From the Associated Press, 8/26/06:
President Bush came to his parent’s century-old summer home on the
Maine coast for a little relaxation, a distant cousin’s wedding and
some family time. He got all that, along with a boisterous reminder
nearly on his bucolic doorstep of the unpopularity of his Iraq policies.
What
local police estimated were about 700 anti-war demonstrators marched
Saturday to within half a mile of the Bush compound before being turned
back at a security checkpoint. Called Walker’s Point after the family
of former President Bush’s mother, the stone-and-shingle retreat
covering a craggy promontory is owned by the current president’s
parents.
The protesters sang, chanted, beat drums, waved signs and even played fiddles to call on Bush to bring troops home.
“Bush
is fiddling while the world burns, just as Nero fiddled while Rome
burned,” said Pippa Stanley, 15, of Richmond, Maine, who was helping
with the backdrop for pair of fiddlers dressed in togas.
The
group was loosely aligned with activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a
soldier who died in Iraq who gained international attention when she
shadowed Bush last summer while he vacationed at his ranch in Crawford,
Texas.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found that only about one-third of Americans support Bush’s handling of Iraq.
A
spokeswoman for Bush said he wasn’t bothered by the demonstration that
briefly took over the tiny, scenic downtown of Kennebunkport.