Does this make anyone else mad??

Maureen Dowd wrote a phenomenal column that's in today's New York Times. She points out the inconsistencies that I, for one, have overlooked.

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?

W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.

My favorite line is the "populist who never meets people." How true is that?? He likes to be portrayed as the people's guy, the guy you can have a beer with. Yet he can't even get outside an environment that totally agrees with him. He's the people's man when it's convenient (when he's surrounded by those advisors like Stephen Hadley).

Don't get me wrong -- I don't have a problem with him isolating himself, but don't act like you're some populist if you're doing it. We've seen W in action in unscripted press conferences, and each time we hear the ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst leaking from the balloon that his staffers and cabinet members work so hard to keep inflated.

President Bush, grow some balls. You can start by actually talking to that mother yourself. Blow up your own balloon.