We're All About the Hospitality

[Rose Siding]

Maybe disdain for the media is wholly responsible for the pig farm experience. After all, with the mercury barely kissing 95 degrees, Pickles was able to find a weedy patch of nearly shaded dirt for her guest's comfort.



A pig farm press conference with other leaders gets lots of international coverage -probably even more so during Washington's slow coverage summers.

There *must* be a poll tested strategy for how they are conducted. The bushies don't do anything without political calculation. Can the strategy possibly be an effort to downplay American wealth to the people in his guests' contries? Cause the cat's out of the bag on that one.

If it's for the benefit of people in this country, what ever happened to put your best foot forward? Isn't that still a generally accepted practice? Why isn't that generally expected of the president?

[BlueEyedSon]

1. That first pic just proves my point: we are the richest 3rd world country.

[terrya]

2. Why anyone would want to be there instead of the White House...

is beyond me.

[getmeouttahere]

3. Sorry, but the charms of Texas have always been lost on me!

[Rose Siding]

6. There's beauty nearly everywhere

A rutted dirt road in August doesn't showcase Texas' attributes very effectively.

It wouldn't be any more appropriate to hold an international press conference on the beach at Malibu, or on the muddy shores of the mighty Mississippi River, or on a cliff at the Grand Canyon.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

8. No, but leaders of other nations wouldn't make other heads of nations

come to a place so lacking in scenery or anything, to come visit them for state reasons, as a prop for their own domestic politics. Most of them, anyway.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. Actually, the use of the Crawford "ranch" is a sign of the discipline of

the shrubyas. Really. I give them some credit.

It's an important prop in their goal of maintaining solid support among Southerners, and by consistently going there instead of some place with actual scenery and nice weather, where I'm sure they'd probably RATHER be spending their time, it helps some idiots to think, "wow, my hero is just like me! He'd rather come 'home' to some humble digs and grill some ribs than go to some highfalutin' resort, or Kennebunkport (where was that again?)!"

Never mind that dude purchased the place the year before his election as a prop for this charade.

[getmeouttahere]

5. Good points...

but why should we give them credit?

If we really believe this is the way to "solidify" your base, then why are dems so worried about getting a foot hold in the south? Work on the folks in the forests of Oregon and New Hampshire instead.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Right, but the Dem 'base', sans FLA or OH, is not enough to win a

presidential election right now. And I don't see "worry" about winning in the South that translates into serious campaigning there beyond getting Edwards as VP candidate.

I doubt if a "we kinda like to thump Bibles too" type of rhetoric will win many votes. Those kind of voters will tend to go with the more reactionary Repub package.

I would think to have any hope, the Dems MUST firmly and forthrightly address and EMBRACE class and economic politics, NOT shy away from it, the way the party seems to have been trained to by the Repubs and during the Clinton years.