Hail to the Chief

President Bush is visiting Palm Beach this afternoon. I'm glad not to be in living or working in that area of the county.

He and the First Lady could come down here to Lantana and have Wiener Schnitzel prepared by a charming Republican Filipina hostess as a fifteen pound lap cat tries to be their best friend. In your dreams, right?

Open Post- Bloggin Outloud, Jo's Cafe, NIF, Bright & Early, Right Wing Nation, TMH's Bacon Bits,

President Bush is coming to Palm Beach County today to meet with major contributors to the Republican Party and give praise to a Jupiter school volunteer.

Yirela Alcantara will meet President Bush when he steps off Air Force One shortly after 5 p.m. at Palm Beach International Airport and receive the President's Volunteer Service Award.
The 41-year-old mother of two is a volunteer at Jupiter Elementary School and Independence Middle School in Jupiter. Alcantara, whose husband is a chemical engineer with Florida Power & Light Co., became a volunteer five years ago after her youngest child entered school.

"I love doing it," Alcantara said. "I love the response you get from the kids, and the teachers are always appreciative of whatever you do."

Alcantara said she has been so busy she hasn't had time to think of what she will say when she is introduced to the president.

"I'm very excited, and I'm very honored," Alcantara said.

After meeting with Alcantara, Bush is expected to travel to the Palm Beach home of Dwight Schar for a meeting with about 40 Republican Regents — people who have given at least $250,000 to the GOP.

Schar, 63, is chairman of NVR Inc., a Reston, Va.-based home-construction company, the eighth-largest in the nation. Last year, Schar purchased Casa Apava on South Ocean Boulevard from billionaire Ron Perelman for $70 million.

Schar, who is part owner of the Washington Redskins football team, is well known in Virginia political circles. Last year, President Bush attended a fund-raiser at Schar's Virginia home for Jerry Kilgore, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in that state. Schar also was a Bush "Ranger" in the 2004 campaign, meaning he raised at least $200,000 for the president.

Bush will be visiting a home that was designed in 1918 for Frances Payne Bolton, a Standard Oil heiress whose husband was an Ohio congressman. Schar, who grew up in Ohio, where he was briefly a teacher before getting into the home-building business, purchased the 26,000-square-foot Casa Apava and additional land around the home, giving him one of the few properties in Palm Beach that extend from the ocean to the lake.

Republican leaders also are having a meeting at the nearby Breakers hotel.