Call me a bit of a softy, but I can respect the man for doing it.

It's funny, I didn't vote for him, but I find myself defending him more and more to my more right leaning friends.

His numbers are sagging, big whoop. I got angry when people didn't give Voldem...the ex president a break in his first year, I'd be a real hypocrite not to do the same here.

He has one hell of a task learning to be a head of state, I'm willing to let him learn, and judge his performance in 2012.

Overdue to visit? Maybe. But he did do it.

I would much rather he skipped the need to have the press along.

Conservatives' Dover talking point is half-right, by Matt Gertz, October 30, 2009

As conservatives have rent their garments over President Obama's decision to honor fallen soldiers by going to Dover Air Force Base to be there when they were returned to U.S. soil yesterday morning, they've invented a new talking point: President Bush was more respectful to the troops, because Obama "used the troops coming home in coffins as a photo op," while Bush would do so without getting the press involved. The talking point is half-right; Bush never brought the press to Dover to take pictures of him receiving the coffins, because Bush never went to Dover to receive to coffins.

Liz Cheney got the ball rolling yesterday on John Gibson's radio show by saying:

I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras.

Rush Limbaugh jumped on board this afternoon, airing Cheney's comments and saying:

President Bush used to do it, did you know that? We didn't know it, she just told us something we didn't know.

Unfortunately, the reason we "didn't know it" is that it didn't happen.

. . .

Now maybe if Wyden, Blumenauer, et al. who sent the Oregon Guard over there could only show up once -- ONE TIME, you traitors -- and greet them coming home.

Liz Cheney got the ball rolling yesterday on John Gibson's radio show by saying:

I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras.
Rush Limbaugh jumped on board this afternoon, airing Cheney's comments and saying:

President Bush used to do it, did you know that? We didn't know it, she just told us something we didn't know.

Unfortunately, the reason we "didn't know it" is that it didn't happen.

. . .

Now maybe if Wyden, Blumenauer, et al. who sent the Oregon Guard over there could only show up once -- ONE TIME, you traitors -- and greet them coming home.

Posted by Tenskwatawa

TENSKUPYORASS:

Like the US rep yelled at Barry the other night...YOU LIE.

Tenskwatawa has a really bad habit of going long winded to say the least.

Jack..If you want equal discourse, I RESPECTFUULY ask you allow this:

It may be one of the best kept secrets of the Bush presidency, and it is a testament to the person who has been so vilified. Although history will be the ultimate judge on Bush and his decision to go to war, Bush took every step and misstep personally.

For each of the families of the over 4,000 US soldiers who died in the Iraq War, Bush wrote every family a personal letter. During his eight years, he met with one third of the soldiers' families. According to my friend, Bush went out of his way, painstakingly, to ensure that this would not receive any media attention out of concern that his acts may seem less genuine and would also become politicized. Of course, like all the best kept secrets in the world, the secret was shared among military personnel who admired Bush's character.

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Perhaps a man's character is like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing." History will be the final arbiter of his service in office, but stories like these show a glimpse of a President who was greater in real life than his own caricature, the shadow of a President that was used too often to score political points.

Bush, Cheney comforted troops privately
Joseph Curl and John Solomon
Washington Times
December 22, 2008

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.
Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.

On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip - with reporters in tow - to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.

But the size and scope of Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's private endeavors to meet with wounded soldiers and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.

"People say, 'Why would you do that?'" the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. "And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be - to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish."

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching - balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin - that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

"I lean on the Almighty and Laura," Mr. Bush said in the interview. "She has been very reassuring, very calming."

Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.

The first lady said those private visits, many of which she also attended, took a heavy emotional toll, not just on the president, but on her as well.

"It is just so unbelievably emotional to be with the families, for everybody involved. I mean for us and for them and for everyone," she said in a telephone interview with The Times on Saturday. "I'm very aware of how emotional it is and how draining it is for the president and for me, too. Both of us. But I think we do support each other, not by saying anything so much, but just by the comfort of each other's presence, both when we are with the families and then afterward when we are alone."

Mr. Cheney similarly has hosted numerous events, even sneaked away from the White House or his Naval Observatory home to meet troops at hospitals or elsewhere without a hint to the news media.

For instance, Mr. Cheney flew to North Carolina late last month and met with 500 special-operations soldiers for three hours on a Saturday night at a golf resort. The event was so secretive that the local newspaper didn't even learn about it until three days after it happened.

Mr. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, also have hosted more than a half-dozen barbecues at their Naval Observatory home for wounded troops recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed and their spouses and children.

The vice president said Mr. Bush "feels a very special obligation to those who he has to send in harm's way on behalf of the nation, and a very special obligation to their families, especially the families of those who don't come home again."

"He, in his travels, spends time with the families of the fallen. If he goes down to Fort Bragg, he'll often times pull together the families of guys who were stationed at Bragg and killed in action, and spend time with the families," Mr. Cheney told The Times in an interview last week.

Mr. Bush did just that when he visited Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2002, rallying 2,000 special-operation soldiers stationed at the base, which would send thousands of men to the two wars, hundreds of whom would never return. "I want their families to know that we pray with them, that we honor them, and they died in a just cause, for defending freedom, and they will not have died in vain," he told the troops, his voice choking with emotion and his eyes welling up with tears.

That same month, in St. Petersburg, Fla., the president broke down in tears as he addressed the parents and family of one of the first soldiers to die in Afghanistan. "I know your heart aches, and we ache for you. But your son and your brother died for a noble and just cause," he said as a tear rolled down his right cheek.

He stopped his speech, overcome by emotion as the crowd stood and cheered. His chin still quivering, he smeared away tears, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Those were public events, but mirrored the scores of private meetings where emotions also ran deep.

"I do get a little emotional because it's - I'm genuine when I say I'll miss being the commander in chief," the president told The Times. "I am in awe of our military. And I hold these folks in great respect. And I also sincerely appreciate the sacrifices that their families make."

PS T,it was a sick photo op...period.