He grieves

Our President conveyed a message via the press to Cindy Sheehan today. Cindy Sheehan is the mother of a soldier killed in Baghdad in 2004. She's currently camped out near Bush's vacationland, trying to get him to meet with her for one hour. Bush refuses to do so, having met with Sheehan in June 2004. But he says that he "grieves" for those soldiers who have died in Iraq. Not only does he grieve, but "(i)t breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."

I know that there's really little that Bush would say that would make me happy at this point, short of rolling over and playing dead, admitting he stole the election and lied to the world. But this statement seems so pitifully little and misguided. I do not care, nor do I imagine Cindy Sheehan cares, whether or not Bush "grieves" the losses of those 1845 US soldiers who've died thus far. I don't even care if he grieves the 23,000+ civilian Iraqi losses thus far. His grief is not at issue, nor is it THE issue.

And sweet Jesus. You'd think if he WAS going to make this kind of statement, someone would at least script it for him so he did it well. He understands the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place? Some? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and take a guess that everyone within a family feels anguish in such a situation.

Big leap of logic, I know.

But, again, I don't much care how Bush feels about all of the death that has been caused by this war on terror. What I do care about deeply is what he does about all the death that has been caused by this war on terror. And, as far as I can tell from reading about Cindy Sheehan, that's all she wants to hear about, too.

Keep your grief to yourself, George. True or false, it's demeaning to this woman who truly knows grief. Give her answers, not pap.