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Anti-War Protesters March Toward Bush Ranch
Reuters ^ | Saturday, August 6, 2005 | Steve Holland

Posted on 08/06/2005 1:39:55 PM PDT by kristinn

CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug 6 (Reuters) - About 70 anti-war protesters marched toward President George W. Bush's ranch on Saturday shouting "bring the troops home now" from Iraq, led by a California mother whose son was killed in combat in Baghdad.

The protest coincided with release of a Newsweek poll that said 61 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq. The poll came after more than two dozen Americans were killed in the past week in Iraq.

Newsweek said it was Bush's lowest rating on Iraq and the first time it had dropped below 40 percent in its poll. Pentagon officials have said maintaining public support for the war is key to the troops' morale.

The group of protesters, including U.S. veterans from the Iraq and Vietnam wars, were loud yet peaceful and McLennan County sheriff's deputies, trying to avoid arrests, stopped them on a road about 5 miles (8 km) from Bush's ranch on a hot August day.

The march was led by Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, California, who blames Bush for the death of her son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, 24, killed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad.

"I want to ask the president, why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" Sheehan, carrying a picture of her son, told reporters.

"W. killed her son! W. killed her son!" the crowd shouted. They also shouted "Bring the troops home now" and held up signs with slogans such as "Impeach the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief."

The protesters, many who came from a peace rally in Dallas, first drove toward the ranch in a school bus painted red, white and blue. It was stopped at a police checkpoint and the protesters got out and walked.

Police allowed the group to walk on the side of the road for about a half mile but then stopped them when some in the group walked on the street itself.

After some protesters left, a small group led by Sheehan vowed to stage a vigil on the side of the road until someone representing the White House came out to talk to her.

While no one from the White House immediately emerged, White House officials were aware of the protest.

"We mourn the loss of every life and Americans deeply appreciate those who have made the supreme sacrifice. The way to honor that sacrifice is to complete the mission so that their lives were not lost in vain," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

"The president has met with hundreds of families of those fallen. He grieves with all those who have lost loved ones," he said.

UPBEAT ON ECONOMY

As Americans question his Iraq policy, Bush crowed about the strength of the U.S. economy on Saturday and credited his hotly debated tax cuts for the growth.

Bush was upbeat in his weekly radio address a day after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 207,000 jobs last month, a stronger-than-expected gain.

"Recent economic reports show that our economy is growing faster than any other major industrialized nation," he said from his ranch.

Bush renewed his call for making permanent the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in his first term. Democrats believe the tax cuts have done little more than drain the U.S. budget and even some Republicans doubt the wisdom of extending them.

"The tax relief stimulated economic vitality and growth and it has helped increase revenues to the Treasury," Bush said, adding later, "We need to make the tax relief permanent."

Bush spoke at the end of the first week of his 33-day working vacation.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Texas; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: crawford; lefties; militaryfamilies; protest
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To: tgslTakoma
V.F.P. is a Communist / Marxist front organization with connections to Kerry.
101 posted on 08/06/2005 4:41:10 PM PDT by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: All
This is how it went during Vietnam. If we don't push back, the left and the terrorists will win the propaganda battle. Americans don't lose wars on the battlefield--we lose them at home


Can we please stop with this desperate need on both the Political Right and Left to make everything an analogy for Vietnam? This war is NOTHING like Vietnam. I should write a thread about all the difference between the two! Rather then hyperventilating about some wacko leftist rent a mob staging a propaganda demonstration that they can brag up in their next fund raising letter to aging boomer trust fund babies, let us treat them as the irrelevant fringe wackos they are. In case you all haven't noticed, they have staged thousands of similar little propaganda ploys in the last 2 years. What they do not seem to realize is just how irrelevant they are. Bush is President until Jan 2009 and there is not ONE thing the Hysteric Left can do about it
102 posted on 08/06/2005 4:50:08 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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To: upchuck

"It appears to me, Cindy, that after a lot of bluster and noise, your dinky protest accomplished little."

Or to misquote Shakespear, what is today's Hysteric Left?

"It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."


103 posted on 08/06/2005 4:59:04 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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To: MNJohnnie
Disagree.

We (regular, conservative folk) ignore them. The media reports (most often glowingly) on their little tantrum marches. They continue to hold these "peace marches" and "peace vigils" and we continue to ignore them. The media continues to report on them. Their numbers grow, as their infrastructure refines itself and they focus their message and recruit more grieving family members to be their frontline spokesmen.

And the other regular folks, those without any strong political allegiances, see those news reports; and not seeing any counter viewpoint being reported, will begin to think, "Hmmmm... maybe the war IS a bad thing. Maybe I should send these poor, goodhearted peace folks some money. And maybe I should call my congressman and tell him to get us out of Iraq."

Sow doubt. Sow dissent.

So then we have a repeat of Vietnam. That's my take on it.

104 posted on 08/06/2005 5:00:07 PM PDT by tgslTakoma
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To: kristinn

CNN will replay this until the DVD breaks or the tape wears out.


105 posted on 08/06/2005 5:02:23 PM PDT by hershey
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To: tgslTakoma
Sow doubt. Sow dissent.

So then we have a repeat of Vietnam. That's my take on it.

Ah no. As I pointed out. They have staged thousands of these little hissy fits since Dec 2000. Remind me again, who won the election in Nov 2004?

Look I know Vietnam was a formative period for a certain generation of Americans but it is completely intellectually bankrupt to compare the two.

Start with just the most obvious flaw. 9-11. The Vietnam war did not start with the mass murder of 3000 American Civilians. Most Americans could not understand why we were in Vietnam, they do understand Iraq. In all the hissy fits about Bush's poll numbers, the Dinosaur media missed the absolute vital one. 60% of Americans when asked say Iraq is "the right thing to do" Considering how rarely we get any poll numbers showing such a majority on an issue, THAT number is the significant fact. All you have to do to understand it is look around Freeper land. About 1/3 of Freepers think we are to GENTAL in fighting Terrorism. What the bone heads in the Dinosaur media do not understand is Bush's Iraq number does NOT translate into any significant support for the Democrats cut and run strategy. The usual clowns in the Dinosaur media assume the link but, as usual, that is case of them writing the story they WISH was happening, rather then the one that actually IS happening. I also find it interesting that the "media" is not reporting that fact that 57% of respondents think the American "News" media's coverage is actively undercutting our efforts in the war.
106 posted on 08/06/2005 5:12:21 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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To: MNJohnnie

I can see your point, but when you say that 9/11 is one of the big differences...

I disagree, because the same MSM that shows these piddling little protests, over and over, also show the congresscritters saying, over and over that the war in Iraq doesn't have anything to do with 9/11.

Therefore, a lot of the people that may now be saying they are against it, but once were FOR it, may be succumbing to the constant drumbeat of anti-war propaganda the the libs and dems have been screaming since 2002!

RE: the war in Vietnam, I was too young to know how the war was handled in the run-up to the John Kerry/Jane Fonda anti-war hearings and protests...so I don't know if we are replicating that now or not.


107 posted on 08/06/2005 5:33:57 PM PDT by Txsleuth (Mark Levin for Supreme Court Justice)
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To: Txsleuth
Therefore, a lot of the people that may now be saying they are against it, but once were FOR it, may be succumbing to the constant drumbeat of anti-war propaganda the the libs and dems have been screaming since 2002


Well I can find no data to support your assumptions, so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
108 posted on 08/06/2005 5:36:06 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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To: kristinn; tgslTakoma

I predict that President Bush will meet with Cindy Sheehan before the day is out tomorrow.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050806/ap_on_re_us/bush_peace_mom

Mom Protesting Iraq War Meets Bush Aides By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
41 minutes ago

CRAWFORD, Texas - The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch Saturday, demanding an accounting from Bush of how he has conducted the war in Iraq

Supported by more than 50 demonstrators who chanted, "W. killed her son!" Cindy Sheehan told reporters: "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?'" Sheehan, 48, didn't get to see Bush, but did talk about 45 minutes with national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin, who went out to hear her concerns.

Appreciative of their attention, yet undaunted, Sheehan said she planned to continue her roadside vigil, except for a few breaks, until she gets to talk to Bush. Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. He was an Army specialist, a Humvee mechanic.

"They (the advisers) said we are in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that the world's a better place with Saddam gone and that we're making the world a safer place with what we're doing over there," Sheehan said in a telephone interview after the meeting.

"They were very respectful. They were nice men. I told them Iraq was not a threat to the United States and that now people are dead for nothing. I told them I wouldn't leave until I talked to George Bush."

She said Hagin told her, "I want to assure you that he (Bush) really does care."

"And I said if he does care, why doesn't he come out and talk to me."

Sheehan arrived in Crawford aboard a bus painted red, white and blue and emblazoned with the words, "Impeachment Tour." Sheehan, from Vacaville, Calif., had been attending a Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas.

The bus, trailed by about 20 cars of protesters and reporters, drove at about 15 mph toward Bush's ranch. After several miles, they parked the vehicles and began to march, in stifling heat, farther down the narrow country road.

Flanked by miles of pasture, Sheehan spoke with reporters while clutching two photographs, one of her son in uniform, and the other, a baby picture, when he was seven months old.

She said she decided to come to Crawford a few days ago after Bush said that fallen U.S. troops had died for a noble cause and that the mission must be completed.

"I want to ask the president, `Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Last week, you said my son died for a noble cause' and I want to ask him what that noble cause is?"

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said response that Bush also wants the troops to return home safely.

"Many of the hundreds of families the president has met with know their loved one died for a noble cause and that the best way to honor their sacrifice is to complete the mission," Duffy said.

"It is a message the president has heard time and again from those he has met with and comforted. Like all Americans, he wants the troops home as soon as possible."

The group marched about a half-mile before local law enforcement officials stopped them at a bend in the road, still four to five miles from the ranch's entrance. Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office said the group was stopped because some marchers ignored instructions to walk in the ditch beside the road, not on the road.

"If they won't cooperate, we won't," Vanek said.


109 posted on 08/06/2005 5:41:28 PM PDT by leadpenny
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To: new yorker 77
"No one cares about 70 losers in Texas" ................. Agree. What a joke Libs always try to make a plural out of a singular.
110 posted on 08/06/2005 5:49:25 PM PDT by SunnySide (Ephes2:8 ByGraceYou'veBeenSavedThruFaithAGiftOfGodSoNoOneCanBoast)
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To: leadpenny
"They were very respectful. They were nice men. I told them Iraq was not a threat to the United States and that now people are dead for nothing. I told them I wouldn't leave until I talked to George Bush."

So I guess we should use intell reports from civilians from now on!
/for the sarcasm impaired.
This greiving civi is understandably upset, and not able to reason through the emotions involved. The commies taking advantage of her situation should be tried for SEDITION!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!


Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes

111 posted on 08/06/2005 6:14:14 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist ("If it's brown, drink it down. If it's black send it back." Homer's guide to drinking in Springfield)
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To: kristinn

Excellent point Kristin.

The title should read, "Anti American Marxist Front Groups March Toward Bush Ranch." Then it would be correct.


112 posted on 08/06/2005 6:17:06 PM PDT by ladyinred (Here come the judges!)
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To: texianyankee
and held up signs with slogans such as "Impeach the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief."

Combining this with your comments about the chiggers, snakes, and stickers who are the chickens here? LOL

113 posted on 08/06/2005 6:19:13 PM PDT by ladyinred (Here come the judges!)
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To: MNJohnnie
So CNN, ABC, CBS and a couple hundred newspapers across the country have reported on this group's protest, and you are trying to tell me that none of it will have any effect at all on public opinion.

Alrighty then.

What about the effect that this kind of protest, and its subsequent reporting by practically every news outlet in this country, will have on the US military who see and read the news reports?

Do you think they will be so nonchalant about it, or will they be angry? Will they begin to question their role in this "illegitimate war" and will they begin to wonder if many or most Americans also share these protesters opinion?

Is that a risk worth taking?

Photos taken by a protester, at the bottom of this report page.

No, this will never turn into another Vietnam.

114 posted on 08/06/2005 6:23:56 PM PDT by tgslTakoma
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To: tgslTakoma
So CNN, ABC, CBS and a couple hundred newspapers across the country have reported on this group's protest, and you are trying to tell me that none of it will have any effect at all on public opinion.
Alrighty then.

And as I keep pointing out to you and you refuse to address. There have been THOUSANDS of these little geek parties since Dec 2000.

Who won the election in Nov 2004?

Who is President until Jan 2009?

Which party gained seats in both houses of Congress in 2002 and 2004 elections? Sorry, your emotion based FEELING do NOT translate into any objective data. I am curious why you have such a need to invest our political foes with relevance and power they do not have? These people are the Leftist version of the KKK or the Ayran Nation. All you have to do is read a bit of their hate filled screeds or watch a couple of "protest" marches to realize the ONLY people who take these people seriously are their lap dogs in the Dinosaur Media.

Here is a little factual data for you to chew on. In recent Pew Press poll, 60% of respondents said the American News Media was actively undercutting our efforts in the War. Doesn't seem to be any evidence to support your emotional assumptions about how effective these little Hysteric Left propaganda exercises are now does it? I am sorry you are so emotionally scared by Vietnam but there is NO evidence available to back up your emotion based conclusions about these people.
115 posted on 08/06/2005 6:34:21 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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To: tgslTakoma
I agree with you. They are using the Vietnam template to try and turn the country against the war on teror.

We have to think of a counter strategy.

I suggest that we fund groups who will place television ads explaining why we are in Iraq, why we aren't leaving, why we need to continue the effort.

Unless we have some public explanations, we are going to be hurt by the MSM. The President speaks often, but it doesn't help much because of the MSM's control over what is coveed.

Ads are the key. I hope some of the 501c3's are willing to step up to the plate.

116 posted on 08/06/2005 6:37:51 PM PDT by Miss Marple (Karl Rove is Plame-proof.)
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To: leadpenny; All

There is a thread here on FR that has a post that says she already HAS met with President Bush...

He invited her to the White House a few months after her son died, and met with her and her daughter privately....she came out of the meeting saying that President Bush has soul less eyes, and doesn't care anything about the men....

If any of ya'll are interested, I can ping you to the thread.


117 posted on 08/06/2005 6:55:58 PM PDT by Txsleuth ( Mark Levin for Supreme Court Justice)
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To: MNJohnnie

The only "data" I go on, (and it is prolly a mistake), are the different polling numbers NOW, than before...re: Americans changing their minds.


118 posted on 08/06/2005 6:57:14 PM PDT by Txsleuth ( Mark Levin for Supreme Court Justice)
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To: tgslTakoma

LOL---I loved that one picture with the old guy in the tie-dyed shirt and bandana around his head...

WHOA, what decade does he think it is????

Sounds like Cindy's followers are deserting her...oh, well, it must be the good movies out right now..hehe


119 posted on 08/06/2005 7:05:58 PM PDT by Txsleuth ( Mark Levin for Supreme Court Justice)
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To: Txsleuth
The only "data" I go on, (and it is prolly a mistake), are the different polling numbers NOW, than before...re: Americans changing their minds.

Which polling data? Bush's Iraq approval number which the Hysteric Left hyperventilates about? Or the 57% in the SAME poll that says what we are doing in Iraq is "The RIGHT thing to do". Or how about the polls that show Bush's favborablity rating in the high 50s? As I keep pointing out to the doom and gloom crowd. Look around here. At least 1/3 of the Freepers think Bush is too GENTAL to the terrorists! So why you ask them what they think on Iraq, they disapprove of Bush but even MORE strongly disapprove of the Democrat's cut and run ideas. What to know what the real story should be? Despite a full court propaganda campaign by the Dims, 72% of Americans think the treatment of the terrorists at Gitmo is either "proper" or "better then they deserve"

What does that 28% approval rate for the Democrat's position tell you?

Finally, why are the Dinosaur Media and the Democrats hyping their latest poster child an IRAQ WAR VET running in a fly over country Congressional district?????

Sorry but data doesn't support the conclusions the Dinosaur media wants you to draw. Sorry but no amount of manufactured polling data from the Dinosaur Media changes this one basic fact the Hysteric Left will not deal with.

GW Bush is President of the USA until Jan 2009.
120 posted on 08/06/2005 7:09:25 PM PDT by MNJohnnie ( Iraq is a Terrorist bug hotel, Terrorists go in, they do not come out.)
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