This piece was written by Dori Smith, of Talk Nation Radio, who provides the excellent interviews whose transcripts are available on this blog.

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With approval ratings in the thirties George Bush has been spending at least some of his Crawford vacation working on public relations strategies. Karl Rove and others have tended to keep Bush in the company of U.S. Military bases and other kinds of audiences known to be more friendly.

Yet, an increasingly militant sounding support network within the Military could hurt his chances at winning over mainstream America.

In a special to the Washington Post August 22, 2005, Dan Froomkin, described Bush’s plans to make a series of speeches to counter the criticism coming from Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas.

According to Froomkin, the Bush Administration had been working on speeches designed to try to, “reassert a connection between Iraq and the September the 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks and to suggest a parallel to earlier, more popular wars.”

Bush chose to make one of the first such speeches at the convention of the Veteran’s of Foreign War’s in Salt Lake City Utah, where he had enjoyed heavy support in the past.

The August 22, 2005 speech was pre-empted by the Mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson, who called for massive demonstrations against Bush’s policies on Iraq and supported Cindy Sheehan and Gold Star Families for Peace at an anti-Bush protest at Pioneer Park.   Anderson told a crowd of reportedly 500 people that, “it’s up to the people to keep speaking up and this is a turning point for our nation here today in Salt Lake City.”

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman reported August 23, 2005, that a crowd of about 2,000 had gathered outside of the convention hall to protest Bush’s Iraq policies.

Bush’s speech in Salt Lake City seemed more like a campaign pep talk to the troops than an explanation from a President’s who’s war strategies have been going badly. He first told the crowd that he knew “firsthand the spirit of the VFW,” because he was “raised by one of your members.” The President’s father was a member of a Texas VFW group.

As he asked, “where is that mighty Texas delegation?” a commotion of some kind broke out and there seemed to be loud exchanges taking place on the floor near the podium.

Bush’s campaign team had organized a “Mighty Texas Strike Force” operating in various states including Texas, Utah, and Ohio, so perhaps this was the cause of the ruckus. The Free Press has reported that MTSF members used intimidation to prevent Democratic voters in Ohio from casting their votes in the 2004 election.

Abruptly, Bush told the audience to “behave” themselves. Then he began thanking everyone from the Ladies Auxiliary to political supporters like Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the state’s Lieutenant Governor and Congressmen Chris Cannon and Jim Matheson.

His confidence high, Bush told some of the same people that had helped to win him support in Utah that he would be continuing his policy of preemption and targeting of people in advance of their taking actions against the U.S.

It was a militant, haughty, and unapologetic reenactment of some of his earlier speeches, and Bush did not repeat his earlier statements of sympathy for Cindy Sheehan over the loss of her son in Iraq last year.

Some of Bush’s critics are sure to notice that the President cited statistics on the increased use of the Veteran’s health care system without noting that the increases in demand for care and prescriptions is the direct result of Iraq casualties.

Others may notice that Bush has failed to tell his often militant sounding supporters to “behave themselves” when it comes to Cindy Sheehan and others at Camp Casey. A farmer with property nearby began shooting near the camp, admitting to the press that they could interpret this as a message, and vandals drove over crosses set up to the honor dead.

Yet, the President and his handlers seem unconcerned about the possibility that Americans might see such treatment of grieving families as unfair. There is a similar lack of concern about the possibility that the tactics of extremists at counter rallies might turn some Americans off.

And a double standard is being applied to Bush critics and Bush supporters trying to communicate with the President in Crawford.

Members of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out tried to deliver a letter signed by various peace activists, soldiers, and military family members to the President at the Crawford Ranch and they could not do so.

Democracy Now TV camera crews filmed the scene as Mimi Evans, the mother of a U.S. Marine awaiting deployment to Iraq, and Beatrice Saldivar, who’s nephew Daniel Torres was killed in Iraq, tried to calmly hand the letter to a member of the Secret Service. He refused to take it. The TV news crew then showed pro-war demonstrators as they successfully delivered thirty-two sheets with written messages of support for Bush to the Crawford ranch.

The cold and militant tones of anti-Sheehan protesters has been pinging around the internet for weeks, as those in support of the Iraq war policy seem to be growing increasingly angry about any increased attention for peace activists. And it will be interesting to see what the American people make of the difference in the kinds of messages being delivered from Sheehan supporters versus Iraq war policy supporters.

On the one hand, Sheehan’s group has been playing taps to honor dead soldiers, singing patriotic songs, and talking about the human costs of the Iraq war. They have been joined by a wide variety of people including many soldiers.

At counter protests though the message is angry and hostile: Mike Gallagher for instance, stood with a microphone and organized a chant of “we don’t care” –about Sheehan’s dead son. And Darrell Ankarlo of KLIF,Dallas organized a pro-Bush rally in Dallas August 13th where protesters held up signs that read,”Help! I’m surrounded by America hating idiots!”

On August 18th Ann Coulter slammed the “Peace Mom” on her web site and suggested she left to go to her ailing mother’s bedside because, “She was probably worried about Jewish doctors.”

This kind of mixed message and racial slur is code derived from the tactics of G. Gordon Liddy. The often hard to understand political operative convicted of helping to bug Democratic National Headquarters has been trying to smear Cindy Sheehan by accusing her of being anti-Semitic

Liddy’s efforts were picked up by Fox’s Alan Colmes, though as it turns out Sheehan did not make the comments attributed to her about the plight of the Palestinians.

The increasingly desperate sounding militancy and the use of racial slurs, seems like a contradiction for Liddy, a born-again Christian working to rally other Christians to support Bush and his Iraq war policy. But Liddy and other radio and TV talk show hosts are merely following in the footsteps of Pat Robertson, whose mean spirited attacks and twisted versions of history have been featured on the Christian Broadcast Network for years.

Robertson has just gained press attention again for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. CNN’s morning show after airing on CBN’s 700 club.

Robertson’s return to cold war rhetoric, his inclusion of the topic of oil in the delivery of his threat against Chavez, are sure to be controversial, but will they reflect badly on the President?

Will the American people accept or reject the militant posturing? Will they embrace the notion of using more and more violence and “preemption doctrine” or will they demand a return to saner times and the use of diplomacy?

It is worth noting that Pat Robertson’s rhetoric proved controversial for the President in previous years. During the run up to the invasion of Iraq, for example, Robertson told CNN host Paula Zahn that he had warned Bush to prepare Americans for casualties in Iraq. The President, according to Robertson, had looked, “like a contented Christian with four aces” when responding, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties”