The protests outside Crawford:

ninty · **The protests outside Crawford: -** 08-13-2005, 03:42 PM

Found this video. Interesting insight to what is going on there. I'm sure you've all heard of this on the news...or maybe you haven't. I'm not sure, I don't watch any TV news.

Anyway, jist of it is this womans son went back to Iraq for another tour and was killed and now shes demanding answers outside of Bush's ranch and a bunch of other people have showed up.

http://homepage.mac.com/godofkarma/swim ... ter75.html

Mr.Buttocks · 08-13-2005, 03:55 PM

Bush lied to start a war, I hope he burns in hell.

ninty · 08-13-2005, 03:59 PM

Pretty much all the wars of the past 100 years have been started by lies.

Reichstag fire by Hitler
Pearl Harbour
Vietnam and the PT boats
Gulf War and the incubator babies
Afghanistan
Iraq

c312 · 08-13-2005, 05:14 PM

that lady is nuts. She originally met president bush after her son had died and made a statement that he was very kind and made her feel better, but then a while later she changes her mind and makes up some story about Bush being some jackass at the ceremony thing they were at. Her whole family has issued a statement saying they still support the troops and the president and are sorry for Cindy's attempt to use what happens politically.

I'm sure there are people who are angry at Bush for their sons and daughters dying in Iraq, but they signed up, they knew the risk. It's terrible when they die, but it happens, and their lives helped protect ours. This woman is just weird though, she completely changed her mind and made up some insane story about things Bush did when she met him that are obviously untrue.

Mr.Buttocks · 08-13-2005, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by c312

but then a while later she changes her mind

Bush changed his mind from "WMD's" to "Regime change" - does that make him nuts too?

ninty · 08-14-2005, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by c312

that lady is nuts. She originally met president bush after her son had died and made a statement that he was very kind and made her feel better, but then a while later she changes her mind and makes up some story about Bush being some jackass at the ceremony thing they were at. Her whole family has issued a statement saying they still support the troops and the president and are sorry for Cindy's attempt to use what happens politically.

I'm sure there are people who are angry at Bush for their sons and daughters dying in Iraq, but they signed up, they knew the risk. It's terrible when they die, but it happens, and their lives helped protect ours. This woman is just weird though, she completely changed her mind and made up some insane story about things Bush did when she met him that are obviously untrue.

Hoys Shit. You watch wayyyy too much Fox News.

She didn't change her mind. The first time she met him, she was discussing with the people with her if she should go all out, or be respectful. She chose the respectful route. He opinions of the president haven't changed.

I read an article about this very topic, and how much of the mainstream media are labeling her a crackpot who flipflops. Does she not have the right to ask why her child died? I think shes got more of a right than anyone here.

Chappy · 08-14-2005, 10:13 AM

she first talked with michael moore, doesnt get much more crackpot-ish than that

i feel for her and her loss but if you dont know the risks (that you may see combat) when you sign up, don't sign up.

c312 · 08-14-2005, 11:30 AM

she said the president came to the event and was laughing and joking about what it was for, asking who he was there to remember jovially and joking inappropriately. That's obvious bullshit, no president would be allowed to go to an event like that unbriefed and no president would not act like that, especially Pres Bush. That would be the exact opposite of what I saw of him when I got to meet him.

This woman has been getting letters and emails from her family asking her to stop her tirade and to just come home, now she's using her publicity to make demands about Israel leaving Palestine. Its obvious there is a lot of phoniness about her. I am sorry that she lost a son, but she's turned it into something disgraceful to his memory.

Mr. Buttocks, he didn't change his mind, more clear facts were supplied by our ailing intelligence agencies. We could get into the argument over the war in Iraq, but I think both of us have our own beleifs and we aren't gonna change each others minds and it would be getting offtopic.

Coleman · 08-14-2005, 12:33 PM

the media at the crawford ranch is usually just trying to find something to do. They're giving this woman too much coverage b/c there's nothing else to report down there.

Colonel · 08-14-2005, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninty

You watch wayyyy too much Fox News.

She didn't change her mind. The first time she met him, she was discussing with the people with her if she should go all out, or be respectful. She chose the respectful route. He opinions of the president haven't changed.

I think both sides are slanting her comments to benefit themselves. Here is the original story from 2004 that was in her local paper: http://www.thereporter.com/republished/ci_2923921

It does appear to me that she was not as bitter back then as she is now. We all go through stages of grief. Anger is one of those stages. She's just a little more public in her grief than most.

rdeyes · 08-16-2005, 11:34 AM

'I'm So Sorry'

In emotional private meetings with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush offers solace—and seeks some of his own.

By Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

Aug. 22, 2005 issue - The grieving room was arranged like a doctor's office. The families and loved ones of 33 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan were summoned to a large waiting area at Fort Bragg, N.C. For three hours, they were rotated through five private rooms, where they met with President George W. Bush, accompanied by two Secret Service men and a photographer. Because the walls were thin, the families awaiting their turn could hear the crying inside.

President Bush was wearing "a huge smile," but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time he got to the last widow, Crystal Owen, a third-grade schoolteacher who had lost her husband in Iraq. "Tell me about Mike," he said immediately. "I don't want my husband's death to be in vain," she told him. The president apologized repeatedly for her husband's death. When Owen began to cry, Bush grabbed her hands. "Don't worry, don't worry," he said, though his choking voice suggested that he had worries of his own. The president and the widow hugged. "It felt like he could have been my dad," Owen recalled to NEWSWEEK. "It was like we were old friends. It almost makes me sad. In a way, I wish he weren't the president, just so I could talk to him all the time."

Bush likes to play the resolute War Leader, and he has never been known for admitting mistakes or regret. But that does not mean that he is free of doubt. For the past three years, Bush has been living in two worlds—unwavering and confident in public, but sometimes stricken in private. Bush's meetings with widows like Crystal Owen offer a rare look inside that inner, private world.

Last week, at his ranch in Texas, he took his usual line on Iraq, telling reporters that the United States would not pull out its troops until Iraq was able to defend itself. While he said he "sympathized" with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, he refused to visit her peace vigil, set up in a tent in a drainage ditch outside the ranch, and sent two of his aides to talk to her instead.

Privately, Bush has met with about 900 family members of some 270 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The conversations are closed to the press, and Bush does not like to talk about what goes on in these grieving sessions, though there have been hints. An hour after he met with the families at Fort Bragg in June, he gave a hard-line speech on national TV. When he mentioned the sacrifice of military families, his lips visibly quivered.

All war presidents find ways to deal with the strain of sending soldiers off to die. During the Vietnam War, LBJ used to pray after midnight with Roman Catholic monks. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, prayed with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church on the eve of the first gulf war. For George W. Bush, these private audiences with the families of dead soldiers and Marines seem to be an outlet of sorts. (They are perhaps harder for Laura, who sometimes accompanies Bush and looks devastated afterward.) Family members interviewed by NEWSWEEK say they have been taken aback by the president's emotionalism and his sincerity. More complicated is the question of whether Bush's suffering is essentially sympathetic, or whether he is agonizing over the war that he chose to start.

Bush routinely asks to see the families of the fallen when he visits military bases, which he does about 10 times a year. It does not appear that the White House or the military makes any effort to screen out dissenters or embittered families, though some families decline the invitation to meet with Bush. Most families encourage the president to stay the course in Iraq. "To oppose something my husband lost his life for would be a betrayal," says Inge Colton, whose husband, Shane, died in April 2004 when his Apache helicopter was shot down over Baghdad. Bush does, however, hear plenty of complaints. He has been asked about missing medals on the returned uniform of a loved one, about financial assistance for a child going to college and about how soldiers really died when the Pentagon claimed the details were classified.

At her meeting with the president at Fort Hood, Texas, last spring, Colton says she lit into Bush for "stingy" military benefits. Her complaints caught Bush "a little off guard," she recalls. "He tried to argue with me a little bit, but he promised he would have someone look into it." The next day she got a call from White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who said the White House would follow up. "My main goal was to have him look at my son, look him in the eyes and apologize," says Colton. "I wanted him to know, to really understand who he has hurt." She says Bush was "attentive, though not in a fake way," and sometimes at a loss for words. "He didn't try to overcompensate," she says.

The most telling—and moving—picture of Bush grieving with the families of the dead was provided by Rachel Ascione, who met with him last summer. Her older brother, Ron Payne, was a Marine who had been killed in Afghanistan only a few weeks before Ascione was invited to meet with Bush at MacDill Air Force Base, near Tampa, Fla.

Ascione wasn't sure she could restrain herself with the president. She was feeling "raw." "I wanted him to look me in the eye and tell me why my brother was never coming back, and I wanted him to know it was his fault that my heart was broken," she recalls. The president was coming to Florida, a key swing state, in the middle of his re-election campaign. Ascione was worried that her family would be "exploited" by a "phony effort to make good with people in order to get votes."

Ascione and her family were gathered with 18 other families in a large room on the air base. The president entered with some Secret Service agents, a military entourage and a White House photographer. "I'm here for you, and I will take as much time as you need," Bush said. He began moving from family to family. Ascione watched as mothers confronted him: "How could you let this happen? Why is my son gone?" one asked. Ascione couldn't hear his answer, but soon "she began to sob, and he began crying, too. And then he just hugged her tight, and they cried together for what seemed like forever."

Ascione's family was one of the last Bush approached. Ascione still planned to confront him, but Bush disarmed her in an almost uncanny way. Ascione is just over five feet; her late brother was 6 feet 7. "My whole life, he used to put his hand on the top of my head and just hold it there, and it drove me crazy," she says. When Bush saw that she was crying, he leaned over and put his hand on the top of her head and drew her to him. "It was just like my brother used to do," she says, beginning to cry at the memory.

Before Bush left the meeting, he paused in the middle of the room and said to the families, "I will never feel the same level of pain and loss you do. I didn't lose anyone close to me, a member of my family or someone that I love. But I want you to know that I didn't go into this lightly. This was a decision that I struggle with every day."

As he spoke, Ascione could see the grief rising through the president's body. His shoulder slumped and his face turned ashen. He began to cry and his voice choked. He paused, tried to regain his composure and looked around the room. "I am sorry, I'm so sorry," he said.

from newsweek. let the flamewar begin

rdeyes · 08-16-2005, 11:40 AM

[url=http://imageshack.us:b09da][img]http://img344.imageshack.us/img344/9436/050814showofgriefx4an.gif[/img][/url:b09da]

oh and her husband just filed for divorce .. guess hes tired of whiny her ass also

Stammer · 08-16-2005, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bush

But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job, and I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say.But, I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.

I'm glad Bush was able to get over the death of this womans son.

Edit: NVM It's not the entire segment from the Show.

rdeyes · 08-16-2005, 11:52 AM

this "woman's" son joined the military so he knew the risks of going to war , if he didnt want to go back for his 2nd tour he could have done what some of the other traitors did and moved to canada. everyday she is camped outside that ranch she shits on her sons legacy , i hope shes proud annoy:

KTOG · 08-16-2005, 11:55 AM

You certainly are ignorant. People can do a lot of talking but never seem to act upon it. You stick your ass on the line if you think it is important. You have noticed that Bush hasn't officially responed to her right? Much like when you prove a teacher wrong in class they just like to play it off. Bush is still waiting for his secretaries to come up a good excuse, because he apparently can't give her one that won't be the scary truth.