Bush, As Others Before, Escapes Anti-War Protests

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http://www.thejacksonchannel.com/helenthomas/5032431/detail.html

<snip>Bush was happy to get out of town and track Hurricane Rita last weekend as a way of displaying his new-found interest in the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people in the Gulf area.

He flew to Austin, Texas, and spent the night in San Antonio. He traveled to a command center in Colorado, where he was able to monitor Hurricane Rita while an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Americans converged on Washington and peacefully demonstrated against the Iraq war. Their protest included a march in front of the White House.

But Bush wasn't home.

This isn't an unusual pattern for presidents. Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon would eagerly escape the White House when protesters against the Vietnam War came to town. Back then, demonstrators were fervently on the march in Washington, day and night, and Johnson and Nixon would often retreat to Camp David, the presidential hideaway near Thurmont, Md., far from the raucous crowd.

It was obvious back then that both Johnson and Nixon had agonized over Vietnam. They were torn between staying the course -- even when they knew it was becoming an unwinnable war -- or making a strategic retreat.