Well, I feel bad, but I just voted “No” in Excite’s online poll asking whether Mr. Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan. Yes, she has a legitimate gripe. Yes, we don’t belong in Iraq and probably never did and need to get out. Yes, our President has not yet impressed me with an intellectual tour de force or his rapier-sharp delivery, but that doesn’t change the fact, for me, that he should not be meeting with this woman and encouraging every family member of someone we’ve lost to picket the ranch or The Whitehouse. And yes, we have no bananas.
It’s beneath the dignity of a world leader, and he has better things he should be tending to. This goes also for taking a 5-week vacation and reading Salt (see below).
So, yeah, he can invite her into the Crawford estate and talk her down for 5 weeks while he’s “off duty” and think long and hard about the boys overseas, but when the vacation’s up, I want to see plans for the budget, social security, education, homeland security, our impression on the world, our impact on the environment,and much, much more that actually make sense, morally, ethically, spiritually, financially, democratically, and every other way. Let’s have a war on poverty and homelessness, not stem cells, abortion, or gay marriage. Cripes.