More significant than the phoney flip-flop and grief pimps snarls, comes this report from Newsweek of grief sessions in which Bush performed brilliantly. Failure to understand this will lead to very serious real world consequences. There is a person named George W. Bush who emerges and for the moment redeems his robot-twin.
When Bush saw that she was crying, he leaned over and put his hand on the top of her head and drew her to him. "It was just like my brother used to do," she says, beginning to cry at the memory.
After the jump, the full press release, and a poll.
Press Release Source: Newsweek
NEWSWEEK: 'It Felt Like He Could Have Been My Dad,' Says War Widow After Private Grieving Session With President Bush. 'It Was Like We Were Old Friends.'
Sunday August 14, 10:12 am ET
Families of Fallen Soldiers Tell Bush to Stay the Course, But He Also Hears About Missing Medals, Financial Assistance and, From One Widow, 'Stingy' Military Benefits
NEW YORK, Aug. 14 PRNewswire -- Family members of fallen U.S. soldiers tell Newsweek about their private meetings with President Bush. "It felt like he could have been my dad," says Crystal Owen, a third-grade schoolteacher, who lost her husband in Iraq, after meeting with Bush at Fort Bragg, N.C. She had told Bush that she didn't want her husband's death to be in vain. Bush apologized repeatedly for her husband's death and then grabbed Owen's hands when she began to cry. "Don't worry, don't worry," he said, though his choking voice suggested that he had worries of his own. "It was like we were old friends," Owen tells Newsweek. "It almost makes me sad. In a way, I wish he weren't the president, just so I could talk to him all the time."
At her meeting with the president at Fort Hood, Texas, last spring, Inge Colton, whose husband Shane died in April 2004 when his Apache helicopter was shot down over Baghdad, tells Newsweek she lit into Bush for "stingy" military benefits. Her complaints caught Bush "a little off guard," she recalls. "He tried to argue with me a little bit, but he promised he would have someone look into it." The next day, she got a call from White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who said the White House would follow up. "My main goal was to have him look at my son, look him in the eyes and apologize," says Colton. "I wanted him to know, to really understand who he has hurt." She says Bush was "attentive, though not in a fake way," and sometimes at a loss for words. "He didn't try to overcompensate," she says.
Privately, Bush has met with about 900 family members of some 270 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Family members interviewed by Newsweek say they have been taken aback by the president's emotionalism and his sincerity. It does not appear that the White House or the military makes any effort to screen out dissenters or embittered families, though some families decline the invitation to meet with Bush, report White House Correspondent Holly Bailey and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in the August 22 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, August 15). Most families encourage the President to stay the course in Iraq. "To oppose something my husband lost his life for would be a betrayal," Colton says.
Bush hears plenty of complaints, Newsweek reports. He has been asked about missing medals on the returned uniform of a loved one, about financial assistance for a child going to college, and about how soldiers really died when the Pentagon claimed the details were classified.
One of the most telling -- and moving -- pictures of Bush grieving with the families of the dead was provided by Rachel Ascione, who met with Bush last summer. Her older brother, Ron Payne, was a Marine who had been killed in Afghanistan only a few weeks before Ascione was invited to meet with Bush at McDill Air Force Base, near Tampa, Fla. Ascione is just over five feet; her late brother was 6 feet 7. "My whole life, he used to put his hand on the top of my head and just hold it there and it drove me crazy," she tells Newsweek. When Bush saw that she was crying, he leaned over and put his hand on the top of her head and drew her to him. "It was just like my brother used to do," she says, beginning to cry at the memory.
Before Bush left the meeting, he paused in the middle of the room and said to the families, "I will never feel the same level of pain and loss you do. I didn't lose anyone close to me, a member of my family or someone that I love. But I want you to know that I didn't go into this lightly. This was a decision that I struggle with every day."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8941525/site/newsweek/
(Read entire article at http://www.Newsweek.com.)