That's how low we have come, that Bush sends another mother to fight Cindy Sheehan:
Borrowing the words of a military mother whose husband and five sons have served in Iraq, President Bush told thousands of soldiers and airmen Wednesday that winning the war was worth the sacrifice of losing lives.
By invoking Tammy Pruett of Pocatello, Idaho, Bush's speech to Idaho National Guard members and Air Force personnel marked the latest effort by the White House to respond to growing antiwar protests being led largely by relatives of fallen troops.
"There are few things in life more difficult than seeing a loved one go off to war," Bush told an audience of more than 9,000 crammed into the Idaho Center in Nampa, a Boise suburb.
"Tammy says this — and I want you to hear this: 'I know that if something happens to one of the boys, they would leave this world doing what they believe, what they think is right for our country. And I guess you couldn't ask for a better way of life than giving it for something that you believe in.'
"America lives in freedom because of families like the Pruetts," Bush said.
Well, the wingnuts have always talked in emotions, not with logic, and so this step is fairly natural for Bush. I'm tired of the microwars that are being waged, like this one, because they give us no new information about the fundamental question: Why did Bush invade Iraq in the first place and how is he going to get us out?
His idea is to imply that getting killed in Iraq serves some high and worthy goal, but the problem is that he can't mention a single one that evidence would support is actually being served. He didn't find weapons of mass destruction, he didn't find any terrorists until he lured them in himself, and he isn't bringing a secular democracy into Iraq or freedom for the sixty percent of the citizens who happen to be women.
He says something on this last question:
Bush, who in recent days praised Iraqi government officials for their work on the constitution, seemed to acknowledge Wednesday that the process was not all positive.
Still, he expressed confidence that the Iraqi talks, like the United States' constitutional struggles two centuries ago, would have a happy ending.
Like the U.S. Founding Fathers, Bush said, "they will come up with a system that respects the traditions of their country and guarantees the rights of all their citizens."
The U.S. Founding Fathers gave no votes to blacks or women, of course. But at least they left a constitution that allowed amending. A theocratic constitution (such as the one in Afghanistan) doesn't allow amending, ever. And really, if Bush had asked before the war how many would volunteer to die for the right of creating another Islamic theocracy, do you think that he would have had many takers?