Was it really a pig farm?

[AbbyR]

I'm writing a column on Cindy for my paper this week, and I have a question: Was the Bush ranch really a pig farm before it was a ranch, or is that just rhetoric? I'd like to know what to call it so I won't come across looking like an idiot, but I'll be doggoned if I can find a real reference to the former identity of the Crawford castle and surroundings.

Thanks.

Abby in Arkansas

[Goldmund]

1. Apparently, yes

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=6687

Welcome to DU :hi:

[SpiralHawk]

2. The Imperial Pig Farm Upon Crawford

is the double super-secret Skull & Bones way of referring to Camp AWOL -- the alleged Bush "ranch"

[Dudley_DUright]

3. According to former TX Ag. Commissioner Jim Hightower, it was

Texas populist Jim Hightower, also known as the anti-Bush, spoke at a TrueMajority event in Bexley on August 13. Hightower signed copies of his new book Let’s Stop Beating Around the Bush. The highlight of Hightower’s talk was his detailed account on how George W. Bush came to own a “ranchette” in Crawford, Texas. Hightower speaks with great authority as the state’s former Commissioner of Agriculture.

As Hightower told us, Karl Rove, referred to as “Bush’s brain,” decided that Dubya needed a ranch in 1999 if he wanted to be elected President. After all, Ronald Reagan had a ranch and so did that last Texas President, Lyndon Johnson.

“There’s nothing Bush likes better than having a photo op of him clearing brush,” Hightower explained. “Bush is always inviting the media out to take pictures of him clearing brush. In my experience real ranchers spend virtually no time clearing brush. They’re usually tending cattle. But Bush bought a ranch in farm country, and the cattle you see as part of the photo op aren’t even his. They’re somebody else’s that he rents the land to.”

Hightower went on to detail further image-making tricks used to transform a New England preppie into a Texas cowboy. “Rove went and got him a cowboy hat costing a thousand dollars if it cost a dime. But the real irony is that the ranchette is a former pig farm, which is quite fitting.

more...

http://ww.freepress.org/dispatches/2004/display/166

[question everything]

4. No wonder he tried to milk a horse

Jim Hightower is great. Did not know that he held an official post. Heard him last year when he came to a rally in St. Paul.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Jim Hightower ROCKS!

[AbbyR]

5. Thanks, everyone. I appreciate it! nft

[Lex]

7. Don't forget that Bush has no horses on his pig farm (or "ranch")

because Bush is afraid of horses.

That's why you don't see any photos ops of him on a horse.