Bush Motorcade Drives Past Antiwar Encampment

President Bush on Friday passed within 100 feet of the roadside encampment where the mother of a fallen U.S. soldier was inviting him to stop and talk, but his motorcade drove by the protest without stopping.

The near encounter between the president’s entourage and the antiwar assembly organized by Cindy Sheehan occurred near Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch, where he and First Lady Laura Bush are spending a five-week vacation.

On their way to a Republican fundraising event at a neighbor’s ranch about three miles away, the Bushes passed directly by Camp Casey, the tent camp named after Sheehan’s son, a 24-year-old Army mechanic killed in action in Iraq.

Although she met briefly with Bush after her son’s death in April 2004, Sheehan has said she wanted to talk to the president again about her objections to the Iraq war effort. She began her vigil Aug. 6 and promised to stay in Crawford until Bush either met with her or returned to Washington, D.C., in early September.

As the president and first lady drove by shortly after 11 a.m. in a black Suburban sport-utility vehicle with tinted windows, Sheehan held up a sign asking, “Why do you make time for donors and not for me?”

Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., was joined by several dozen activists who stood behind a cordon of yellow police tape inside the triangular grassy median at the intersection of three country roads several miles west of Crawford. Facing them were at least a dozen Texas state troopers and county sheriff’s officers.

Other demonstrators carried signs saying “Iraq Is Arabic For Vietnam” and “Bring Them Home Now.”

Some activists flashed peace symbols with their hands or held small white wooden crosses bearing the names of Iraq war casualties.

Along the roadside were hundreds of similar crosses and a growing number of tents and banners erected in recent days by Sheehan supporters, including other families of fallen soldiers.

Organizers said as many as 300 activists had arrived in Crawford, and more were expected.

The Bushes spent more than two hours at the fundraiser organized by the Republican National Committee and held at the Broken Spoke Ranch, owned by Stan and Kathy Hickey of Crawford.

The event was expected to raise about $2 million in political contributions.