Manpower meltdown
The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias

"Cindy Sheehan's protest outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, raises many questions, but perhaps none so fundamental as the issue of whether anyone can, in good faith, argue to today's young people that volunteering for a form of military service is a good idea. Judging by the members of the stay-the-course school of thought I know -- overwhelmingly liberals and critics of the Bush administration to one degree or another -- the answer is no. The war party's elite .. is composed of 'chicken hawks,' those who think that continuing the war is an excellent idea but that fighting it personally (or having their own children fight it, or those of their friends and colleagues) isn't so bright." (08/23/05)

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10154
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Bush dogged on vacation by critics
USA Today
By Richard Benedetto

"When is a presidential vacation not a vacation? When the country is at war and some members of the public are expressing vividly their disenchantment with it. Try as he might to get away during the almost five weeks he's scheduled to be out of the White House, mostly at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, President Bush has had his August vacation shadowed by anti-war demonstrators.They have set up camp in Crawford. They have followed him to Idaho where he spent some time Tuesday riding his bike over Rocky Mountain trails north of the Idaho capital.Not only are they attacking Bush's Iraq policy, they are protesting that his holiday is inappropriate at a time of war." (08/24/05)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-23-bush-idaho_x.htm

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Containing the anti-war movement
CounterPunch
by Stan Goff

"I feel compelled once again to be a skunk at the party, but it's a role I'm growing into. Cindy Sheehan's squatter's camp has re-energized the antiwar movement, but just as it has done so, it has also re-energized the herd dogs of the Democratic Party who fear nothing more than an independent mass movement. Cindy plopped down outside the Bush gopher ranch on a 98-degree day. The cops told her to leave. As tactfully as she could, Cindy advised them in less scatological terms to piss up a rope, putting the cops, the Bush administration, and the Democratic Party in a dilemma. Neither the cops nor the admnistration wanted to be held responsible on camera for dragging away the grieving mother of an Iraq war fatality (her son, Casey). For a moment, they were hopeful that there would be an untimely end to this little action when Cindy collapsed from severe dehydration on the first day; but alas she re-hydrated and re-appeared the following day and began attracting mad media." (08/24/05)

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff08252005.html