PRESIDENT George W. Bush began a 31-day vacation, which only added to the image among some critics that “W” is a loafer. Not so, the president and his aides protested from his 1,600-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas. To underscore that actual work is going on, the break has been dubbed “Home to the Heartland.”

President Bush has made many field trips — like one to hammer a few nails for Habitat for Humanity — and his aides have created a new cardboard seal, hung on the blue curtain at the press center in Crawford, proclaiming a “Western White House.”

Critics, of course, never cease, with some suggesting that Bush speeded up his decision to allow federal funding for limited stem-cell research in part to divert the public’s attention from his lengthy summer break.

The grand compromise

SENATE Democrats should support oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but they need to push hard to raise mandatory fuel mileage standards for sport utility vehicles, the New Republic says.

“What’s so bad about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, anyway?” the liberal magazine said in an editorial. “From the wailing and rending of garments that has followed the House of Representatives vote last week to allow ANWR exploration, you’d think environmentalists had good evidence that drilling for oil and gas would ecologically devastate the 20-million-acre Arctic tundra. They don’t.”

The magazine added: “When Congress returns from its August recess, the energy debate will shift to the Senate, where Democrats have a stronger hand. Most environmentalists and editorial pages will focus on stopping ANWR drilling; SUV fuel efficiency will receive much less attention. Liberals might well win on the former and lose on the latter. Far better would be a grand compromise: Democrats accepting drilling in ANWR in return for Republicans accepting tough standards for SUV’s.”

CNN: Where is it going now?

“THE NEWS that CNN was wooing Rush Limbaugh for a Sunday show caused an explosion of acid gloating by kibitzers on Lucianne Goldberg’s conservative website,” writes New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

“‘CNN is just looking for any way possible to hang on until another left-wing socialist regime comes to the White House,’” wrote Zigzag. ‘Why not let them sink slowly in their own slime?’

“‘Rush could demand that Bill Press fly down once a week and clean his pool,’ wrote Gilligan.

“‘Please RUSH please!!’ wrote T. Paris. ‘Let the Commies die!’

“Walter Isaacson, the new president of CNN, was in Washington recently, shmoozing mostly with Republican leaders on the Hill and Bush White House officials,” writes Dowd.

“Conservatives like Tom DeLay — who has boycotted CNN for the last year — have long derided Ted Turner’s baby as the “Clinton News Network” and “Communist News Network.” (That was before it became Chandra News Network.)

“Then yesterday, USA Today’s Peter Johnson reported that CNN was courting Mr. Limbaugh, ‘who makes upwards of $30 million a year bashing liberal Democrats.’

“Despite the fact that CNN has also flirted with Phil Donahue and James Carville, conservatives and the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, were taking Mr. Isaacson’s moves as an admission that CNN is, as Mr. Ailes jokes, ‘168 hours a week tipping to the left and Bob Novak.’”