacation, held a news conference in the helicopter hangar on the ranch wearing a businesslike gray suit, white shirt and blue pin-dot tie. His only nod to casual was a pair of black cowboy boots.

At his side, Rice looked equally dressed for business in black slacks, white blazer and black high-heel pumps.

But the news conference hardly made news. Bush and Rice reiterated that U.N. negotiations were continuing and that they wanted to make sure the cease-fire put in place would not break down in a few days.

“I wish things happened quicker in the diplomatic realm. Sometimes it takes a while to get things done,” Bush said.

It’s likely that when they planned the conference they thought they would have good news to report. They had none.

As the week wore on, the president was secretly kept informed of British efforts to thwart a plot aimed at blowing up airliners carrying mostly American passengers from the United Kingdom to the United States. Americans awoke Thursday to hear the plot had been foiled.

On a trip that morning to Wisconsin, where he attended a Republican congressional fundraiser, a somber Bush stepped before reporters and TV cameras to remind the nation that it is still “at war.”

While that was going on, Sheehan returned to Crawford last Sunday and immediately led a three-mile march of about 50 followers calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. With one gray-bearded man playing a recorder and another strumming a ukulele, Sheehan stepped up to the orange-gated Secret Service checkpoint about a mile from the Bush ranch and renewed her demand for a meeting with the president.

“Bush killed my son,” she declared.

That was as far as she got. Bush, who met with Sheehan in 2004 at Fort Lewis, along with other parents and relatives of troops killed in Iraq, did not meet with her last year. He did not meet with her this year.

Sheehan staged another news conference on Monday, but she got little national media coverage. On Tuesday, she went to the Crawford Post Office to fill out a voter registration card. She bought land in Crawford and is seeking to vote there. Again, little media attention.

On Wednesday she flew to Seattle to address the Veterans for Peace convention.

Her schedule called for her to be back in Crawford on Friday, outside the gate when the president’s motorcade would take him to a Republican fundraiser at a nearby ranch.

Bush returns to Washington on Sunday. So call it what you want. For him, it was not a vacation.