The Domesticated President (and protests in Calif)

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/08/30/BL2005083000706.html?referrer=email
The Domesticated President

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; 11:27 AM

........

After a month dominated by news about the Iraq war, President Bush yesterday weighed in on a handful of domestic issues. But changing the topic doesn't necessarily mean a break from controversy.
Bush was speaking to invitation-only audiences in Arizona and Southern California, ostensibly pitching the advantage of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit that has been greeted skeptically by many seniors.


........"Two weeks after the Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico declared states of emergency along the border, Bush used a Medicare speech here to promise residents an increasingly robust federal campaign that will deploy more agents and provide more detention space to stop those trying to sneak into the country."

Baker also notes that Bush was not able to escape the war protests entirely.

"Hundreds of protesters lined his motorcade routes in Arizona and California, holding up signs such as 'Bush the Lying Turd' and 'Chicken George,' a reference to his refusal to meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who set up camp near his Texas ranch demanding an audience. A competing crowd gathered in California waving flags and signs such as 'Support Our President.'"........