Boy in the Bubble
Aug 10th, 2005 at 7:23 am by Susie
MoDo on Cindy Sheehan:
It’s amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn’t.
It’s hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He’s a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?
W.’s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.
It’s getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush. [...]
Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.
But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.
oh how i missed her
Thank God she’s back! I love her!
Well written…
George Bush is obligated to look this mother in the eye and tell her why her son died.
Not some empty suit.
not a flunky.
Not an apparachik.
He is responsible for sending her son to Iraq. Mr. bush is showing us his true character. It does not matter that if he does not empathize with her, but character is the aspect of your personality that demands you face unpleasant, tough, and potentially disasterous situations full on and deal with the consequences of the your decisions. This is a sad display of christian behavior.
Ms. Sheehan lost her son, does NOT matter whether she supported the war or not, she lost her child and George Bush ordered the deployment of troops to Iraq.
No parent should ever bury a child.
In the real world it happens all the time, but that does not minimize the pain of the parent, or the strain on the family.
Where are you Mr. Bush?
Why that selfish Cindy Sheehan. She sacrificed her son in an audacious career move and what does she do with her notoriety? She insists on harshing the buzz of Presidentissimo for Life. And it is all so futile - The BushWa is hermetically sealed in a puncture-proof bubble that reflects and intensifies the aphrodisiac properties of the adoration that perpetually bathes President Shit-Don’t-Stink.