| Tuesday, August 09, 2005 |
| Gold stars and protests |
Still no meeting for the angry mother of a slain G.I. Cindy Sheehan, of Gold Star Families for Peace, continues her high-profile protest outside Bush's Crawford ranch. I have no doubt that Sheehan's membership in a clearly anti-Bush, anti-war organization is the reason she's not getting a meeting. The Bushies aren't going to give the group that publicity opportunity. The most Sheehan may get is a televised arrest ... The protest lacks the subtle hand of planning of say, the Rosa Parks bus protest -- but then again subtlety doesn't seem to be the objective. Mostly, Ms. Sheehan's protest is shining a glaring spotlight on Bush's refusal to make public expression of whatever angst he might feel over the deaths and maiming of young men and women he sent to Iraq. ... assuming he feels such angst, of course, which I really hate to say, is not entirely clear.
Bush's certitude about everything, including Iraq, is at its most unsettling in times like these. He seems to lack a core quality of leadership that normally rises to the surface most dramatically in times of peril: the ability to project empathy. Bill Clinton had it in spades following the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City and during his moving, landmark visit to Africa (he still has it, as evidenced by his continued activism on behalf of tsunami and AIDS victims). Ronald Reagan surprised even me -- an anti-Reagan high school kid, when he put the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster into perfect universal context. The Bushes, father and sons, seem almost clinically incapable of it. Whether mocking a death row inmate, puzzling over the price of bread, cracking that irrascible smirk at just the worst times, or exhorting Iraqi insurgents to "bring it on," George W. Bush almost always seems to get it wrong. He is miscalculating again, I think, with Ms. Sheehan. He could choose to show real leadership, and face her, even at her most angry and even at her most political, because at the end of the day, she represents the families impacted by the war Mr. Bush has chosen to wage. And he, as president, supposedly, represents her. |
posted by JReid @ 1:27 PM   |
|
|
|
|
