Forget elephants or donkeys, hawks or doves. What does the Bush administration most resemble? An ostrich. With the mother of a fallen Iraq War soldier camped outside his ranch for nearly two weeks, a vacationing George W. Bush refuses to stick his head out the door and say hello. Meanwhile, the American effort in Iraq is, well, in its “last throes” — by which I mean it will probably go on for another five, six, eight, 10, maybe 12 years. Arianna Huffington sums up the current state of the Iraqi union:

How bad is the situation there? Barham Salih, Iraq’s minister of planning and development, tried to look at the bright side of things by saying, “We are failing to reach compromises. But we are not killing each other.” You know things are in trouble when the good news is that the Founding Fathers of the New Iraq are not blowing each other to bits.

Personally, I don’t mind if the president takes a vacation — running the country, after all, is “hard work” — but I’m puzzled why he won’t meet Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq last year. For one thing, it’s just good manners. Bush points out that he already met with her once last year, along with other relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq. Fair enough, but if a woman who lost her son in a war you started decides to come all the way to Crawford, Texas, for another chat, you might as well take 10 minutes out of your fishing trip and give her a good listen.

Avoiding Sheehan is just a dumb political move, too. I’m not sure who’s advising him these days — is Karl Rove too busy fending off special prosecutors? — but someone knowledgeable should have taken Bush aside and told him that if he didn’t talk to Sheehan soon, he’d just be enticing an army of reporters to come out to Crawford and turn his ranch into another Elián González/Terri Schiavo hatefest.

Well, the hatin’ has already begun: On Monday night a local resident drove his truck out to the protesters’ roadside encampment and ran over about half of the 500 wooden crosses they had hammered into the ground — crosses that bore the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Where was our valiant “war president?” Out on the range, with his head stuck in the ground.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen