The Ming Report

ONE SCARY LADY

August 8, 2005 - The President won’t see her. She is just one woman. No body ever heard of her before her son died. Even after his death she was just one more Gold Star Mother in a long line of mothers whose sons have died in the nation’s wars. Then something changed. Candy Sheehan began to ask out loud that question that haunts each Gold Star Mother. It is just one word followed by a question mark. The word is why. Her son died in Sadr City on April 4 last year. Today Ms. Sheehan is camped beside the road in the burning sun of a Texas August waiting to see the President to see if she can get an answer to her question. She has a message for the President and that message is that it is time to bring all the mothers’ sons home from Iraq. She says she will wait in the sun until the President sees her.

The White House spokesman says, “"The president knows one of his most important responsibilities is to comfort the families of the fallen. That is why he has personally met with and grieved with hundreds of families who have lost a loved one who made the ultimate sacrifice. We can only imagine how painful and difficult it must be for a mother to lose her son. Our hearts and prayers are always with the moms and dads and spouses and children of those who have fallen."

The President did meet with Ms. Sheehan and her family at Fort Lewis, Washington in June of the year that her son was killed in combat. According to the Gold Star Mother Mr. Bush acted like he was at a party. The President did not even know the dead boy’s name. Ms. Sheehan is just one of the more than 1825 mothers of American men and women whose lives have been sacrificed in this splendid little war. She is just one woman but she is a woman who the President fears to meet.

The White House is handling her with kid gloves. They sent National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin to try to talk her out of her vigil. It did not work. The local police stopped her as she walked down the road to the Crawford Ranch code named Prairie Chapel. That did not work either. She is camped out in an isolated spot of shade along that road and says she won’t leave until the President either sees her or goes back to Washington to run things.

The first of the 20 Ohio Marine Reservists killed last week was buried yesterday. The President was not there. He was at the Ranch. There will be 19 more funerals that he won’t attend. That is 20 new Gold Star Mothers and 20 new names for the President not to know and 20 new questions to be asked.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due to meet with the President next week at the ranch. They are scheduled to talk about the war. Maybe they will pass Ms. Sheehan camped along the road. Maybe one of them could pause a minute on the way in or on the way out to answer her question. Maybe one of them will give the President an answer so that he no longer needs to be afraid to meet with her. She is, after all, a very scary lady if you are President of the United States.