Posted on 09/17/2001 10:04:57 PM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
A rescue dog is transported out of the debris of the World Trade Center, September 15, 2001. U.S. President George W. Bush said September 17, 2001 he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" for last week's attacks that left more than 5,000 people dead or missing while a jittery Wall Street reopened with the Dow Jones average suffering its largest point loss ever.
I suspect there are too many of his associates who'll make sure he'd long dead before that.
I don't mind admitting on this rare foray into the Guild threads that I'm in tears more often than you'd suspect.
One of the touching vignettes from last week: An interview with a fireman whose son, also a fireman, was missing. He (the father) brought his son's dog, a dalmatian, to ground zero along with a tee shirt of his son (for the dog to smell and hopefully track) and he and the dog were looking for the son. The father explained that even though the dalmation was not a trained tracking dog, that he was hopeful he would find his son. It broke my heart.
Some Random Thoughts:
1) I move that we make President Bush's words our Guild banner for the duration of this war.
(How many times have so many of us said we believed this man was sent by God at a time when we were going to be tested?)
2)Someone please take that map from the last election and re-do it....all red except that one congressional district in Oakland. We're all red country now. (Did you see Dan Rather and David Letterman last night? The President has more support than even I suspected.) Interesting how the Blues become like us in times of distress, but we don't EVER become like them.
3)I hope the FEC is tracking all stock short positions which were in place as of last Tuesday morning. bin Laden mustn't profit from this vile act of terror by short selling insurance and other American companies.
4) Does anyone have a lightened-up version of that photo of President Bush and the black Lab rescue dog?
5) I just want to say how grateful I am that we started the Guild. It was so funny when we began. Little did we know what it would become and what a comfort it would come to be. I love you guys!
He thanked me for my letter, and then went on to say the same things he had said publicly; that his words were not meant to be published, that he had political differences with President Bush, but that he respected him and had a good personal relationship with him.
In other words, he never addressed what I really said in my letter....the spiritual aspect of what he had done.... nor mentioned anything about his faith. The signature on it seems to be genuine, though it's impossible for me to tell with the quality of copies now. Maybe he received a lot of letters in response to his comments, and had a form letter made up.
I just found it curious that the letter was dated September 12, and wonder if he were doing some soul searching in light of the horror of what happened the day before. I watched him carefully at the Prayer service on Friday, and to me, he appeared to be grief stricken and broken.
Thanks to each of you for your kind words to me about the letter. Perhaps it did more good than Mr. Carter's response implies.
To the Editor:
You say the president must cobble together an alliance "without allowing other countries to dictate a lowest-common-denominator solution. " Then you proceed to set lowest-common-denominators.
Well, I hope he doesn't allow sanctimonious, left-leaning editorial boards to set the agenda either. You write your editorial as if only YOU have considered the horror of having to go through civilians to get to the terrorists. Perhaps you would be surprised to know we all find that abhorrent. But, unlike you, the American people are not second guessing the president and his war counsel. If civilians must die (as ours already have done) then we will accept that as the only way they could protect our national interests.
I also note that not all "civilians" are innocent. After all, bin Laden himself is technically a civilian. We are dealing here with barbarians who have no regard for innocent life and they will use women and children as shields. I shudder to think what you guys will do when we face our first mistake or setback in this war.
You have far less information than the President. I can't imagine what made you presume to lecture him, but just please shut up with your self righteous editorializing.
(end of letter)
Ladies, I think the DNC has been doing polling. In finding that Americans are willing to be patient and wait to get this right, the only way the libs can attack the president is to plant the idea that he's NOT going to be patient...that he's too reckless. We've heard this coordinated refrain in every corner of Blue country, from pols and anchors and editorial boards....too coordinated for coincidence, IMHO.
Let's constantly remind them that the terrorists are no different than the Nazi's "Final Solution". In order to stop Hitler we had to bomb Dresden and Berlin. Would these do-gooders have preferred we not bomb and let the war drag on a lot longer? Do they understand how totally irrelevant they've become?
I just want to tell you all how much I appreciate all of you and to thank you for all you do.
God Bless all of you and thanks for "being there".
Thank you for all you do for FReeRepublic! Your efforts are very much appreciated by all Patriots! Jim
Yes, that. But I also quake at the thought of my countrymen digesting the "wise counsel" of these naive lefties for so many years. Do they really not recognize that bin Laden is just waiting to taunt them with his own "baby milk factory" story? Will Petah Ahnette be sent over to interview the enemy? Will we watch? Will Bob Simon be glorified for getting himself captured by the enemy?
My only comfort is the polls that show Americans are paying NO, absolutely NO attention to them. The media says we must remain resolute. But let the polls start showing a drifting away by the American people and those same media won't castigate them to "Always Remember". The media will follow the polls and start carping about the cost and the other programs which can't be funded because of all this war-making.
Please, God, let this be the time the American people finally realize how these lefties have weakened our nation's spirit and its defenses. At least that would be some cosolation for the losses we've already suffered.
Morning hoosiermama. This was written by Leonard Pitts, Jr. - We'll go forward from this moment. I posted it on Wednesday and it has been reposted countless times since then. A great read!
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