Posted on 11/29/2005 11:56:53 PM PST by jmc1969
For about 20 minutes Tuesday, the MacKenzie family met privately with President Bush as he offered sympathy and listened to stories about Pfc. Tyler MacKenzie, a 20-year-old solider killed in Iraq earlier this month by a roadside bomb.
"We cried, and I had to pull out some Kleenex and give it to everyone else," Tyler's grandmother Mary MacKenzie said.
"I had to give some to the president, too, because he didn't have any."
Both David and Julie MacKenzie, along with grandparents Emmett and Mary MacKenzie, saw Bush speak at the Brown Palace Hotel before the Secret Service moved them to a quiet room to meet with the president.
Emmett MacKenzie, a 75-year-old Korean War veteran, said Bush reassured them that there would be no pullout of troops until Iraqis could provide their own security.
"He said we wouldn't quit, and we told him we didn't want to quit until the job was done," Emmett MacKenzie said.
"We want to continue, and we're behind him 100 percent."
Again, I am talking politics, not morality.
Impressive psychic powers, I must say.
Simple analysis. If there are any "psychic powers" involved, they belong to you, who claims to know what the president's foreign and domestic enemies think about a story of him grieving with a family who lost a son.
No, a deduction from this principle: Enemies (the jihadists, most of Europe, and one-third of America) are always looking for hints of weakness. Since they have contempt for Bush already, they will see this, rightly or wrongly, as a sign of weakness.
Why do you think that? The answer is because you think they will view him as weak. Why? Because you believe they think it is a sign of weakness for a man to cry. You don't really know what his enemies at home and abroad think about it. You just assume they see it as a sign of weakness. Why? Because some part of you buys into that notion yourself.
To which you replied in your #102, "impressive psychic powers..."
Now you come back and verify my #98 by saying:
Enemies (the jihadists, most of Europe, and one-third of America) are always looking for hints of weakness. Since they have contempt for Bush already, they will see this, rightly or wrongly, as a sign of weakness.
You don't don't acknowledge that is just your opinion. You don't say they MAY see it as a sign of weakness, but declaratively say they WILL. You can't know that. You can only surmise it. The reason you surmise it is because you must buy into the notion to some degree.
And I don't?
We should not be attempting to impress weak people.
Also - don't dish it out if you can't take it. Quit yer whinin' and cryin'.
You're outta your gourd .. and rather heartless to boot.
Did I say you didn't? Nope.
I haven't dished it out. I've expressed an unpopular viewpoint, objected to misunderstandings of that viewpoint, and complained when people have demanded that I shut up.
Some of you people can't seem to handle a different view than your own. Very unimpressive. To top it off, some of you resort to schoolyard taunts.
Drop the name-calling. Have I done any of this? No.
LOL
"the tears are not just for one man."
Understood, and I don't blame him for the tears. I just don't think these details should be widely shared.
Might I be wrong? Sure. But to respond to my unorthodox opinion with vicious personal insults, as some have, makes FReep look awful.
Whoa! Hope you didn't mean me ...........
I'll just say this.... I once had the honor(duty) a escorting a deceased Sailor's remains back to his family. Meeting the family as the command representative was the most difficult, gut wrenching, emotionally draining task I've undertaken in my life. I cannot imagine how difficult it is for the President to meet with hundreds of these families.
He doesn't have to do this...he does it voluntarily, privately and rarely talks about it. I applaud him.
Being a public servant doesn't necessarily rob one of one's humanity. I suspect that you are young. As you grow older you will come to understand why the President cries when he sees the sacrifices these families have made. They knew the risks and accepted them. They were proud to have a chance to pay a debt they felt they owed their country by serving in the Armed Forces, and as fait would have it, their son paid the ultimate measure of patriotism. Tears are small token, but they come from the heart.
Like most of my critics, you are ignoring my distinction between crying and being known to the whole world to cry.
But we can agree to disagree. What motivated me to respond to your comment was its civility. I only wish everyone else had kept the discussion mature. Some people, unfortunately, plunged into idiotic attacks on the order of a Bronx cheef.
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