Bush Sacrifices Golf & The Left Gets Mad

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The left is going apes&^t over this Bush statement:

US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said in an interview for Yahoo! News and Politico magazine.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body’s top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do,” said Bush.

And while the statement “I give up golf for the troops” does sound bad without the context being included, the heat being generated by the left is not deserved. No one can say this man has not felt the pain of the families over there.

One anti-war widow said she used the opportunity to voice her objections to Bush’s policies.

“I said it’s time to stop the bleeding,” said Hildi Halley, whose husband, Army National Guard Capt. Patrick Damon, died June 15 in Afghanistan. “It’s time to swallow our pride and find a solution.”

She said Bush responding by saying “there was no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war.”

The president became emotional, Halley said, when she tearfully described the impact her 41-year-old husband’s death has had on herself and their two kids, ages 12 and 14, both of whom attended the meeting.

“He wept and hugged me and apologized for my pain,” Halley said.

Bush, though, has privately visited families at Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Polk, La.; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Lewis and Camp Pendleton, Calif., among others. In most cases, families are placed in separate rooms in a building on a military base. The president shuttles from room to room, meeting privately with each family. That leaves only secondhand accounts of how the president acts when he has to look a grieving mother in the eye.

Former White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan has described the private meetings as an “appropriate” way to meet with the families of fallen soldiers, so the president can “express his appreciation both as commander in chief and on behalf of the American people.”

Some families praised Bush. “He was very personable,” Sherri Orlando said in a telephone conversation from Fort Campbell, Ky., where she works in the Fort Campbell public affairs office. Orlando’s husband, Army Lt. Col. Kim S. Orlando, was killed when a group of Iraqis opened fire on him and fellow soldiers on a road near a mosque in Karbala, Iraq, in October 2003. “He was very sincere. He was very sympathetic. It was delightful meeting with him.”

Tears rolled down George W. Bush’s cheeks. Twice, Hildi Halley handed him a tissue. Otherwise, she didn’t let up on the president.

“I hold you responsible for my husband’s death,” she says she told him as they sat facing one another, alone in a teacher’s lounge, their knees almost touching. “You made a mistake, and it’s your responsibility as a Christian man to end this war.”

“I’m really not here to discuss public policy with you,” she says Bush told her at the meeting in August 2006, two months after her husband, Army National Guard Cap. Patrick Damon, died in Afghanistan.

As the president rose to leave after 20 minutes, he said he hoped the visit would help the Falmouth, Maine, woman heal. Halley, 42, replied, “What would really help my healing is if you’d start finding a way to bring our troops home.”

Bush, 61, has so far met with more than 1,500 relatives of the 4,255 American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to White House officials. As he travels around the country, the president often makes the time to console them — one family at a time, often including children — in sessions that he calls “one of the hardest things” about his job.

In most of the meetings, the aides say, he hears support for his policies, hardening his resolve to stay the course in Afghanistan and Iraq. Little is otherwise known about the meetings, and the White House doesn’t disclose the names of participants.

Amy Galvez, 46, whose Marine son, Adam, 21, was killed in Iraq, says she told Bush that she supports the war and believes in his sincerity. “The worst thing that could happen is if we quit this war before we finished it,” she says she told Bush during her Aug. 31, 2006, meeting in Salt Lake City. “He promised me that would not happen.”

Few average citizens get such close-up, unmediated access to modern presidents. Access to Bush is rarer still because his aides go to great lengths to shield him from unpleasant encounters or criticism.

Participants and witnesses say the sessions provide a window onto Bush’s compassionate side. “There are few things as heart-wrenching,” says former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who attended many meetings. “Every single time, he’d be moved to tears.”

And I have documented some of the moments myself when Bush has been moved to tears during ceremonies for slain soldiers.

Tell me, what IS he supposed to do to support the troops other then fight to ensure the losses have not been in vain. To ensure they get the support they need and the leaders they deserve. THAT is how he supports the troops and all he is saying is that he gave up something he loves to do because it would look disrespectful. Ace puts it eloquently as usual:

Certainly Bush’s sacrifice lacks the gravity of what our soldiers sacrifice. But that’s the nature of gestures, after all. You can name your kid after the doctor who saved your life, but that’s hardly full and fair repayment of a debt, either.

I guess I would ask this of the left: What, precisely, have they given up in solidarity with our troops? Why are these special obligations only imposed vindictively on their political opponents and never themselves? They all claim to be in favor of “fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan;” what symbolic gestures have they themselves made in support of our troops?

Apart from writing snarky blog posts and issuing Important Action Alerts and Pretty Vicious Rants, I’m having trouble remembering any lefty doing anything at all to support our troops. Oh yeah, except to agitate for defunding them.

Its a gesture for the troops. Nothing wrong with that at all. In the end we all know what this is about:

GWB could spend all of his time attending the funerals of service men and women, give money to their spouses, establish trust funds for their children, cook dinner for their extended families, bathe their dogs and gas up their cars and the left would accuse him of trying to buy his penance and salve his conscience so he could keep killing “our children” and innocent Iraqis.

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No matter what Bush does, or doesn’t do, some people will never be happy.

Anyone who thinks that his responsibility and the burden he bears daily does not wear on him should look at his photos from 2001 and compare them to today.

If anyone is interested in context, read Buzz Patterson’s description of dumbshitdraftdodger Billy Jeff Clinton’s attitudes about golf vs. national security. Past Pres. Billy Jeff oozed contempt for the military, and the military paid him back in kind. Billy Jeff was bad, Billary is much worse, and Obamessiah is the worst of all!!

Will this great personal sacrifice done by our President allow his approval ratings to rise above the freezing point ? only time will tell.

President Bush could have said that he has the Secret Service flogg him 25 times for each death every day, and they’d still imagine he doesn’t care. Their only interest is in Bush-hate.

Reminds me of a scene I once saw in a fantastic HBO film about how the holocaust was ordered. At the end of the movie, the NAZI generals are sitting around and discussing their meeting with the other people who authorized and formed the genocide. They talk about one of the Germans who was opposed to it, and they tell a story. The story is that there was a man who was beaten by his father for years and years. When the young man became an adult, his mother died, but the young man-hardened by years of abuse-didn’t shed a tear. He felt the terrible loss, but had learned the hard way how to hold back his tears. Later in his life, his father passed away. At the funeral, the son wept uncontrollably. “Why did he cry for his abusive father and not his loving mother?” asked the other generals.

Because with the man’s father gone, the son now had no one to hate.

George Bush has been a lame duck President for almost 2 years, and he’s still hated even more and more by the left. Soon, he’ll be gone, and the mantra will of course be the same as that which many people (myself included) still claim about cleaning up the previous President’s mess. But only so much responsibility can go to earlier Presidents.

We can point out that Clinton let UBL get away for years and years, but GWB has failed to get him too.
We can point out that Clinton bred the reformation of AQ and UBL’s decision to kill Americans by continuing to let Saddam stay in power, but to do so ignores the fact that AQ is still in power, and Iraq is still a work in progress
We can point out that Clinton left office with an economy in collapse, a recession starting on innauguration day, and a dot-com bubble that busted more than burst, but it ignores the reality of 2009.
We can point out that Clinton did nothing to bring the USS Cole plotters to justice, but so too has the Bush Admin
We can point out that Clinton left the nation’s political wings deeply divided and spiteful towards each other, but it ignores that Bush will have failed to unite the nation as well by 2009

There’s plenty of blame for America’s problems. This President or that, this party or that, but the fact is that acidic morons who see only good from the red or the blue are the people who cause these problems. You don’t unite a nation filled with people who have different opinions by picking fights and arguments with “the other side.” No, you have to be a bit liberal; open-minded. You have to try and understand what people are saying, and then you have to try and convince them to work together. Clinton failed. Bush failed (utterly in this matter above all others). Hillary Clinton is far too polarizing to ever make such unity happen. Barack Obama sings a nice song, but that’s it. He still polarizes the nation, and he does nothing to quell division in what is supposed to be the United States. John McCain…well, his policies have the benefit of ticking off people from both sides of the aisle, and his charisma is as exciting as Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford’s. American history is packed with hero Presidents and boring Presidents. Maybe he’s the guy, but will a nation that votes more for American Idol vote for substance or sizzle? Will the left continue with their BDS, or will they weep when they have no one left to hate as the NAZI generals did in that movie?

I wonder what the Dim Congress is going to do to raise their approval ratings considering that they are even lower than President Bush’s numbers.

President Bush is unpopular for doing the right thing, even when it is difficult.

Congress is unpopular for doing nothing, because that’s easier.

See below – hit the wrong button

Nice try, Curt. Except that Bush was seen golfing months after he supposedly gave it up. So it was a lie. More to the point, it was – typically – a stupid thing to say. And it’s not just “the left” that feels that way. Which brings me to Scott. Bush has a 70% disapproval rating. Over 80% of the public think the country is headed in the wrong direction. His record is dragging down the entire Republican party and brand as we speak. If instead of being the wastrel son of a competent, experienced President, Bush had actually been the agent of a hostile foreign power, actively working 24/7 to undermine our military, our finances, our Constitution, our confidence in our institutions, our image abroad, and our self-image, and to strengthen our enemies (particularly Iran) I don’t think he could have done much worse than he has. And you’re still worked up about “the left.” The “right” better get off this particular bugaboo – our country is in serious trouble, and the first step toward changing that is confronting the real situation and problems we face, not creating fake enemies and straw men that allow us to feel self-righteous and enable us to avoid the hard issues – including our own misjudgments and the mistakes of those WE have supported for far too long.

Sorry Winston.

If you’re going to make claims that “Bush lied” then you need to be prepared to show some proof.

Do you have sources and/or other info to support your claims?

From Winston’s link:

The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the world body’s top official in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do,” said Bush.

Bush’s last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news.

So he misremembered, and golfed one time after? Ok.

When Aye Chihuahua asked you:

Do you have sources and/or other info to support your claims?

I think he was referring to all of your other assertions, which you accept as given facts that made you say

And you’re still worked up about “the left.”

Ah yes.

From the “Meticulously Created/Fabricated (When Convenient) Records Department” of cBS.

These are the same folks who brought us the quickly debunked National Guard memos which were, by their own admission, “fake, but accurate”.

Sorry, I don’t buy into anything that cBS has to say.

Nothing.

No, you have to be a bit liberal; open-minded. You have to try and understand what people are saying, and then you have to try and convince them to work together.

Have you ever tried to talk to a liberal. It is impossible and like talking to a brick wall. There is no truth only opinions.
and if they can’t convince you of their take of any issue they get snarky and start calling you names and use profanity. There is no way in hell to unite this country unless conservatives give up all ideals and opinions and let the liberal truth stand. They are right and we are wrong. And witness they still have this asinine idea Bush is on the ballot in November. BDS is alive and well. They have BDS so bad they are willing to take a chance on the survival of this country in order to feed their disease.

I recall Bush being demonized by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 for playing golf after the attacks by al-Qaeda. So which is it? Is it insenstive to play golf while we’re at war and soldiers are dying or not? The left is so schitzo it can’t make up its mind.

Amy wrote:

I recall Bush being demonized by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 for playing golf after the attacks by al-Qaeda. So which is it?

Christopher Hitchens:

The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that’s what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.

And Moore’s deception:

The TV ads for Michael Moore’s “documentary” Fahrenheit 9/11 feature a mocking clip of President Bush on a golf course. Bush declares, “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorists killers,” and then Moore jumps to Bush adding, as he prepares to swing at a golf ball, “now watch this drive.” Tuesday night on FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, Brian Wilson noted how “the viewer is left with the misleading impression Mr. Bush is talking about al-Qaeda terrorists.” But Wilson disclosed that “a check of the raw tape reveals the President is talking about an attack against Israel, carried out by a Palestinian suicide bomber.”

It amazes me the things that BDS leads people to complain about. Personally, I don’t think that Bush is the greatest President ever but I think he has done an excellent job overall. Which reminds me, people keep bring up these approval ratings – I’ve never been asked whether I approve of the President, or Congress.