So George W. Bush can't find the time to see Cindy Sheehan. He can only blithely ignore her-on the way to one of his sycophant's praise fests. And of course, he has his garrison of defenders, who have the temerity to tell her that her son would disapprove, and that she is a pitiful pawn of the extreme Left. But who can know a boy like Casey better than his mother? Who can understand her rock-solid motivations better than someone who endured the same kind of loss as Cindy did. I put more stock in her saying that Casey was going to Iraq to watch the backs of his friends and that he and his mother were always against the war, then in Bill O'Reilly's fevered Left Wing conspiracy theories. And that goes for his pompous two-cent psychology as well. (O'Reilly rather reminds me of Moliere's take on Pantalone, a stock character from Commedia dell'arte!)
Bush's snubbing of Cindy Sheehan is par for the course for Dubya. From his scripted "Town Hall" meetings, to his choreographed ceremonies, to his ramroding Right-Wing judges and psycho U.N. ambassadors down our throats, he has shown that he doesn't care a whit what people just a tad below his income bracket think. But he also fears to learn about it. Whenever he confronts a complex problem, he goes into denial and ignores it. On September 11 2001, Al Qaeda killed 3000 innocent lives. When Dubya failed to capture bin Laden, "dead or alive" turned into "doesn't matter now"! Iraq went on the front burner. But Bush can't even face the truth there. He went into Iraq on the backs of our boys to create the perfect Robber Baron paradise, yet when confronted with the whirlwind of hell that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and that of 2000 of our men, he hides behind his stock phrases. "We are making progress," and "Freedom is on the march." are getting stale now. And his Praetorian Guard, Karl Rove, Condi Rice and Scott McClellan bravely make themselves look foolish so Dubya needn't trouble his tender ego.
And so Bush must always live in his fortress-cocoon, blissfully ignorant of the disagreeable things around him - like a mother who lost her son in Dubya's war.
Now Cindy Sheehan has a different story. She doesn't have the luxury of starting a war and not being affected by it.
Her son, Casey, wasn't for the war, but his unit was going, and he felt that staying with his unit was his duty. Anyway, how much trouble can a humvee mechanic get into anyway? A week after he arrived in Iraq he was dead.
At first, Mrs. Sheehan thought that Dubya took responsibility for his war. But that was her grief talking.
But then she saw, as others did, how irresponsibly this "wartime President" planned the war, how cynically they pursued the occupation for their own selfish purposes. A man that she voted for and trusted, took her son without asking, and then he killed him.
So now she stands before Dubya in his cowboy playpen, and demands that he explain to her and others like her why their loved ones had to die in his war.
The Right-Wing has it's strategy cut out. They say that she as a grieving mother is being manipulated by the Far Left. Their cold-hearted strategy is to belittle her strength of character. That would leave them free to attack their real target, that Far Far Ultra Radical Left that's so friendly to the terrorists!
But Cindy Sheehan has the courage of her own convictions. In the two years since Casey's death, she co-founded an organization called "Gold Star Families for Peace".
She has traveled across this land, and has met some of leaders of the peace movement. That hardly describes a person manipulated by shady operators. When she pitched her tent outside Dubya's ranch, she did so on her own.
And she can very handily articulate her position:
"This is George Bush’s accountability moment. That ís why I'm here. The mainstream media aren’t holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I’m not leaving Crawford until he ís held accountable. It ís ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize --and distort --the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States.
But now itís time for him to level with me and with the American people. I think thatís why thereís been such an outpouring of support. This is giving the 61 percent of Americans who feel that the war is wrong something to do -something that allows their voices to be heard. "
As for those attackers and I might add - mischaracterizers, she has this to say:
"They don’t have any loved ones in harm’s way. As for people like O’Reilly and Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and all the others who are attacking me and parroting the administration line that we must complete the mission there --they don’t have one thing at stake. They don’t suffer through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones."
As for Dubya, with his controlled events, Nuremberg-like Town Hall meetings, his 50th vacation on his pale-imitation-of-The Gipper's ranch, he can hide in Karl Rove's apron. He'll go thousands of miles to some pro-Bush weenie roast, but he won't drive one mile to see an old woman who’s son died in Dubya's war. Nothing more perfectly illustrates how people have come to feel about the war than Cindy Sheehan and her supporters. Nothing more perfectly illustrates Bush's fear and loathing of honest disagreement than his shunning her. And so I can now give George W. Bush his proper epithet:
"Dubya the Coward"!
There is a postscript courtesy of :
"COX NEWS SERVICE
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush, noting that lots of people want to talk to the president and "it's also important for me to go on with my life," on Saturday defended his decision not to meet with the grieving mom of a soldier killed in Iraq.
Bush said he is aware of the anti-war sentiments of Cindy Sheehan and others who have joined her protest near the Bush ranch.
"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But, I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."
The comments came prior to a bike ride on the ranch with journalists and aides. It also came as the crowd of protesters grew in support of Sheehan, the mother who came here Aug. 6 demanding to talk to Bush about the death of her son."
That's right Dubya, show us that frat-boy spirit, and sluff off your responsibility to that woman. Peddle away, away, away....
Meet With Cindy.org
Posts
