Bush on Vacation in Texas for 365
days
Washington Post
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; Page A03
CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has 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 cedars, and
whack the trees to the ground.
If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it
is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered
over the 1,600-acre spread until it is 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. For five straight days 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 advisers and
bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.
This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a
lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president
goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs
to dull the chain saw's buzz.
For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted
mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for
more after lunch, it borders on obsession.
Aides are corralled to help, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a
frequent guest, has escaped brush duty. "The tradecraft she uses to get out of
it is highly confidential, and I can't discuss it," said national security
adviser Steven J. Hadley. To date, no visiting foreign leaders have been
conscripted.
The president "clears brush like he rides his bike," said deputy press
secretary Trent Duffy, who has sawed beside Bush. "He goes at it."
Ronald Reagan chopped wood and rode horses, Bush's father sailed off the
shore of Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bill Clinton jogged. For George W. Bush,
clearing brush projects the image of a cowboy president, a tough rancher
fighting the elements to survive. That is, of course, the White House's
projection; the president's critics take a dimmer view.
"Most likely he's doing that to show the media he's got a chain saw," joked
Larry Mattladge, who raises Black Angus cows three-quarters of a mile from the
Bush ranch and built his fence rows out of cedar posts. "It's a man's thing.
Brush clearing is not only for the young at heart, it's for the young. It's to
show he's a Texan."
Presidential historian Robert Dallek said: "This is part of his macho image.
Obviously this is nothing Bush has to do. He's the son of a rich man who
doesn't have to spend his time cutting underbrush."
But some of Bush's neighbors in the Crawford area said they understand his
pleasure -- even if he doesn't have to do it. "We do it because we have to,"
said Zach Arias, who with his wife raises cows on 400 acres about 20 miles from
town. "But afterwards, you kind of go, 'Wow. I feel good about what I did
today.' " White House counselor Dan Bartlett explained it this way: "It's
therapeutic for him, I guess. There's very few things he gets to do hands
on."
Clearing brush is a lot like weeding the yard, although on a real ranch it
is an economic necessity. In central Texas, cedar and mesquite trees are
invaders competing for moisture with grass, gobbling water from the soil and
hoarding rain and sunlight on their branches. With his livestock's food supply
at stake, a farmer could live or die on how well his brush is cleared. Local
agronomists say brush control has been a part of rural Texas since the Dust
Bowl days of the 1930s, when the botanical bandits spread across the arid
soil.
"It's pretty important," said Charles E. Gilliland, a research economist
with the Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center. "If you don't watch
out, it just kind of takes over."
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, is not 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.
"What the president is doing is highly recreational," said Gene Hall,
spokesman for the Waco-based Texas Farm Bureau, a lobbying group of farmers and
ranchers. "Some people just enjoy that kind of outdoor activity. Once you've
been cooped up in the Oval Office a couple of weeks, it might be kind of
nice."
Clearing brush has taken on new meaning since a rural land rush brought
hordes of wealthy city dwellers to these parts to snap up a piece of ranchland
for some Texas solitude. Old-time ranchers are fading out in favor of smaller
hobby "ranchettes," whose owners make money from deer hunting or wildlife
retreats.
The Bushes, whose spread exceeds a ranchette in size, are in good company
with celebrities Tommy Lee Jones, Matthew McConaughey, Patrick Swayze and
baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. With most of their publicists vacationing
this week, it could not be confirmed whether these Texas ranchers enjoy
clearing brush.
Real ranchers, who need to clear a whole lot of brush for pasture land,
either hire someone to spray herbicides from the air or run an excavator
through it. They tend to tend cattle, several said.
Bush, by contrast, practices a selective, do-it-yourself sculpting to
enhance his enjoyment of his property, local experts say. He will clear
underbrush to preserve beautiful live oaks and pecan trees, or to prepare the
50 acres where Laura Bush is cultivating native grasses, or to help carve
nature trails through the ranch's many canyons.
"It's a selective control of the brush," said Sam Middleton, owner of a West
Texas ranch brokerage, who added that this enhances a ranch's value.
Then again, there will be times when the president drives around his
property and "will see a stand of cedar trees and say 'Let's clear those,' "
said Joseph Hagin, Bush's deputy chief of staff, who has been cutting brush
with his boss all week. They do not talk a lot of policy over the sound of
their chain saws, he said.
Professional brush removal can cost up to $200 an hour. The irony is that
many working ranchers cannot afford it in these days of declining profits.
Surely, the president could afford to hire professionals. The White House
declined to make the ranch manager available to a reporter to explain who, if
anyone, clears brush when Bush returns to Washington.
As much as it is a metaphor for presidential vigor, Bush's preoccupation
with wielding his chain saw has become fodder for bloggers and other critics
who complain that he is isolated and disengaged.
"He shouldn't have time to be clearing brush," said Kay Lucas, a grandmother
and antiwar activist who drives 25 miles a day to care for the Crawford Peace
House, a gathering spot for Cindy Sheehan and her protest against the war.
After White House press secretary Scott McClellan noted during a vacation in
August that although Bush "always enjoys his time in Crawford, he's president
24/7," the Washington blogger Wonkette weighed in with this jab: "Ah, yes,
especially when consulting with that little-known Cabinet official, 'Secretary
of Clearing Brush.' "
Staff writer Peter Baker in Washington contributed to this report.
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