Why would Big Oil want to sell it cheaply?
Bullshit. Free from what, exactly? Free from the foreign army occupying their country that’s killed thousands and thousands of them and continues to kill them? Free from the rampaging criminals who’ve multiplied like rabbits since the war started? Free from terrorist bombs that tear apart Iraqis on a regular basis? They’re certainly free of a lot of basic infrastructure, so effectively destroyed by their “liberators.”
Quite correct. And this President does not wish to meet with anyone who gainsays his nice little disaster, no matter how many of her kids he’s killed. It’s the wisdom of that cavalier dismissal that we’re discussing, not his perogative to refuse request of the dead kid’s momma.
Demand, request, whatever. Point is, El Presidente is too pussy to meet with a woman whose kid he killed, so long as she disagrees with the decisions that ended up killing him. Aw, whatsamatter Mr. President, afraid Mrs. Sheehan might have more moral authority than you?
[QUOTE=Snowboarder Bo]
How do you know she “drove away” her husband? Cite?
Perhaps he is just a weak-kneed pissant jerk who can’t bear to face the possibility that his son was engaged in a fraudulent war? Perhaps he’s just another jerk who can’t bear to stand by his wife through this tough time, and he’s taking the easy out. Perhaps he was enticed by potential monetary reward, stature, reverance by right-wing fanatics who seek to use any means to discredit his upset, grieving wife?
I ask, again, Magiver: cite?
[QUOTE]
No, This is the first time you asked me.
And cite for my opinion? OK, I cite me. Unlike that unique projection of your emotions into the subject it is a simple line of logic. By her own admission it has strained her marriage.
Within a week of setting up “Camp Casey” she had already given more than 100 media interviews, calling for US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. But the pressure of the media attention appears to have proved too much for her husband, Patrick.
Last Friday he lodged a divorce petition at Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco, it emerged today. His lawyer did not immediately return calls asking for comment.
Mrs Sheehan says that the stress of the death had already led the couple, who were high school sweethearts, to separate. She admits that he does not agree with the “level of intensity” she has devoted to peace in the past year.
Actually, I did ask you twice, in the very post that you quoted.
In the future, it might be helpful if you qualified your declarative statements as opinions.
Thank you for the cite that the situation has strained her marriage. That is not the same as “driving away” her husband.
I’m trying to picture another President handing a microphone to someone with an agenda. Mmmmmm, not seeing it. But it gave you a chance to vent so in a way, she’s successful.
We all know by now that during past national politcal conventions, the right of the people to peacably assemble and demonstrate has been restricted. People have been barred from moving into certain areas (usually those areas near the event they are protesting against). Now, comes this story: Bush Neighbors Ask Commissioners For Protest Ban.
And so I ask, as a topic for debate: should the right to peacably assemble be restricted, and if so, how much restriction is reasonable?
My own position is that while I can see some vague sense in the arguments for restriction, they effectively make a mockery of the intent of a demonstration. I don’t know where the line is drawn, exactly, but I feel that barring a demonstration, for example, in Washington, DC because of “security risks; and people need to get to work” and only permitting protests outside the city limits would be a case of negating the right to assemble. I feel that the tack being used in Texas smacks of a disregard for the Constitutional rights of those gathered, and feel that the county should deny the petition with prejudice (or whatever the proper legal term is, IANAL).
What do y’all think?
:smack:
dammit
was tryin to start a new thread and screwed up somewhere
Mods, please delete this post; I started the new thread
No, it’s “Please sacrifice another child to get an extra meeting with the President.”
Here’s the thing. Ms. Sheehan is not requesting a dialogue. She wants to berate the President to his face. That might be cathartic for her, but Bush has no obligation to meet with someone who is openly antagonistic to him. There are no “rules” for who gets to meet with Bush and who doesn’t. But common sense says that if you want to meet with someone, you don’t do so by calling that someone a liar. She’s made up her mind and that’s fine. She has every right to announce her views from every corner of the globe. But I don’t blame Bush one bit for not meeting with her again. Link.
Who said anything about a microphone? Private meeting, no reporters, no transcripts. They’d be done in 15 minutes, and the President would have looked empathetic (instead of chicken) and defused a situation that has instead turned into a potent symbol of his folly and detachment.
Just further confirmation of my point above: Bush is too chicken to defend his actions.
Nothing from the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commision and the Council of National Policy?
Slacker.
Yeah, right. Why wouldn’t he want to meet with someone who:
Let the woman protest. If she actually did meet with Bush, she’d lose the only reason the press has for keeping her in the public spotlight.
It *isn’t * about her, John. It’s about Bush. He’s the President, not her.
Like it or not, Ms. Sheehan is now a representative of a pretty wide segment of the population, possibly even a majority depending on the polls you read. The way it comes off is that his refusal to talk with her is symbolic of his refusal to consider any viewpoint but his own, or to consider anyone who doesn’t already agree with him worth listening to.
His course of action is politically entirely negative here. It does make him appear personally cowardly; it does make his apologists (accusing a Gold Star mother of treason etc.) look like they have no good position of their own; it does make it look like his policies are simple, indefensible stubbornness; and it does undercut the remaining popular support for the war. If there’s something he has to gain from this on the other side of the ledger, kindly explain what it is.
Quite correct, which just goes to show what a dumbass Bush was for refusing to meet with her before this blew up into a potent symbol of his dumbassery and detachment.
I read some of these posts and some in the Pit about the right wing smear machine.
So Cindy changed her story about her first meeting with Bush? So what? What does that prove? Do you suppose their are a few others in the country who supported Bush and the war at first who have since changed their stories? Yah! A couple. You want an upsetting example of someone changeing their story? Look at Bush speeches during the 2000 election and most of what he’s done since. Look at his rational for going to war and what has been revealed since then.
So somehow this woman changing her mind about what is probably the most traumatic event of her life totally discredits and renders menaingless anything she has to say but the those rules don’t apply to GWB who’s decisions affects millions of lives all over the world. Give me a break.
So her family members don’t agree with her. So what? What does that prove? Does it in any way invalidate anything she has to say? Not at all.
She and her husband are seperated. Again, what does that prove? Do any of these things invalidate what she has to say?
She is influenced by and in contact with Moore and MoveOn. Perhaps they assist her financially. Same questions So what? She is just a tool of the liberals.She’s being used. Yeah that’s right. So what. Does that make the war issue less real or less importent? ORielly and other white house shills may call Moore and MoveOn dangerous liberal radicals but that’s not the case, they’re only words repeated as often as possible so that people will be programed to believe it. {pssst, don’t listen to them, they don’t really love America like we do} I don’t like Moore and I have withdrew my support from MoveOn months ago. The reason is because I feel they are just as dishonest as this admin. is in pursuit of their agenda. That doesn’t make them dangerous radicals. Just political bullshiters like so many others. The dangerous one is the guy and his minions who are making policy.
Every time some white house mouthpiece makes some inference that anyone protesting the war is helping the enemy and hurting our troops I get angry. Let’s have a clue about how democracy actually works. I saw a father and mother on ORielly tha other night talking about how their son gave his life for the cause of freedom. OKay, I understand you believe that {although form their words I wondered if they had been coached on how to say it} I lived through the Vietnam era. I remember the same type of arguements. We want to believe in our country and our leaders. We want to believe that our soilders are fighting for a cause that is noble and true. I wanted to believe in that. Reality check. It isn’t always true.
During the Vietnam era public opinion began to swing as the years rolled by and the death toll mounted higher. Thats how it works. For those of you unfamiliar with it rent the Movie “The Pentagon Papers” or just do some reading on the internet.
Believe what you will. Support the war if you genuinely feel that way. Regardless of what your opinion is please don’t, I repeat **don’t ** think that people who disagree with you are just idiots. No matter what your opinion don’t just parrot the mindless drival spouted by mouthpieces from either side. Dishonesty and bullshit is the same from either camp. You can’t justify one kind of bullshit by pointing out that “they” have bullshit too.
Meh. You can look at individual politcal decisions and say some of them were “dumbass” moves, but taken as a whole, his political decisions got him into the White House twice. Dumbass? The results say otherwise.
I have no doubt that many of Bush’s detractors would like nothing more than to see him publicly humiliated. The idea that Bush would willingly set himself up for that humiliation is wishful thinking of the most absurd kind.
How would meeting her be “public”? None of his prior meetings with families have been in public.
He could simply call her into the house between his two hour bike ride, and his daily nap, and chat her up for ten minutes. Not hard, quite efficient, and poof, the entire story goes away. He looks like a hero talking to a loon. But like I said before, he’s too stubborn to do it.
I think this guy driving his truck through their memorial display gave Bush the perfect opportunity to talk to her. Now he could take her inside, give her half an hour and he could say he did it to protect her from loonies.
Hard to argue with results.
True, the meeting itself would not be “public”, but every news channel would be fixated on this meeting, showing a distant view of the ranch with taking heads speculating on what was going on. Afterwards, you can expect hours and hours of interviews and discussion of every single word that Ms Sheehan recounts from the meeting. Yes, the story might die down quicker, but there’d still be much public hand wringing over the meeting.
As others have noted, this is a lose/lose situation for Bush. Personally, when I’m in a situation like that, maintaining the status quo almost always is the best course of action. It’s the old “devil you know vs the devil you don’t know”.