Home > Holed up on a ranch, Bush won’t mix it up with ’Mom’

Holed up on a ranch, Bush won’t mix it up with ’Mom’

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 11 August 2005
10 comments

Wars and conflicts International Governments USA

By MAUREEN DOWD

W. can’t get no satisfaction on Iraq.

There’s an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.

A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the United States more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it’s more likely we’ll have to fight them here?

Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged Tuesday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.

And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called Sweet Neo Con, chiding Condi Rice and Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.

The NFL put out a press release on Monday announcing that it’s teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote Monday Night Football. The flag-waving NFL could still back out if there’s pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.

Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Bush face to face that he must pull all United States troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.

The president met with her family two months after Casey’s death. Capturing W.’s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.

The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover CIA operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Fallujah Moms for Truth.

It’s amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have 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. 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 Cindy Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. 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 Bush.

Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.

Selectively humane, Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his WMD 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.

Dowd, who is returning from a book tour, is based in Washington, D.C., and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistor...

Forum posts

  • DId you know that the 1835 deadsoldiers are only those killed on the battlefield? If they die during Medevac or at a hospital in Germany they aren’t part of the official tally. If you add those deaths, it swells to over 5,000.

    Did you know that there was a repeat of the voting irregularities in the Ohio race with Paul Hackett? The Republicants sure have an amazing string of narrow victories under questionable circumstances. I seriously doubt that the 2006 elections will bring many changes to the make-up of Congress, even if support for the war drops below 20% by then. The fix is in.

    Come on Maureen, take of the kid gloves and start doing some hard hitting reporting than won you all those prestigous awards.

    • How many maimed or wounded soldiers do you see returning to the U.S. by plane or ship? How many reporters are present when a plane load of people missing arms, legs, hands, etc. come to the U.S.? HOw many maimed and wounded soldiers are allowed to hold press conferences when they return to the U.S.? How many times have Bush and his sinister cabinet referred to "our brave soldiers" while at the same time sending them to their deaths? How many times has Bush, or Condi, or Dicky, told the press that the reason he sent soldiers to die in Iraq was to seize the oil resources, build permanent military bases, install the world’s largest embassy, and to launch attacks on other nations in response to Karl Rove’s wonderful plans to rule the world? How many military funerals of our "brave boys" has Bush attended? Does he have enough supply of crocodile tears to impress his True Believers that killing Muslims and getting American soldiers killed is "God’s Will?" Is there no limit to his arrogance, to his imperial egotism, to his narcissism? I guess the answer is, evidently, NOT! Will he rot in hell? You betcha! Will it be soon? Not soon enough for most of us awaiting his impeachment!

    • Thanks for mentioning the Iraq US soldiers death count,what source or source can you direct me to so that I am able to confirm the over 5,000 figure. (I’m aware that figures don’t lie but that liars figure.) Official sources would help me when I confront those who attempt to minimize the casualities....you know the rest of the story.......thanks again

    • The voting irregularities or "fixed elections" will continue until something is done about Diebold et al.I can’t believe that with the companies promising to deliver Ohio to W. and with the discrepancies in exit polls that the Media is so corrupt as to not inform the people that the last 2 presidential and at least one Congressional Elections were FIXED!!
      All else doesn’t matter as our Country will continue down this dark path until the people are allowed Honest and Fair Elections!
      Please spread the word about this illegitimate supposed President!

  • Maureen what’s with your remark about Sandy Sheehan.... "having a knack for P.R". If you had done basic research you would have found that a volunteer who knows how to keep you folks in line has been assisting her in dealing with your mob. Sandy Sheehan is a simple person (I say this with the greatest of admiration and respect) She speaks plainly, spontaneously, directly, truthfully and from the heart. She apears to me as a humble person who has patience and perseverance, that she can tolerate speaking and listening to perhaps the worlds most arrogrant person shows uncommon courage. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do that as I lack these qualities. Apparently you lack the ability to see them, to you they are just PR. This may explain why I don’t rely on professionals like you to get even the most basic of news items correct.

  • Here’s a link on war casualties,however it’s about the injured, not the killed http://www.coastalpost.com/04/03/12.htm
    Still looking for the source about those that died off the battlefield, I read about it several weeks ago.

    • Thanks, I’ll keep checking back should you come across the other info. I am aware that a lot of ’none combat deaths" are the result of retreating under fire, fliping vehicles etc .The Army’s Orwellian ways continue to develop and deceive.

  • Cindy Sheehan is a person who tells it like it is, first she told the world that Pres. Bush was a compassionate person, that he understood her. And that he feels the whole lost of each and every lost that we have in Iraq. And that she felt that he was doing the best that he could. Then she comes out with a cross section of miss guidance of which she continues today. If she feels this compassionate about the conflict in Iraq, then way doesn’t she try and explain what she said about Pres. Bush and that she thought that he was doing the very best that he could. Sounds as if she has her wires crossed.