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A president hiding from parents' wrath
The Age ^ | 8/13/05 | Maureen Dowd

Posted on 08/12/2005 3:05:49 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection

Parents of those who have died in Iraq have total moral authority.

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 this week 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 anti-war song called Sweet Neo Con, chiding Condi Rice and Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.

The flag-waving National Football League put out a news release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and American ABC to promote Monday Night Football. The mood has shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an anti-war music video needling Bush 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 public relations, 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 American troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old army specialist, was killed in an ambush last year.

The President met her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W's awkwardness in traversing the line between sombre 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 per cent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily work-outs. 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.

W's idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser, to talk to Sheehan, emphasising the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hardline 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 1835 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 criticised 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 September 11 losses. He emphasised the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his WMD rationale vaporised.

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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: barfalert; cindysheehan; collaborator; dowdy; enemywithin; estrogengonewild; fifthcolumn; oped
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

Dear Maureen: We knew about Mohammed Atta in 1999. But nothing was done because of restrictions on exchange of intelligence imposed by the Clinton Administration. So now we are at war. Go camp out in Chappaqua, you awful witch.


41 posted on 08/12/2005 3:46:23 PM PDT by popdonnelly
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Parents of those who have died in Iraq have total moral authority.

No they don't. The dead have the total moral authority. He son decided to join and re-enlist because he put his own life on the line like millions have done before him.

Mom should have some respect for her son and his sacrifice, not selfish rage. She should honor his dedication to his country. Instead she states "this country is not worth dying for."

I say she should find one that is.

42 posted on 08/12/2005 3:47:00 PM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (I alone, am the chosen one. Because I alone, did the choosing.)
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To: HawaiianGecko

But where is the statement that all these keep saying that the White House released, trying to trash Sheehan? I haven't seen it, and lord knows, I'm on here all the time.


43 posted on 08/12/2005 3:50:41 PM PDT by Howlin
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
demanding to see a President who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.

LIke Clinton who went from laughing to a joke to instant tears at the Ron Brown funeral once he saw a camera pointed at him? I'm sure she's seen the clip.

44 posted on 08/12/2005 3:55:42 PM PDT by Lizavetta (Let not your heart be troubled.......)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

President is not hiding
President met with this woman
This woman is being used and doesn't know it
Sad for her
Sad for her son
She is making a fool of herself and how sad someone in her family doesn't try to stop her.
The President met with her and others...how come they aren't out there with her?
It's hot there...hope she can stand the heat
God bless her son for his service and ultimate sacrifice. His mom is NOT doing the right thing.
President Bush cares and he should not meet with her again. There are many others suffering too and they are not out there making a spectacle of themselves.


45 posted on 08/12/2005 4:09:06 PM PDT by cubreporter
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To: All
A president hiding from parents' wrath
From paulat | 08/12/2005 5:42:25 PM CDT read

Maureen Dowd's column has been posted a gazillion times. Why didn't you do a search before you posted again????

I receive a lot of these. My posts originate primarily from odd sources, dealing with subjects which interest me, and sometimes material which is difficult to locate. If this site allowed me to "tease" (as does Drudge) from my blog on "news/activism", I would have partially described the Dowd article and used it as a "developing" story.

If anyone can locate it either here or elsewhere on the Internet, I would truly be interested.

46 posted on 08/12/2005 4:18:12 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection (I urge Roberts to support all sections of the Constitution which uphold abortion)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

Ahem...44 posts and no Catherine Zeta-Jones pictures...YOU PEOPLE ARE SLIPPING!

}:-)4


47 posted on 08/12/2005 4:18:33 PM PDT by Moose4 (Newsflash: It's the South. In the summer. IT GETS HOT. DEAL WITH IT.)
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To: Moose4

Yes, I am bummed!


48 posted on 08/12/2005 4:22:30 PM PDT by Shawndell Green (Mecca delenda est!)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

Uh, Mo? Remember me?

49 posted on 08/12/2005 4:30:10 PM PDT by avenir (Don't insult my intelligentness!)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

"W's idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser, to talk to Sheehan, emphasising the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hardline Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war."

Hey Dowd you hag...Bush met with your fellow lesbian and left wing wretch last year. So lump it b+tch.


50 posted on 08/12/2005 4:37:38 PM PDT by MikeA
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

I repeat, MD is an unmitigated stupid bit*ch - always has been!


51 posted on 08/12/2005 4:42:42 PM PDT by RAY ( Heroes not, the U.S. Supreme Court!!)
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To: WayneM

I'd give up our popular culture today - wouldn't you ? The lefties want more of it.


52 posted on 08/12/2005 4:50:36 PM PDT by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

Menopause and consintently being dumped by men is really effecting her brain.


53 posted on 08/12/2005 4:53:40 PM PDT by Fledermaus (I wish those on the Left would just do us all a favor and take themselves out of their misery.)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
  1. Two ways to know that what you are reading is  biased, deceptive and likely just plain wrong:
    • It's from the New York Times
    • It's by Maureen Dowd

  2. 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? 
    So -- the result of a biased poll demonstrates the truth.

  3. Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for public relations, says ...
    Not a knack for anything, just someone who says what some in the MSM want to hear.

54 posted on 08/12/2005 5:03:04 PM PDT by etlib (No creature without tentacles has ever developed true intelligence)
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To: Prophet in the wilderness

"Were are the mothers of sons who died in Clinton's war kosovo who didn't want their sons to join the military ?
Why has this point not been made by the MSM ?"

I believe that's because there were no American casualties in Clinton's war kosovo. I could be wrong. That still doesn't give Sheehan any moral authority, but would explain why there weren't many mothers speaking out during that time.


55 posted on 08/18/2005 10:02:40 AM PDT by AWest
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

A bereft, grieving parent, seizing the opportunity to control her son, now that he is dead, and can no longer resist and contradict her.

Move along.


56 posted on 08/18/2005 10:05:23 AM PDT by PoorMuttly (A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun -T.Jefferson)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection

Hey Mo, since my hubby served in Iraq for 15mos he has the *moral authority* to say that he supports President Bush and thinks you and Cindy are POSs....


57 posted on 08/18/2005 10:10:45 AM PDT by mystery-ak (Home of the free, because of the Brave.....do you understand that Cindy?)
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To: AWest
But there was a very angry parent (father, IIRC) that was irate at the Impeached Rapist after the Mogadishu tragedy. I don't recall similar media treatment. And we all know why.

For an accurate comparison to Kosovo, how come the media - which constantly reminded us that the U.N. did not approve of Bush's "unilateral" move into Iraq - never hyperventilated or really even brought up the fact that the Impeached Rapist wagged that dog without U.N. approval?

We all know why. Isn't that right, DU?

58 posted on 08/26/2005 7:41:34 AM PDT by Coop (www.heroesandtraitors.org)
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To: Coop

I agree. I think that father was upset about his son's involvement in Somalia as opposed to Mogadishu, but he didn't make a horse's ass out of himself like Sheehan has.


59 posted on 08/29/2005 7:43:40 AM PDT by AWest
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