I watched an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg once, tending a fire before a rude shack on a muddy hill down from the fancy mansion perched regally above, looking out over the mighty James River.

The interpreter was a black man with the kind of eyes that make white men fearful and white women a little uncomfortable. He locked the gaggle of tourists in his gaze and said, roughly, "You're feeling sorry for me, being a slave and so far from the big house on the hill?"

The group hemmed and hawed and looked at their feet. The interpreter, who no longer works for Colonial Williamsburg, didn't let up.

"How many of you going to dinner with the governor tonight?" he taunted. "How many of you attending the big ball?"

The point was clear. No one in the small crowd had ever come closer to a governor than to shake his hand on a campaign swing. None would ever attend the big ball.

"You all think you're somehow better?" You ain't," he said. "You'd be living in the same kind of shack I got, scratching your fleas and picking your nits. Color don't matter," he told them.

Most of them stared in disbelief. Uppity so-and-so. How's he so sure they wouldn't have been on the governor's list? Some shuffled their feet. None liked the truth of what they heard.

When the reporter, filling in for the crowd of tourists, went up the hill to the mansion today, the house ****** who answered the back door looked disdainfully down and pronounced:

“It went very well. That’s the best you’re getting."

And the paper dutifully reported it. And the gaggle of believers read it and felt like they, too, had been there dining on that fancy beef and nibbling those tender greens.

Such is the power of delusion.

Amen

I love President Bush.

Too bad he can't eliminate the term limit and just run again. After reading that article I think I better get some more insulin. I'm going into shock. Who pays for all this today?

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer stated...

“When he has the opportunity to convey his beliefs and what he wants to do, it’s very energizing.”

The village idiot has had eight years to convey his beliefs, but has yet to form a complete sentence.

Um ... so, where's the other side of this story? The uh, yeah, whatdoyacallit, dissent? Did either of the two bylined reporters, or any of the four reporters credited at the bottom of the story, ever ask any of the "critics," "though seemingly fewer in number," what they thought about the Bush visit?

Oh, but you mentioned the kind of salad dressing they had.

I guess that's the best we're getting!

It's sad that a man who never performed any volunteer work on his own presents an award to an outstanding community volunteer.

It probably cost the US taxpayers $10 million to fly the President and his contingent to Naples so that he could raise money at $25,000 a plate.

Next time, skip the pretense of the whole thing, have the treasury write the Prez a check for $5M and we all will be ahead at the end of the day.

Yeah, and its sad that he would spend millions to fly around with his posse and collect money for what I don't know, but he says that he will veto the 3 month unemployment extension because its "too expensive"! I guess only his big banking buddies get the tax payers money..all they need us for is to pay. THANKS FOR NOTHING!

"There's oil in them there sub-tropics...GIT IT!" ----George Bush, was quoted as he stepped off the plane.

I wish he'd donate 1% for CCPS custodians to keep their jobs.

Pres. Bush is/was the man for the time..the thot of O at the helm of America' ship is scary..its a way of thinking, e.g., the trashing of Chicago & Atlanta, just to name 2..

WHAT DID THIS VISIT COST THE TAXPAYERS OF COLLIER COUNTY?

A public records request of the accounting records of Collier County Sheriff's Office and Naples Police Department needs to be submitted, detailing how much it cost us to pay for the extra officers, vehicles, etc.

In the past, the White House has refused to reveal the costs of a presidential visit but just operating Air Force One costs $60,000.00 an hour. (Two year old statistics.) Four years ago, a Michigan newspaper requested the statistics for a Presidential visit and got an average cost of $10,500.00 to each municipality visited.

What say you NDN? Got the stones for some REAL investigative reporting?

How did that 80's song go?

"Say Hello and Wave Goodbye"

Only another few months to wait... Geez I imagine its like doing time

This jerks helicopters spooked our horse and caused it to rip down part of our barn. Thanks a lot, Prez.

John McCain: George Bush III

Barry Obama: Karl Marx II

It is scary to think how many people in this part of FL still support such an idiot that has done so much damage to the world. My only wish is that everyone that supported him once or twice is suffering more than they were eight years ago.....if you are, you deserve it. If not, I really hope your time is coming.

As I heard someone in the restaurant last night say "The only time I will be excited about seeing GW Bush boarding Air Force One is when they haul his sorry a** back to Texas".

I only wish they would take some of these stupid wealthy republicans from SWF with him.

How much did the fuel,extra staffing,overtime details, and preparations cost for this dog and pony show?

Someone at dinner last night brought up an interesting idea (if somewhat far-fetched):

No longer should public offices (even very high ones) be elected. It should be cast on a lottery system in which you would be called upon, by chance (just like jury duty), to serve your country in a seat of government, including the Presidency.

Like I said, far-fetched, but it would certainly do away with money ruling our elections. And think of the debates we would hear on C-SPAN! YOWEE!!!

Anyway, as a dearly departed friend of mine once said of politics, "It will all end badly..."

..or not end at all'

I dont know which is worse. :(

The overwhelming negative and hateful responses to this article just re-confirms the fact that the lion's share of liberals are at best intellectually lazy.

You don't have to be liberal to find George Bush wanting.

You don't even have to be well-informed.

You just have to be awake.

I think the mental midgets are the 20-30% of this country who think Bushie is still the best thing since sliced bread. 26 million is a small drop in the bucket and it proves the rest of us 70-80% will pay anything to get rid of what we have to put up with now. As far as using his middle name 'Hussein', it's a name. A true mental midget attacks someone by making fun of their name.

Maybe we should spend the 26 million on extra protection for Bush instead of Obama. Just the thought of something happening.....In the wink of an eye we would have President Cheney. Whoa!

I think I will invite ole george dub to come to east naples so he and a few of my poor friends can have lunch with him say at Alvino's (best pizza in town by the way) nothing for the best for our lying leader how many think he would take me up on the offer?

I am sure you all that are complaining about the President could do such a better job.

Napleska7, I would be willing to stick my neck out and say yes, indeed, I could do a better job than the current President... actually, I think anyone else could, including yourself. Just acting like a mature person instead of a petulant child when criticized, one would already be one step ahead of Bush in qualification.

I dearly want someone for President that is far more intelligent than I am, who can speak eloquently and who is committed to the welfare of everyone in our great country. If that be a Republican or Democrat, African-American or Female, Protestant, Catholic or even Muslim, if he loves our wonderful nation more than himself and has the initiative and intelligence to lead, then he has my support.

At this time, the current President and his administration is lacking in all those categories. He is such an embarrassment to me and my nation. He has hurt us in ways that I don't know if it is possible to recover... but somehow we shall... we shall...

Umleed: Providing Senator Obama with Secret Service protection during this Presidential campagain was a decision made by the current Republican administration (Department of Homeland Security and US Secret Service). If you have a problem with the reported $26 million cost, why don't you write to the White House and complain? I'm sure they will find a way to justify this expense just like they justify spending $10 billion per month on the war in Iraq.

Napleska7: You are among the 20-30% who are not complaining about him. The same 20-30% who are easily duped by con-artists and carnival hawkers.
They could sell you anything and they will tell you if you do not buy, you are unpatriotic. Remember, our founding fathers were all unpatriotic to their former allegiances. Thank God they complained about their respective Kings and Queens.

The hardcore Bush supporters are not necessarily the easily duped, although some among that number might be.

Rather, they are those whose economic fortunes appear to be enhanced by the policies of this administration. Some of them -- "philanthropist Donahue" for instance -- probably have prospered under an administration that favors the wealthy over the working class. Many of them probably think they are wealthy themselves, and decry the "class war" they detect in discussions like this. Won't they be surprised when they find that the number who actually get to board the lifeboats is smaller than they were led to believe.

Already there are rumblings among those discovering that their "wealth" hardly qualifies them for the favored status afforded the truly well off. To the Bushes and the Cheneys and their oligarchic ilk, they are little more than steerage passengers.

There's also the chance that Bush is a figurative boulder in the path of the stream of human evolution. Those who are capable of advancing to a higher plane split to one side. Those whose greatest aspirations are a simplistic acceptance of authority, a smug satisfaction with the acquisition of material abundance, and a complacency that decries nuance, big words, education, knowledge and wisdom while favoring rule by simple slogan gather in the gutter, where one might hope they could swirl away into extinction.

Although there's every reason to believe they are the kind of simple, coarse organism -- typified by house flies and cockroaches -- that evolution favors at the expense of forms having greater aesthetic value.

We'll keep our fingers crossed. It's pretty obvious, however, what form the Naples environment favors.

Living here feels like hell now. HOW could ANYONE support this guy? No, really? I don't care that he is Republican, but I do care about the deaths that didn't have to happen. I lost someone in Iraq and I'm ANGRY. If you STILL support this goof then you're no better.

ps. I am angry because they (all the troops) had no business there. No wmd, no osama and no one planning to do us in from there. LIES!

The Secret Service has been protecting presidential candidates since long before there was a Department of Homeland Security.

Which, incidentally, the United States got along fine without for more than 200 years. It managed to beat the Nazis without it, or Blackwater, or any of the other legacies of the Boosh administration.

And does anyone else think the name sounds a little too Orwellian to work for America? "Homeland" sounds a little too, shall we say, Teutonic for my taste. I can see where it appeals to the authoritarian-minded, though.

Still, the folks there do such a great job supervising the rent-a-cop contracts for the drones who make sure you don't carry too much shampoo onto the airplane.

Not to mention the bang-up performance during Katrina.

And let's don't forget the duct tape and visqueen suggestion.

Or the regular army troops now being garrisoned to the National Guard in order to circumvent Posse Comitatus, and patrolling the interstates to help nab speeders -- all in the pursuit of "anti-terrorism," whatever that is.

Although I do agree with umleed that Harry Reid is as dim as they get, unless you count Hoyer and Pelosi.

So, Justiss1962, what are you? A mud wrestler?

You don't do jack.

It's tough to be a parody of yourself. You succeeded, though.

Viper?

Sigh.

antiquepaper,

Homeland Security had no choice but to approve the request that was made by dimocrat Harry Reid. Stop blaming the Republicans for everything and get your facts straight.

Umleed: I am not blaming the Republicans or anyone else for providing Secret Service protection to Senator Obama. There is no blame involved since I agree with their protecting him. You are the one who complained about the cost of the protection -- who you gonna blame, Obama? Reid? Get your facts straight.

You people who still "love" Bush, you all have blood of our soldiers on your hands. All you people who gave money yesterday, you all have blood on your hands. You believe the lies and you support Bush's war in Iraq.

Impeachment is not good enough for Bush and Cheney. They need to be sent to the Hague and tried for war crimes, killing 100,000 Iraqi's based on lies and fraud and for torturing prisoners held without judicial hearings. Shame on stupid rich Americans who still support this regime.

War crimes. It's too bad you weren't visiting the twin towers back on a Sept day when your buddies killed 4000 Americans you idiot.

Helped raise thousands of dollars for republicans and will do it again proudly.

IF the dems lie their way back into the white house, and then the inevitable terrorist attack back on our soil happens while Obama is out talking to the killers instead of slaughtering them, whiners like JohnnyB will be hiding under the coach while the rest of us protect his complaining butt.

And Johnny....read some Obama bs which will put you to sleep so you are not up at 2:00 am.

Justiss....you da man.

Has anyone figured it out that this is "politics as usual", whether by a "D" or a "R"?

Would term limits help solve this problem? Do you think if 75% of the voters wanted term limits, "they" would approve it?

As long as you are fighting against each other, you can't "combine" against "them". You've proven how easy it is to fall for their manipulation and marketing.

You can't "combine" when your interests are diametrically opposed.

You take some kid out of the hills, maybe a GED but even if it's a diploma, big deal these days. He's looking forward to a life spent laying around the doublewide, cussing the punks two trailers down, wishing he could find a job, getting by playing some video game the Army recruiter gave him.

Think he wouldn't trade that for a chance to kick some for real, especially ragheads that make it impossible to afford gas for a real set of wheels.

Such young men are given hero status for doing basically the same thing they once were called worthless for doing in civilian life.

Sit at the command post. Punch the buttons. Watch the bad guys on the screen blow up.

Now you take a bigshot whose business model depends on a steady flow of such young men. He has no-bid, cost-plus contracts with the government so he can repair and replace all the things the gamers blow up. Without a war, he has no customers. A war that helps him profit while achieving ideological objectives -- maybe the protection of Israel -- is sweeter still.

Sure, he could aim his massive arsenal at the kind of public works projects the world needs -- clean water for the Third World, clinics in poor places we usually visit only to "buy" their resources, education for all people, so that no one would ever live impoverished of the knowledge we gain from knowing our history.

But that kind of touchy-feely crap is for whusses like Al Gore.

The Real Men, the guys with Vipers, line up to kick sand in the face of anybody who says the system is off track. They accuse them of working in car washes when they work at all, of kneeling at the feet of their new Muslim Messiah, the "dimocrats" nominee for president, of being helpless sheep who bleat in the weeds while "da man" and his buddies go kick a little for Jesus and their helpless fellow Americans.

And on the other side of the world, a parallel set of humans facing the same kind of stimuli accept the same kind of challenges from the same kind of manipulative lovely human beings and go off to fight our guys.

We want more of this why?

Elnuestros are you Jekyll and Hyde? Mutiple personalities? Just wondering , and no offense but from Post #36 and 38 to #48 your writing style seems to have changed tremendously. I actually tend to agree with you. Post #48 really made sense to me, guess it was the laymans terms approach.
I am still on the fence as to President, who do you suggest?
Which is the lesser of the two evils?
I will catch flack for this but I am a Republican. And from my simplistic point of view it seems Obama will be taking office. I like neither candidate. But one or the other is going to take office. Which is the better of the two?