Bush Refuses to Set Timetable for Withdrawal from Crawford

President George W. Bush said today that he understands and respects the views of those who are calling for him to cut short his summer vacation, but warned that an immediate withdrawal from Crawford, Texas would "send a terrible signal to the enemy."

"The enemy would like nothing better than to see me cut short my vacation and get back to the White House," Mr. Bush told reporters. "They hate my freedom."

While the president said that he would withdraw from Crawford "soon," he refused to set a timetable for his departure from the ranch, saying that much work there still needs to be done.

Mr. Bush, who has been spending much of his vacation clearing brush, said that he is making great progress in training ranch hands to take over that job for him, but cautioned that they are not yet prepared to do the job themselves.

"Once the ranch hands have shown that they are able to clear the brush on their own, I will withdraw from Crawford, but that day has not yet come," the president said.

Mr. Bush was dismissive of polls showing that the public thinks his current vacation is becoming a quagmire, much like his August 2001 vacation.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow defended the president's decision to remain in Crawford indefinitely: "President Bush deserves August off, especially when you consider how many summers he had to go to school."

Elsewhere, Senator John Warner (R-VA) explained his decision to retire from the Senate in 2008, telling reporters, "That place is just getting too gay."

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.

Comments

[LiberalBlogHog]

The war against the brush has taken a new turn as General Craig has ordered all brush soldiers to adapt a "wide-stance" to combat pesky twigs that are on the ground and "hard" to grab.

[Oragone]

Why doesn't he consider Napalm(it does not affect anything except the foliage), he could have air strikes right in his backyard, and it would fit in with his Vietnam theory

[MetalCanuck]

Wow the sadness of the state of this once great Republic. It was all down hill after 1913.

[stlrfan]

The head gardener, Juan Patreus recently stated that it would take 9 or 10 years to clear this brush.

[azpaull]

Bush, brush
Iraq, Iran
Let's call the whole thing off.

[SonnyBono]

So W is clearing brush again just like the idol of the GOP, Ronnie Reagan. However if I remember correctly, the handlers for good old Ronnie would have the Secret Service put out "brush" for Ronnie to clear - in locations that made for good photo ops. Thank you Mike Deaver - now dead and not a moment too soon. But of course, W would never resort to a cheap trick like phony brush, would he? I mean he is a man of honor, a god fearing man, a patriot who served his country proudly in every bar in North Beach.

Ya, right, believe that and you probably believe that Mary Matalin is cute instead of repulsive and reptilian. She and Carville should never have been allowed to reproduce - sorry about digressing but I saw the two of them on "Meet the Press" and promptly lost my appetite.

[TheIndependenceParty]

I'm pretty sure he just doesn't like to fly alone, ... even in Air Force One, ... even though he's supposed to have been a pilot, for God's sake.
~
Seems he's waiting for at least one minion, I mean, ... statesman, to promise to fly back to DC with him to face the withering criticism of his, ... his, ... well, his life, frankly. He's been reading up on Iran, ya know, ... and doesn't know how to pronounce all those new words and new city names, ... and all.
~
What the Hell, ... He's the Decider, right. Can't he decide he'd rather rule from Crawfish, ... I mean Crawford? "Closer to Paraguay for A Faster Getaway" as they say, ... Eh?
~

[realpolitic]

Only those who hate America want to leave Bush's ranch to the brush and other Al Qaeda operatives.

[t-party]

And those who criticise this war on invasive shrubs are lending assistance to the enemy!

[NoContest]

Andy, shrub either fights the brush down thar in Taxes, or we have to fight it over here. A robbing people with a six-gun. I fought the brush and the brush won, I fought the brush and the - - brush won.

[reppy]

Too plausible to be funny. I'm not convinced this article is satire.

[Senzasord]

Fine, let him launch a splurge against the brush and bushwhack it as long as he wants to. While he is doing that, he is distracted from screwing us.

[BeyondPopper]

Bush will accept nothing less than victory over the brush, though critics are left to wonder just what that victory would entail.

[chinohillster]

So when Bush leaves office, it will be to spend "more time with his brush?"

[fact finder]

Nah he's going to Paraguay.That way his slaves err workers won't be illegals.

[RobertPaul]

The best way to get this behind us would be to use Napalm (preferably while he is in the process of clearing some patch of this brush), and then pouring thousands of gallons of Agent Orange over the whole ranch.

But, as Bush put it in a recent speech about Viet Nam, we aren't allowing him to "win" his battle against the invading brush.

[SirReal1]

Just in:

Mr. Bush, in an effort to quell critics has proposed a "surge effort" to tame some of the most resistant areas of "underbrush". His current strategy is to call on support from within the ranks (Karl Rove, Harriet Meirs, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and Alberto Gonzales) to provide management of a counter-defoliation that will seek to use some of the current residents in the area (many of them illegal immigrants), to "clear and maintain" some of the areas that have, thus far, been most resistant to previous incursion.

Mr. Bush has stated that it is "unfair for my critics to demand progress, without giving my "new strategy" time to work."

In a related development, Congress has suggested that they will hold "extended debate", prior to authorizing any funds that Mr. Bush requests for the ongoing effort.

[Herrington]

Bush responds to "extended debate":

"It is irresponsible for congress to try and micromanage a "brush" war. "Cut the brush and run" Democrats fail to see that the Crawford Ranch is the front line. Fight the brush here or fight it your own yard."