{"id":4951,"date":"2005-08-11T13:37:02","date_gmt":"2005-08-11T17:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4951.html"},"modified":"2005-08-11T13:37:02","modified_gmt":"2005-08-11T17:37:02","slug":"maybe-bush-should-follow-nixons-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/maybe-bush-should-follow-nixons-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Bush should follow Nixon’s lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The political world has justifiably turned its attention towards Cindy Sheehan<\/a>, who continues to wait for the opportunity to ask her president about the war that killed her son. It’s unlikely, but truthout’s William Rivers Pitt noted yesterday that Bush, who’s already followed Richard Nixon’s example in a variety of other ways, could follow his lead<\/a> in dealing with Sheehan and the other protestors who’ve gathered in Crawford.<\/p>\n

In May of 1970, right after the Kent State shootings, when civil unrest across the nation had reached a fever pitch and opposition to the war had roared again to the forefront, Nixon woke his personal valet in the middle of the night. He grabbed a few Secret Service agents and set off for the Lincoln Memorial. There, he spent an hour talking with a large gathering of war protesters encamped around the monument.<\/p>\n

The Time Magazine article from May 18, 1970, recalls the scene this way: “When the conversation turned to the war, Nixon told the students: ‘I know you think we are a bunch of so and so’s.'” Before he left, Nixon said: ‘I know you want to get the war over. Sure you came here to demonstrate and shout your slogans on the ellipse. That’s all right. Just keep it peaceful. Have a good time in Washington, and don’t go away bitter.’ The singular odyssey went on. Nixon and his small contingent wandered through the capital, then drove to the Mayflower Hotel for a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs — his first restaurant meal in Washington since he assumed power. Then he withdrew to his study in the Executive Office Building to sit out the day of protest.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m trying hard to even imagine Bush leaving his bubble long enough to engage Sheehan for an hour, talking about the war. It just doesn’t seem possible. I hope he proves me wrong, but there’s no reason to believe he will.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, if the president did decide to speak with Sheehan, there can be little doubt that he’d get the candid opinions of an articulate woman. Consider, for example, Sheehan’s response<\/a> this morning to Michelle Malkin’s suggestion that Casey Sheehan, Cindy’s son killed in Iraq, would disapprove of his mother’s efforts.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know Casey knew Michelle Malkin… I’m Casey’s mother and I knew him better than anybody else in the world… I can’t bring Casey back, but I wonder how often Michelle Malkin sobbed on his grave. Did she go to his funeral? Did she sit up with him when he was sick when he was a baby?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bush isn’t afraid of setting a bad precedent by talking to a protestor; he’s afraid of looking ridiculous by discussing his failure with someone who’s vastly more articulate than he is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The political world has justifiably turned its attention towards Cindy Sheehan, who continues to wait for the opportunity to ask her president about the war that killed her son. It’s unlikely, but truthout’s William Rivers Pitt noted yesterday that Bush, who’s already followed Richard Nixon’s example in a variety of other ways, could follow his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}