Bush supporters' aftermath thread

Rayban, if you cared as much about people in war areas as you do about getting Republicans relected, you might deserve more respect.

Is Bush Out of Control?

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with "get out of here!"

In fact, George W. Bush's mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain "weather reports" to warn of the President's demeanor. "Calm seas" means Bush is calm while "tornado alert" is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President's paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a "god-damned traitor" for opposing him on stem-cell research.

"There's real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it," a high-level aide told me recently.

"If Monica had bothered to learn how to swallow, we'd still be able to keep our shoes on at the airport."

Meet with her (again), Mr. President
Cal Thomas

August 15, 2005

There are many valid reasons why President Bush should not meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq. There is one reason he should and that reason trumps the others.

Yes, such a meeting would set a bad precedent, because it would say that all one has to do to get time with the president is to stage a protest in August during the slow news cycle and one can enjoy a privilege available to few Americans.

Yes, Cindy Sheehan has become a tool - and a willing one - of the far left which is unrelenting in its criticism of the president and his policies. She dominates the Michael Moore Web page, which urges more people to show up at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, so they can be on TV and have their pictures in newspapers. The Moore Web site carries her daily rants, most of which are about her own "feelings" and the "insane war." She calls herself a "progressive liberal."

Yes, the president can wait her out. She has said she is staying until he either sees her or he returns to Washington.

Yes, the media would love to have her meet with the president in private. It would duly record her predictable statement that he was insensitive and uncaring and that he did not respond to her concerns or complaints. It would be a well-choreographed attack on the president.

Here's the reason he should meet with her, but not alone. Other relatives of dead and wounded soldiers and some of the soldiers, themselves, should be included. He might also invite a few Iraqis who support the effort to free a people long held in bondage by Saddam Hussein and who face new bondage under the totalitarian dictatorship of Islamofacism if this effort fails.

The president should hold the meeting in a public place. Let the criticism flow, but let Iraqi women tell their stories about rape and torture at the hands of Saddam's now-dead sons. Allow Iraqi men to tell about life under Saddam and how grateful they are that he is gone. Wounded soldiers and families of the dead would speak in support of the war effort. Members of Sheehan's own family could come. They posted a letter on the Drudge Web site in support of the president.

President Bush is hearing Cindy Sheehan from behind a protective wall of security at his Crawford ranch. He addressed reporters last week, saying he sympathizes with her loss and knows she feels strongly about her position and "she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America."

The president passed her in a motorcade on the way to a political fundraiser, prompting Sheehan to hold up a sign that read, "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"

A meeting with her among many would help dilute her political objective and allow other voices to be heard. It would also reinforce the president's position that withdrawal before Iraq is stabilized would do irreparable harm to American interests, Middle East stability and ultimately cost many more American lives as terrorists and fighters claim victory over the United States and feel emboldened to continue their terror campaign to establish one theocratic state after another.

This isn't Vietnam, as Sheehan claims. While Vietnam is communist, Vietnamese did not attack America on Sept. 11, nor are they infiltrating our country in an attempt to destroy us. To those who say Saddam didn't attack us on Sept. 11, the answer the president can give is that terror is all part of the same fanatical package.

Let Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld preside at the gathering. He is the most articulate member of the administration when it comes to defending the reasons we are in Iraq. Let the president answer respectful, even challenging questions. Americans would appreciate a president who would risk putting himself in rhetorical harm's way when our soldiers are in far greater danger.

The case for creating peace and stability in Iraq is a good one, but it needs to be made repeatedly because of short attention spans, bad memory and the boldness of the left, which thinks it has found the president vulnerable.

Go and meet again with Cindy Sheehan, Mr. President, but this time not in private and not alone.

"It looks like today, and this could change, as of today it looks like women will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq."

Women Silenced: Saddam Hussein Acknowledges Crimes Against Women

[i]In Iraq, if you are a woman, you could face ... * Beheading if you are accused of prostitution * Rape if you are related to someone the regime thinks is disloyal * Torture if you are related to a dissident[/i]

Saddam does not deny the fact that his regime tortures and brutally murders women. The daily newspaper Babel, owned by Uday, the eldest son of Saddam Hussein, contained a public admission on February 13, 2001, of beheading women who are suspected of prostitution. The Iraqi Women's League in Damascus, Syria, describes this practice as follows:

[i] Under the pretext of fighting prostitution, units of "Feda'iyee Saddam," the paramilitary organization led by Uday, have beheaded in public more than two hundred women all over the country, dumping their severed heads at their families' door steps. Many of the victims were innocent professional women, including some who were suspected of being dissidents. Such barbaric acts were carried out in the total absence of any proper judicial procedures, even under Iraq's own penal code. (March 3, 2001)[/i]

Reports show that many families have been required to display a victim's head on their outside fence for several days. These savage practices have been used against women of all professions. For example, an obstetrician was arrested for criticizing the corruption within the health services, but was subsequently beheaded for prostitution. Another woman with a husband and three children was beheaded without charge or trial. According to Amnesty International, her husband was wanted by the security authorities because of his alleged involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country, but men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam (the paramilitary unit) went to his house and found his wife, children, and mother-in-law. His wife was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms while a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of residents. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag and took away the children and the mother-in-law. Their fate remains unknown.

Women are often raped in order to blackmail their relatives. Men who leave Iraq and join Iraqi opposition groups regularly receive videotapes showing the rape of a female relative. These tapes are intended to discourage Iraqi nationals abroad from engaging in opposition activities. Some authorities carry personnel cards identifying their official "activity" as the "violation of women's honor."

Quote:

The president should hold the meeting in a public place. Let the criticism flow, but let Iraqi women tell their stories about rape and torture at the hands of Saddam's now-dead sons. Allow Iraqi men to tell about life under Saddam and how grateful they are that he is gone. Wounded soldiers and families of the dead would speak in support of the war effort. Members of Sheehan's own family could come. They posted a letter on the Drudge Web site in support of the president.

Ticomaya wrote:

Quote:

The president should hold the meeting in a public place. Let the criticism flow, but let Iraqi women tell their stories about rape and torture at the hands of Saddam's now-dead sons. Allow Iraqi men to tell about life under Saddam and how grateful they are that he is gone. Wounded soldiers and families of the dead would speak in support of the war effort. Members of Sheehan's own family could come. They posted a letter on the Drudge Web site in support of the president.

Will never happen. This President doesnt like unstaged events - way too unpredictable. Cant have that.

CINDY SHEEHAN: COMMANDER IN GRIEF
by Ann Coulter
August 17, 2005

To expiate the pain of losing her firstborn son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush's Crawford ranch. It's the strangest method of grieving I've seen since Paul Wellstone's funeral. Someone needs to teach these liberals how to mourn.

Call me old-fashioned, but a grief-stricken war mother shouldn't have her own full-time PR flack. After your third profile on "Entertainment Tonight," you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show.

We're sorry about Ms. Sheehan's son, but the entire nation was attacked on 9/11. This isn't about her personal loss. America has been under relentless attack from Islamic terrorists for 20 years, culminating in a devastating attack on U.S. soil on 9/11. It's not going to stop unless we fight back, annihilate Muslim fanatics, destroy their bases, eliminate their sponsors and end all their hope. A lot more mothers will be grieving if our military policy is: No one gets hurt!

Fortunately, the Constitution vests authority to make foreign policy with the president of the United States, not with this week's sad story. But liberals think that since they have been able to produce a grieving mother, the commander in chief should step aside and let Cindy Sheehan make foreign policy for the nation. As Maureen Dowd said, it's "inhumane" for Bush not "to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."

I'm not sure what "moral authority" is supposed to mean in that sentence, but if it has anything to do with Cindy Sheehan dictating America's foreign policy, then no, it is not "absolute." It's not even conditional, provisional, fleeting, theoretical or ephemeral.

The logical, intellectual and ethical shortcomings of such a statement are staggering. If one dead son means no one can win an argument with you, how about two dead sons? What if the person arguing with you is a mother who also lost a son in Iraq and she's pro-war? Do we decide the winner with a coin toss? Or do we see if there's a woman out there who lost two children in Iraq and see what she thinks about the war?

Dowd's "absolute" moral authority column demonstrates, once again, what can happen when liberals start tossing around terms they don't understand like "absolute" and "moral." It seems that the inspiration for Dowd's column was also absolute. On the rocks.

Liberals demand that we listen with rapt attention to Sheehan, but she has nothing new to say about the war. At least nothing we haven't heard from Michael Moore since approximately 11 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001. It's a neocon war; we're fighting for Israel; it's a war for oil; Bush lied, kids died; there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Turn on MSNBC's "Hardball" and you can hear it right now. At this point, Cindy Sheehan is like a touring company of Air America radio: Same old script and it's not even the original cast.

These arguments didn't persuade Hillary Clinton or John McCain to vote against the war. They didn't persuade Democratic primary voters, who unceremoniously dumped anti-war candidate Howard Dean in favor of John Kerry, who voted for the war before he voted against it. They certainly didn't persuade a majority of American voters who re-upped George Bush's tenure as the nation's commander in chief last November.

But now liberals demand that we listen to the same old arguments all over again, not because Sheehan has any new insights, but because she has the ability to repel dissent by citing her grief.

On the bright side, Sheehan shows us what Democrats would say if they thought they were immunized from disagreement. Sheehan has called President Bush "that filth-spewer and warmonger." She says "America has been killing people on this continent since it was started" and "the killing has gone on unabated for over 200 years." She calls the U.S. government a "morally repugnant system" and says, "This country is not worth dying for." I have a feeling every time this gal opens her trap, Michael Moore gets a residuals check.

Evidently, however, there are some things worth killing for. Sheehan recently said she only seemed calm "because if I started hitting something, I wouldn't stop 'til it was dead." It's a wonder Bush won't meet with her.

Let her talk.

I hope someone's taping the current spokeswoman of the Democrats for commercials during the next election cycle.

Those are some handy quotes.

CINDY UNLEASHED: "THE BIGGEST TERRORIST IN THE WORLD IS GEORGE W. BUSH"
Wed Aug 17 2005 21:51:56 ET

"We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We're waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

So declared Cindy Sheehan earlier this year during a rally at San Francisco State University.

Sheehan, who is demanding a second meeting with Bush, stated: "We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now."

Sheehan unleashed a foul-mouth tirade on April 27, 2005:

"They're a bunch of ******* hypocrites! And we need to, we just need to rise up..." Sheehan said of the Bush administration.

"If George Bush believes his rhetoric and his bullshit, that this is a war for freedom and democracy, that he is spreading freedom and democracy, does he think every person he kills makes Iraq more free?"

"The whole world is damaged. Our humanity is damaged. If he thinks that it's so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war."

"We want our country back and, if we have to impeach everybody from George Bush down to the person who picks up dog **** in Washington, we will impeach all those people."

END

Cindy Sheehan (Military Families Speak Out; Goldstar Families for Peace; her son Casey was killed in the Iraq War)



First, I want to give my little story about Lynne. Of course, you all have read To Kill a Mockingbird. Lynne is my human Atticus Finch. He did what he knew was right, but wasn't popular. And that's what Lynne is doing. {applause}

We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We're waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush. {applause}

How many more people are we going to let him kill before we stop him? I'm going to talk about free speech and recruitment. Do you know that it costs $66,000 to recruit one recruit? That's continuing all of their - you know, the recruiter's salary, the recruiter's bonus, the place that they rent to recruit and things like that. All the perks they get and everything. That's not even training the recruit. It costs our government about $6,000 a year on each child in California. $46,000 a year to house a prisoner in our state. Our priorities are seriously screwed up, as I mentioned.

I really want to thank you guys for doing this, especially the young people. It gives me so much hope to know that there's young people who care more about who's our next American Idol - less about that. You guys care more about people being killed. There's too many that care more about the next American Idol. Too many people in our country that don't even really know we have a war going on. You know, they never have to think of the war, and I'll never, ever forget this war. I can never forget it, even when I'm sleeping {tears} I know that we're in a war and I know that George Bush and his band of neo-cons and their neo-con agenda killed my son. And I'll never, ever, ever forget.

I take responsibility partly for my son's death, too. I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people, like my sister over here says, since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for. If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. {applause} We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if {applause}. 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. The people are good, the system is morally repugnant. {applause}

Please - teach your babies, teach your babies better than I taught my babies. When Congress gave George Bush the right to go to war, they abrogated their constitutional responsibilities and they basically made our constitution null and void. We have no checks and balances in this country. We have no recourse. If they're going to what they did to Lynne, they don't have backs they call names, what we need to be is, we the people, we're their checks and balances. We're the only checks and balances. We have to stand up and say, Not only is this our school, this is our country. We want our country back and, if we have to impeach everybody from George Bush down to the person who picks up dog **** in Washington, we will impeach all those people. Our country needs to {unintelligible} we need to start over again.

I just want to say that you students, Students Against War, you have all my support and all my organization's support. I told Kristen if you have any actions and you need a ringleader, that I only live about an hour away. I'll be here. If I can sleep on somebody's floor, we can have this, we can camp out, do whatever we need.

And I just want to way to George Bush and I want to say to the people who are here, that are still sheep {unintelligible} and following him blindly: if George Bush believes his rhetoric and his bullshit, that this is a war for freedom and democracy, that he is spreading freedom and democracy, does he think every person he kills makes Iraq more free? It doesn't make us more free. It damages our humanity. The whole world is damaged. Our humanity is damaged. If he thinks that it's so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go this war. They need to fight because a just war, the definition of a just war, and maybe you people here who still think this is a just war, the definition of a just war is one that you would send your own children to die in. That you would go die in yourself. And you aren't willing to send your own children, or if you're not willing to go die yourself, then you bring there rest of our kids home now. It is despicable what they're doing. {applause}

What they're saying, too, is like, it's okay for Israel to have nuclear weapons. But Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons. It's okay for the United States to have nuclear weapons. It's okay for the countries that we say it's okay for. We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now. It's okay for them to have them, but Iran or Syria can't have them. It's okay for Israel to occupy Palestine, but it's - yeah - and it's okay for Iraq to occupy - I mean, for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it's not okay for Syria to be in Lebanon. They're a bunch of ******* hypocrites! And we need to, we just need to rise up. We need a revolution and make it be peaceful and make it be loving and let's just show them all the love we have for humanity because we want to stop the inhumane slaughter.

{wild applause}