Clift: A Historical Footnote (Sheehan, Bush, Iraq, Dems, Repubs)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9008721/site/newsweek/

Any other politician who had a Gold Star mother in his driveway would get the cameras rolling, give her a big hug and gain points for compassion. Instead of doing what should come naturally to a democratic leader, President George W. Bush deepened the crisis enveloping his presidency by arrogantly refusing to grant Cindy Sheehan an audience. He may have missed that opportunity for good now that Sheehan has rushed to California to see about her ailing mother.

Before Sheehan left Crawford, Texas, on Thursday, Bush explained to reporters that he needs to get on with his life, a remark stunningly insensitive to the thousands of maimed soldiers returning from Iraq, and the families of the more than 1,800 dead. Cycling, his new exercise narcotic, is important, he went on, because Americans want to know that their president leads a balanced life. No, Mr. President, we just want to know that you’re balanced, period.

There’s a war going on. Americans are dying, and so are Iraqis. August is already one of the bloodiest months since this ill-fated venture was launched more than three years ago. “Setting aside talking to Cindy Sheehan, he should be talking to ,” says Marshall Wittman, a policy analyst with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and a former adviser to Sen. John McCain. Wittman supported the invasion of Iraq, but says the management of the war has been a failure. He can’t think of a single Republican elected official who defends the way the administration is handling the war. “They’re hiding,” he says.

So is Bush. A five-week vacation is a luxury you’d expect of a French president, not an American leader in the midst of a war. Maybe he’s agonizing in private and rethinking his strategy, but his behavior conveys an unsettling disconnect from reality. His problem is not Cindy Sheehan and her heroic stand but the facts on the ground in Iraq and an administration in disarray over what to do. It’s becoming clear this is not a winnable war. The insurgency is not in its last throes, as the vice president claimed some months ago. It’s getting stronger, and the notion that an Iraqi Army can take over any time soon is pure fantasy. “We’re training up the civil-war factions of tomorrow,” says an aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

[yellowdogintexas]

1. I LOVE Eleanor Clift! nt

[Skittles]

3. I love her writing style

simply elegant

[Rude Horner]

2. You beat me to it.

I was just going to post a link to this article. EXCELLENT article, I thought. And an excellent point about how our Democratic leadership has, for the most part, failed us.

I love this paragraph!:

<snip>
Sheehan has been latched on to by lots of groups, with the notable exception of the Democratic Party. The party as a whole is terrified of doing anything that would leave them vulnerable to accusations they’re not supporting the troops, or they’re weak on national security, so they don’t get into the debate in any memorable way. Their risk-averse tactics bring back memories of the Kerry campaign, which was so frightened of making a wrong step, they couldn’t make a right step. The protest that began in Crawford and is spreading around the country got no help from the institutional Washington Democrats. It sprang from the grass roots, and that’s why it may endure after Bush’s summer solstice ends and hound him for the rest of his days as president.
<snip>

[muchacho]

4. kick

everyone should read this. Clift usaully appears a bit wet to me, bt this is good.