Crooks and Liars Open Thread - Lose a spouse, gain a Presidential Coin

[baldguy]

As the President rose to leave after 20 minutes, he said he hoped the visit would help the Falmouth, Maine, woman heal. Halley, 42, replied, “What would really help my healing is if you’d start finding a way to bring our troops home.”

snip

“Now he’s dead,” Halley, an artist, says she told Bush, no longer able to contain her anger. “For what? I’ve lost my soul mate.”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Bush said more than once.

Their conversation ended shortly after Halley began urging Bush to end the war. “We see things differently,” he told her.

Halley says the encounter wasn’t “sharp,” even with her strong words and emotions. As they parted, they shook hands, he kissed her on the cheek and gave her a souvenir presidential coin.

more
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/12/open-thread-lose-a-spouse-gain-a-presidential-coin/

[tanyev]

1. Now don't go selling that coin on Ebay!

Bush to mother: Don't sell on eBay

Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show today on National Public Radio.

One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”

"President Bush, he just didn’t see that, and he told me I was kind of, seemed like I was kind of hostile. I said, ‘yes I am hostile, because you sent my son over there.’ So my thing is -- all the questions that I asked him, he didn’t know nothing then, and he definitely don’t know nothing now, because the United States is in worser shape now that it was in 2003 that my son died.''

Martin asked: "So when you left that meeting did you leave with determination to do something or did that happen over time?''

Johnson said: "When he told me -- I said what’s, what’s the mission? He couldn’t give me an answer. I says, well I’m going to tell you what: I’m on my mission now. My mission had just begun. And my mission is to fight to bring these troops home, to take care of these troops when they get home.

"Then he gave us a presidential coin,'' she said. "Now you check this out: He gave six of us a presidential coin, tell us not to tell the rest of the people that was there, and then after that he told us don’t go sell it on eBay. Now you tell me how insensitive that can be? What kind of caring person is that?''
http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2007/05/bush_to_mother_dont_sell_on_eb_1.html