Bush Obsessed with Clearing Brush at His Waco Compound --->>>

Stephanie

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Jan-01-06 09:12 AM
Original message

Bush Obsessed with Clearing Brush at His Waco Compound --->>>

Edited on Sun Jan-01-06 09:18 AM by Stephanie

Posted on Sun, Jan. 01, 2006
CRAWFORD, TEXAS

Bush finds hard work at his ranch therapeutic
One of the President's favorite activities at his Crawford ranch is clearing brush.
BY LISA REIN
Washington Post Service

CRAWFORD, Texas - On most of the 365 days he's enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedar trees and whack them to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he'll light a match and burn the wood. If it's parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until they're safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the western White House. Since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisors and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a heel-turning pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it's exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it's earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, huckleburrs, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.

***

Certainly the 1,583 acres of rugged canyons and rocky hillsides, creeks and pasture land on Prairie Chapel Ranch contain a lot of brush. Bush, a creature of habit, isn't in danger of finishing the job. The Bush ranch, however, is not a working ranch. The president has kept only a handful of cattle on the property since Kenneth Engelbrecht, who sold him the former hog farm six years ago, stopped leasing back some pasture land that supported a herd of cows.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/13524854.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_nation

High Noon in Crawford
By EVGENIA PERETZ

<snip>

One such Crawford citizen is Larry Mattlage, Fred's distant cousin, whose family has been in Crawford since 1887 and who owns a farm three-quarters of a mile from Bush's property. Mattlage is the real Crawford cowboy�with land, goats, sheep, a white beard, legs that stretch a mile�and he believes that Bush has done nothing for his beloved town except exploit it. First off, the idea that Bush is some kind of "rancher" just makes him laugh.

"He don't know dirt," says Mattlage, who is friendly with Bush's ranch foreman, Robert Blossman. All that brush clearing, Mattlage says, "is for show. It's not necessary.� is where the birds live. That's birdseed. That's deer food. That's cow food.� makes cedar posts. If they're grown properly, they make a good post that will last forever." Bush's ignorance on the matter doesn't surprise him. "You don't move into these boonies and really understand the land, you know?" says Mattlage. " got a lot of money, and they got access to a lot of machinery and a lot of bulldozers and a lot of destructive equipment, and before you know it, they can screw up something so damn bad.� A rich man with a bulldozer is a dangerous thing!" Furthermore, the notion that Bush is "friends" with anyone in Crawford is hogwash. "He's a visitor to this group of people," says Mattlage. "Nobody knows anything about him. I know you better than I know my neighbor."

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/051107roco01?print=true