100s of anti-war protesters serenade Bush at Maine family compound

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This article was published 26/08/2006 (7010 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KENNEBUNKPORT, Me. (AP) – President George W. Bush went 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 encountered 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 800 metres of the Bush compound before being turned back at a security checkpoint. Called Walker’s Point after the family of former president George 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 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, Me., 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 only about one-third of Americans support Bush’s handling of Iraq.

A spokeswoman for Bush said he was not bothered by the demonstration that briefly took over the tiny, scenic downtown of Kennebunkport.

“As the president has said, Americans are free to protest,” said White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino.

The president was drawn to his first visit to the family’s retreat in two years by the wedding of Walker Stapleton.

He is the son of the former president’s cousin, Dorothy Walker Stapleton, and Craig Roberts Stapleton, the U.S. ambassador to France who was a partner with George W. Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team. Stapleton married Jenna Bertocchi on Saturday before about 300 friends and family at St. Ann’s Episcopal church, a stone chapel overlooking the sea. The motorcade to the wedding included so many extra vehicles to ferry extra family members it snaked out of view before the back end even neared the church only a minute’s drive from Walker’s Point.

Others in the Bush family also were attending a memorial service for Grace Walker, the groom’s grandmother and the christening of a baby from the Walkers’ side over the weekend.

The president was skipping those events. He even stayed away from the reception after the Stapleton-Bertocchi nuptials, heading for home after posing for pictures with the new couple. Aides said the president feared his presence, with his large entourage and rigid security requirements, would be disruptive.