Sunday in the Park for George!

Sunday in the Park for George

A Handful Came to Honor Military Families & Support the Troops

They came to cheer for Bush’s war.  They came to counter the anti war rally.  They came to heap praise on their president for his leadership and wisdom.  What a sorry group they were.

Their organizers had planned for thousands.  The glitzy bandstand looked out on a sea of chairs prepared for a large turnout of real Americans to show their support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, a meager few hundred souls showed up.  They came to prop up their trusted leader and his blind commitment to staying the course.  They failed quite miserably.

It wasn’t only the poor turn-out that made this event so pathetic. First, it was the exploitation of the dead.   Family member after family member of a dead soldier thanked George Bush profusely for waging the war that took the life of their loved one. And second, it was the concerted effort to portray the anti war protesters as fools and traitors and left wing radicals.  That, too, fell totally flat.

They really tried, give them credit for that.  It was a one-two punch.  Hit the audience with a heart-wrenching story of valor and death, and then blame the protesters for not supporting the troops.  Have a grieving parent or spouse share the real pain of losing someone in the war, and follow it up by someone telling Cindy Sheehan she should move to Iran.  And so it went for hours on end, interspersed with sparse applause and isolated war whoops.  On and on and on.

And then, of course there were the highlights, the moments to remember – the ones that put the icing on this bitter, poisonous cake.