Four Weeks Without W

Okay, I admit it, I'm confused.

Now, if I'm right, you Americans are only entitled to two full weeks' annual vacation. If that's the case, where's the man you so nearly elected as leader of the western world? Yep, we read that good old George W., for it is he, has just bunked off for a full four-week holiday at his Texas Ranch. Four weeks, as he put it, to "talk to his cows" and keep his hands firmly off the reins of government. Four weeks to forget the mess he's left behind right round the world.

His abandonment of the Kyoto agreement that's bequeathed our children another decade of dangerous greenhouse gases. His unilateral rejection of the chemical weapons treaty which the rest of the world was ready to sign up to. His obsession with the so-called Son of Star Wars, despite the fact that his untested proposals break a raft of international agreements and threaten to launch a new arms race in space. And four weeks during which the Middle East will probably descend even further into chaos. There was a time... just a few months ago... when the White House would have jumped in to try and calm the situation - you know, save a few lives here and there. But now, when the phone call comes, from either side of the border in Jerusalem, it'll ring off the hook. Because the boss is in Texas. Mind you, while George W. is down on the ranch, his appointees seem to be keeping up his fine tradition of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. The U.S. ambassador to Berlin has just caused great offense there by railing that the Germans aren't spending enough on their armed forces to please the President. Excuse me, but what's German for "mind your own business?"

But George W. himself probably doesn't know about that one. He's down on the ranch, thousands of miles from the devastating effects of his disastrous presidency, "talking to his cows."