Bush is spending his 35-day summer vacation collecting money and offering photo-ops and light banter on issues that may be a liability for him come election day. Yesterday, it was again the environment:
RANCHO SIERRA VISTA, Calif., Aug. 15 -- President Bush today hiked a dusty trail, lifted a few shovels full of dirt into an irrigation ditch, and sought to bolster his faltering environmental credentials by promoting his administration's plan to complete neglected maintenance work in the country's national parks.This morning, with a backdrop of a dramatic peak called Boney Mountain towering above him in this Ventura County spot, the president sought to project an outdoorsman's image. He was jacket-less, his shirt was open at the neck, and his face was shiny with sweat when he reached an outdoor lectern after his hike along the crest of a hill.
Bush's outdoor adventure in the wilds of Ventura County brought out the ire in a number of former National Park Service employees:
Their charge: that the president and his Interior Department have not put their money where their mouths are when it comes to funding the National Park system. And that their policies -- from privatizing more park functions to allowing gas and oil drilling near park boundaries -- are threatening the system from inside and out."I've spent 32 years in the National Park Service, and I'm not a particularly partisan person," said Don Castleberry, a retired NPS regional director from Omaha. "But in recent years, it appears that support for the National Park Service has been politicized to a degree that I never saw when I was working."
And maybe next time the President's handlers could take a poll on going ahead with that sweat thing.
