Late one night last year, while her husband was an Army scout in Iraq, Melissa Storey sat in the quiet of her bedroom to write President Bush a letter. She wanted him to know “we believed in him.” And after Staff Sgt. Clint Storey, 30, was killed by a roadside bomb, his widow put pen to paper again.
“I felt like I needed to let him know I don’t hate him because my husband is dead,” Mrs. Storey said, “that I don’t blame him for Clint dying over there.”
The correspondence did not go unnoticed. In May, Mrs. Storey received a surprise telephone call from the White House inviting her to a Memorial Day reception there. As she mingled at the elegant gathering, too nervous to eat, her 5-year-old daughter clutching her dress, her infant son cradled in her arms, a military aide appeared. The president wanted to see her in the Oval Office.
The Storeys, of Palmer, Mass., joined a growing list of bereaved families granted a private audience with the commander in chief. As Mr. Bush forges ahead with the war in Iraq, these “families of the fallen,” as the White House calls them, are one constituency he can still count on, a powerful reminder to an unpopular president that even in the face of heartbreaking loss, some still believe he is doing the right thing.
This story is nothing but Bush administration propoganda. The real story is why Bush doesn’t invite the war protester/Dad who lost a son to the White House and comfort him. After all, each and every death in Iraq is the result of an immoral and unjustified war. Relatives are desparate to justify these losses. The collateral damage has been great. And rather than stop the war so no more soldiers die for a lie, Bush uses this tragic loss as a photo op! Sickening!
Fred, yes we are all aware of how the New York Times is in the back pocket of the Bush Administration. *snicker*
You just keep getting worse. Are there any more bumper stickers you’d like to quote?
Actually, Fred, a lot of us think this war is an infinitely more noble and worthwhile American endeavor than that time Bill Clinton butchered a whole lot of Serbs for a non-existent “genocide.”
“…these “families of the fallen,†as the White House calls them, are one constituency he can still count on…”
Why does everything these days come down to “constituency”s?
It offends me. Most reporters do.
I was thinking the same thing, Don.
Fred says: “This story is nothing but Bush administration propoganda. The real story is why Bush doesn’t invite the war protester/Dad who lost a son to the White House and comfort him.”
That’s what YOU want the story to be. Aside from being short-sighted on the reason we’re there, it seems you can’t stand to read anything that puts the president in a positive light.
right Fred, and if he ignored these families I’m sure that would please you to no end. no, of course, then he would be the heartless uncaring President who won’t meet the soldiers’ families.
Bush has made many mistakes, but you can clearly see he is a man of faith, and he really gives a d+++ about what he does. There is no pretending ala Bill and Hillary….