Why are you always right and you think I don't have a clue. I read both sides, I read the blogs, I watch Fox News as well as CNN & MSNBC. I also read the NY Times, Washington Post and other papers.

All Bush has to do is walk out to the fence, he is on vacation after all, tell this woman he understands her pain and that would take the wind out of all of this. The only reasons the MSM is paying so much attention is it is a slow weekend, Everyone is sick of Holloway in Aruba and Tiger Woods is loosing the PGA! Let something blow up and see how fast they are gone.

No it wouldn't. As soon as Bush shows any sign of being willing to meet with a mother he has already met with, simply because she demands his attention, every member of every leftist family who's ever lost a child will be demanding that the president meet them as well.

The goal is to keep the president so tied down in meetings with sneering leftists, that he can no longer perform the duties of his office.

Pat,

If you go a little farther in depth you'll find that W. already met with the lady last year when her son was killed. You can also find transcripts of what she said in her interview after meeting him and learn that she has since changed how she felt after the lefty handlers got hold of her.

When Mrs. Sheehan met with the President the first and only time, she had just lost her son. I don't feel the lefty handlers are controlling her. She was by herself until the media discovered her on a slow weekend. When she met with President Bush she was in a group of families who all had lost loved ones, you should read her description of that meeting, Not the one right after the meeting.

Pat - here's the part that's bothering many of us: If you look at her comments right after the meeting, she seemed supportive of the President - not that she liked the fact that her son was dead, but at least she, and her family, had a chance to speak to to Pres. Bush. It's only a year later that she's changed her tune:

2004 Comments: "'I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,' Cindy said after their meeting. 'I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith.'

"The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.""The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.

"The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.

"For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.

For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.

"'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together,' Cindy said."

2005 Comments: She vowed on Sunday to continue her protest until she can personally ask Bush: "Why did you kill my son?"

In an interview on CNN, she claimed Bush "acted like it was party" when she met him last year.

"It was -- you know, there was a lot of things said. We wanted to use the time for him to know that he killed an indispensable part of our family and humanity. And we wanted him to look at the pictures of Casey.

"He wouldn't look at the pictures of Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name. He came in the room and the very first thing he said is, 'So who are we honoring here?' He didn't even know Casey's name. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anything about Casey. He wouldn't even call him 'him' or 'he.' He called him 'your loved one.'

Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party.

While I'm not trying to put out a false dilemma for us to debate, I would like someone in the media to ask her to speak to the 180 degree turn in her opinion. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but it seems that someone's been 'whispering' in her ear...

Her son had only been in Iraq a month when he was killed, this is her only child if I remember correctly. The meeting with the President was very soon after his death and I think she wanted desperately for his death to mean something. I think if it had meant something she or anyone else could see none of this would be going on. No one has to whisper in her ear Ron, all she had to do was watch all those funerals in Ohio last week or count the casualties in the last 6 weeks. I am not, or don't mean to be debating. I was just so upset about the tone of Scott's piece. As Scott has told me many times he has read that in Vietnam, in the last year they were sending 1400 caskets a day home. It didn't start out that way. I don't have to read about it, I watched it daily live on TV and that was before cable and 24 hour news.Mrs. Sheehan is due a certain amount of respect for her sacrifice if for nothing else.

She is a liar.

I really don't care if she is lying out of grief, for the public good, or even just for the money.

In a world where lies can lead fanatics to kill 3000 people at a time, liars cannot be tolerated.

And no, before anyone asks, Bush didn't lie about Iraq. He may not have had all the information we have now, but he didn't lie.

Pat - I think this is where some diverging views get created. Personally, I think the war in Iraq does mean something. Saddam signed a treaty and then repeatedly broke the treaty. We tried sanctions for years - during which he gassed his own people, killed and tortured them by the thousands, and sought (successfully, I might add) to subvert the sanctions by bribing key figures. In fact, there is great evidence that he was trying to build or buy WMD. Based on that alone, we should've gone in and taken him out. In fact, IMHO, we should've taken him out after the 2nd or 3rd time he violated the terms of his treaty. Internationally, we looked like doormats for not doing this.

However, all of that aside, we've gone into a country and managed to do a good job of removing a corrupt dictator and instituting rule of law. We're helping the country rebuild (something we don't have to do), we're helping them create a constitution that works for their people and not necessarily ours, and we're actually making it safer to live there than it was prior to our showing up - not to mention the rise in the standard of living, basic services, etc. With all of that, I'd say that her son did die for something worthwhile. And I'd also say that she's doing everything she can to try and eliminate all of his hard work.

I totally agree with your first paragraph. I think one of the worse things we could do is bail out. I think, if had the troops, we should increase the number of troops on the ground, give them better equipment, better training and better leaders at the top.

Fighting an on ground insurgency in their country with a total different culture is a loosing situation. Vietnam proved that.

I must be looking at different pictures, reading different information(not just the Americal MSM)_than you are referring to.

The Bush family and their friends are also making a tidy profit out of both the war machine and oil production since going into Iraq. Call me an old cynic, but there are plenty of other "evil" regimes that have desperately needed the help of more powerful nations, but unfortunately don't have any oil reserves.

Kelly - that touches on one of the bigger issues that we face as the overall wealthiest nation with the biggest and most advanced Army. Do we go isolationist and ignore the rest of the world? Do we just buy goods from the rest of the world at the cheapest cost and then let them sort the details out? Do we involve ourselves in affairs that have a direct impact on our economy? Or, do we try to right all of the wrongs of the world. Personally, I'm not sure which is the best - but I tend to hover between 1 and 3. The biggest problem with 1 is that it'd take awhile to get our economy turned around to support isolation (or at least hemispherical isolation). Secondary to that is that the rest of the world has a poor history of playing together in the sandbox when we don't interfere or at least play a role in the affairs. The third option makes us look rather crass and self-serving (something other countries have no problem doing themselves, but ridicule us for doing the same), but it does keep us involved and lends a bit of stability to the rest of world. However, the question there is do we have any obligation to lend stability at the cost of our own lives?

I haven't seen a good answer to this yet.

Last point, it's not just the Bush family and friends - it's every single American. We still pay half to a fourth, if not more, of what the rest of the world's citizens pay for oil and petroleum products. Just remember that prior to throwing stones...

Is there a source for those quotes beyond Drudge? He doesn't actually say where he got these quotes, and he's not exactly reliable in his fact-checking when it comes to details like this.

> I would like someone in the media to ask her to
> speak to the 180 degree turn in her opinion.

It's been done, and published. The short version is that she says she was shocked, grieving, and doing her best to avoid controversy.

Me, I say take it however you want. To me, this is just a classic case of the exercise of the right to freely assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

Nobody else seems to be reporting on it, but as noted that's something I'm expecting. If it proves baseless she'll stay in the headlines. If it turns out to be true, I simply expect her to disappear.

I agree with Pat's assertion (pay no attention to that knocking on the door... Satan always hates putting on his winter parka when I do things like that)... far as I'm concerned Iraq the Model's "open letter" is just about the best "last word" I've seen so far.

I've seen some push to say that she was quoted out of context, that the part she enjoyed was a subsequent trip to Seattle or something to that effect, however, I'm still not buying it.

As for her right to be a loon, absolutely. She has the complete right to peaceable assembly and the like. Just as much, however, the gov't has the same right to just ignore her. Might not be popular, but it is correct.

And yes - that letter is a great thing. Too bad I think it'll get zero media coverage here (since it might effectively kill the scandal...)

Actually Iraq the Model's open letter was mentioned on all of the cable news networks last night, that is how I found it.

hmm - my bad on that, then. Guess I let my cynicism get the best of me on this one...

That and I just refuse to watch TV news, in general. I'd much rather watch the 'History of Cement', random war show, or random how to build X show than the news.