Permission to grieve (Does Bush know how to Grieve?)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05233/556984.stm

One mother who has lost her son in Iraq is charging that President Bush doesn't know the real costs of this war. The media has focused on Cindy Sheehan who, until her mother had a stroke, had set up vigil in Crawford, Texas, and said she wouldn't leave until she spoke to President Bush. She is not convinced that this president knows in his heart a parent's anguish when his or her child dies in war.

Her last meeting with Mr. Bush at Fort Lewis did not go so well. In an exchange, reported in the New York Times on Aug. 8, Mr. Bush told her that he could not imagine losing a loved one, a surprising remark, she thought, since he himself has two daughters who, like her son, Casey, are of service age. She said, "Trust me; you don't want to go there." Mr. Bush's reply, "You're right, I don't." Her reply, "Well, thanks for putting me there."

The exchange raises the question of whether this commander-in-chief knows in his heart the darkness of grief for those who make the ultimate sacrifice. The ban, until recently on media coverage of the returning dead as well as the president's limited visits to the grieving, force the same thought. Does this president know how to grieve?

In thinking about the president, one can't help but bring to mind the words of Shakespeare's archetypal Roman war leader Coriolanus, "It is no little thing to make mine eyes to sweat compassion."

Like Coriolanus, this president's preferred mode is stoicism, for himself, for the troops and for parents of those fighting. But stoicism, both the popular variety and the ancient forms, has its limits.

Nancy Sherman is the author of the newly released "Stoic Warriors." She is University Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown. She was the inaugural holder of the Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy.

[havocmom]

1. When his infant sister died, Poppy & Babs went to the club for a round

of golf. There's chapter one on the subject.

[kestrel91316]

4. I thought little Robin was 3 or 4 yrs old when she died.............

[Fridays Child]

2. Of course he knows how to grieve.

Like all good sociopaths, he can grieve for himself, just fine.

[PurityOfEssence]

3. Yep, and that's it.

Caring for others is a foreign concept. It's a laughable hobby of losers.

May he live to be 110; he will be reviled, and it will infuriate him.

[kestrel91316]

5. You get the gold star today for being RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

[Demeter]

6. What Has Bush Got To Grieve About?

His life is faultless, blameless, and problem free. He is such an innocent, he doesn't even know other people exist, let alone that they have problems. So if he's causing those problems, it's purely unintentional, and he should get a free pass, shouldn't he?

It's not hard to think like a psychopath. Just imagine you are two years old again.