Boston Globe: "America has a president, not a king."

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

JOAN VENNOCHI
Mr. Bush, let's talk

By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist | August 9, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/09/mr_bush_lets_talk/

AMERICA HAS a president, not a king. But just like royalty, the nation's commander in chief can keep his distance from the common man or woman.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a son who died in Iraq, is camped out in Crawford, Texas, trying to get a face-to-face meeting with the vacationing George W. Bush. She wants to tell the president that he should pull all American troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, was killed at age 24 in the Sadr City section of Baghdad on April 4, 2004.

The police blocked her a few miles from the Bush ranch. On Saturday, two Bush administration officials were dispatched to speak to her. But Sheehan says she will not leave until she sees the president. ''I plan on staying here the entire month of August or until he comes out to talk to me," she told USA Today.

Democracy in America begins with a very intimate connection between the people and those who seek to represent them. In the initial quest for votes, those running for elective office, including the presidency, will talk and meet with virtually anyone. There is no coffee hour too small to attend nor person too humble to approach. Once the vote-seeker wins office, it's a different story. The walls go up. The doors lock. The distance grows.

[rwenos]

1. Cindy's Got Him Treed

I prefer to think of it as a bobcat and a squirrel. She's waiting at the bottom of the tree. He's in the tree, hiding. She's waiting for him to get hungry or thirsty enough to come down, so she can jump him.

[OKDem08]

2. You know he's not even momentarily

pondering the thought of meeting with her.
They are exclusively focused on rendering her arguments as implausible &/or destroying her credibility by any means necessary.

[rwenos]

3. Permit Me My Soothing Image

But I LIKE thinking about her as a girl bobcat, and him as a little squirrel. He's got the low forehead for it.

Sorry, you're right, but I'm going to keep on fantasizing. . . .

[OKDem08]

5. ok, no prob, I'll even add a soundtrack

la, la, la...Rwenos fantasy continues...la, la, la :yourock:

[ribrepin]

15. I like the analogy of a Bobcat and a squirrel

course, this squirrel is gonna ride out on Air Force 1, but you paint a pretty picture.

[Booster]

4. And just how would he render her arguments implausible and if

could destroy her credibility, you know they would have done that already. They tried, but she was smarter and came back with the perfect answer about his lies. I agree with you that he won't meet with her, but it's not because of any other reason except he is a coward and our great leader doesn't know how to handle the situation.

[OKDem08]

6. I agree

that he is incapable of & unwilling to admit the truth.
But there are on-going attempts to damage her credibility by diversion & distortion.
They have an exclusive network to pound the message home 24/7.

[jayctravis]

7. Wonder if they've even informed him something's going on?

They didn't mention evacuating the damn CAPITOL BUILDING when he was riding his bike.

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. I agree - they won't have him meet with her unless they are absolutely

forced to. By reacting has they have, the Bushies have set up a situation where Bush meeting with her looks (to them) like weakness. Besides, Bush can hardly speak coherently these days. And he doesn't "do" actual compassion - he doesn't "get" it - and it shows all too clearly.

This sure is making the Bushies look bad, showing their true colors, even when their smear campaigners try to SwiftBoat Cindy Sheehan. And Will Pitt's article has been widely seen, including his relating of her chilling description of Bush meeting with Gold Star families:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080805I.shtml

(snip)

After Casey's death, Cindy Sheehan was invited to the White House for a visit with Mr. Bush in June of 2004. Her first memory of Bush's appearance that day was when he walked into the room and said in a loud, bluff voice, "Who we'all honorin' today?"

"His mouth kept moving," Sheehan later recalled of her meeting with Bush, "but there was nothing in his eyes or anything else about him that showed me he really cared or had any real compassion at all. This is a human being totally disconnected from humanity and reality. His eyes were empty, hollow shells." Bush called her "Ma" or "Mom" throughout the whole meeting, and never got around to learning her name.

"The whole meeting was simply bizarre and disgusting," Sheehan said later. "designed to intimidate instead of providing compassion. He didn't even know our names. I just couldn't believe this was happening. It was so surreal and bizarre. Later I met with some of the other fifteen or sixteen families who were at the White House the same day and, sure enough, they all felt the same way I did."

(snip)

In addition to the political nonsense, Bush really does appear to be mentally deteriorating. They keep him under wraps when they can. See this thread - in one of the replies there is a video comparision of Bush speaking without notes 10 years ago and recently. It's night and day.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4300924&mesg_id=4301701

[wli]

8. no, America has a fascist dictator, not a president

They're full of it. The only thing keeping this guy out of jail is an enormous army of heavily-armed stormtroopers.

[madrchsod]

9. harry truman walked down the street

in new york...my how times have changed and presidents have become cowards

[Mr Rabble]

10. Didnt Truman just get on a train and go home in '48?

[rodeodance]

11. this article challenges us to be more like Cindy--invade Jr's space & ask

hard questions--of him AND Congress.



...Sheehan told the AP that the Bush advisers dispatched to talk to her told her ''we are in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that the world's a better place with Saddam gone, and that we're making the world a safer place with what we're doing over there."

She said that one of the advisers said that Bush ''really does care." Her reply: ''If he does care, why doesn't he come out and talk to me?"

Driven by personal grief, Sheehan does not accept the commonly accepted boundaries between the people and the person who occupies the Oval Office. With nothing to lose since she lost her son, she is barging into personal presidential space and posing rude questions.

How long before more Americans join her and the clamor invades the Bush castle -- and that other castle known as Congress?

[rodeodance]

13. Her email address is included with the article. I wrote to say thanks.

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is [e-mail].

[tblue37]

16. And Bill Clinton waded gleefully into crowds of

people eager to get close to him and shake his hand.

But Bush's henchmen warn people not to step outside or even look out the windows of their own homes as his motorcade passes by, and they warned people marching in bands past the review stand at his inauguration to look straight ahead and never turn to look in his direction.

[NoFederales]

22. These are dangerous times, but

that's no excuse not to mingle with the crowds of Americans who wish to see, or speak to their elected representatives.

What I do not understand is the media and public silence on Bush's secrecy, his demand for scripted and choreographed appearances, his demand for speaking only to culled audiences. Shrub ain't no potentate; a pretender for certain, but at what? certainly not as a leader.

He is, however, an excellent coward, liar, and treasonous murderer. If that's what half of America finds so appealing about Bush, then perhaps we are in for some serious social upheaval here at home. I cannot take much more of the neocon filth.

NoFederales

[gratuitous]

12. Those running for office will meet with virtually anyone?

Uh Joan? Were you asleep during the entirety of 2004? George W. Bush, during his entire re-election campaign, didn't meet once with an audience that wasn't canned or pre-screened to a fare thee well. A lot of people noticed it, and a lot of people tried to point it out to the worthies at the Boston Globe and the other media outlets, but for some reason, it was never deemed newsworthy enough to point out the fallacy of your little bit of received political wisdom: That candidates running for office will meet with virtually anyone. George W. Bush sure as the world didn't all through 2004. How could you have missed that?

[WCGreen]

17. She is going down in history as the tipping point

[rucky]

18. at first I thought she was wacko...

but when you're right, you're right.

and thank god you're right.

[Mountainman]

19. I like that holy card with the picture of Saint Bush. St Bush pray for us

I can just see fundies all over the country falling down on their knees and burning incense to that picture. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS thank you for sending your second son St. Bush to save us!

[Burried News]

20. bUSh has a US in it. JesUS has US in it.

It's just that simple - God is with US.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Thanks for sharing this. Amazing how dear leader had his

people say that "the time in Crawford is a time for Bush to 'shed his coat and tie and meet with folks in the heartland and hear what's on their minds.'"

And yet Cindy doesn't make the grade!