J's Cafe Nette

Archive for March 19th, 2007

The Anchoress is probably my most favorite blogger, along with Kim from Musing Minds.

Today the Anchoress writes a touching post about a visit President Bush made to Enterprise, Alabama, to talk with and grieve with the survivors of the tornado that took the lives of 8 young high school students.

From Hinz Sight Report is the original story:

Enterprise, AL- The White House finds itself embroiled in yet another scandal, but this time they are on the right side of the outrage. On March 3, 2007 President George W. Bush visited the devastated community of Enterprise, Alabama, ravaged by a savage tornado that took the young lives of 8 high school students at Enterprise High School.

President Bush toured the area in Marine 1, viewing the remnents of a once peaceful Alabama town. Arriving at the High School at approximately 8:30, he walked the remains the High School with Principal Rick Ranier, stopping in Hallway 3, the site of the deaths of 8 young Enterprise High School students.

…

From the moment of his arrival at Enterprise High School, you could sense an awe and reverence about the President. He is a deeply compassionate man, a father himself, I wonder if he wasn’t pondering how he would have felt, had this happened to his daughters school when they were younger.

As he continued his tour of the school grounds he came upon a small group of students standing on an emblem on the floor that read, “EHS, Class of 1965″. Having been told he would meet this group from the student body, he asked, “Which one of you is the President?”

Megan Parks raised her hand slightly, then hung her head and began to cry. President Bush put his arms around Megan and Sarah Carroll and all three cried. A secret service officer standing nearby, although not able to hear every word, reported that he could hear the President quoting scripture and then he said, “It’s tough being President, isn’t it?”

After grieving with these young class officers for a time, he began walking around again. He mentioned that he wanted that emblem preserved, at whatever cost. The Mayor spoke up and said he would see to it.

President Bush replied with, “I was talking to the President.” As he began to walk towards Hillcrest Baptist Church he remarked, “Where are my children?” Lagging behind, they ran up to him, and walked the rest of the way to the church with him. The media was sent in different direction and were not allowed to accompany him to the church.

President Bush walked to the church where the families of the nine that died in this town were waiting. As he entered, his security detail remained at the door. A local police officer attached to the detail questioned the Secret Service agent he was partnered with about not going inside the church with the President. The agent remarked, “This is a far as we go, this is his time with his people.” The officer then questioned the presidents protection, if they remained outside the church. Again the agent remarked, “Yes, he is protected, but not by us.”

Inside the church, President Bush was again seen with tears streaming down his face as he spoke with the families that lost loved ones and grieved with them. He prayed with them and gave assurances that all that could be done, would be done, to help them get back on their feet. He told them that this would make them stronger, that losing a loved one has a way of doing that to people.

The President spent nearly two hours on the ground in Enterprise. Governor Riley is quoted as saying,

When you’re around this game, you get to the point to where you can discern if the grief is real,” Riley said after Bush left Enterprise Regional Airport on his way to Americus, Ga., to tour more storm damage. “I tell you, there were tears streaming down his cheeks.”

…

It was after the President’s departure that the ugly monster known as “Scandal” began to rear it hideous head. I waited one day, then two; then a week and still it grew stronger, uglier and the silence it created became deafening. The silence was so loud it roared in my ears like the very tornado that destroyed this town, and I searched and searched for a way to make it stop. But, it was not to be.

In my desperate search to end this scandal, this outrage, this horrendous act committed against the public, I found only a few whimpers of outcry, far to little to replace the silence of this scandal. A handful of local affiliates from the “Big 4″ filed stories on the air and on their websites telling of the compassion, the grief and the humility our President had shown. While commendable, their voice is small and could not quiet the silence of this scandal.

And so the scandal continues, unchecked, unabated and unreported, the silence continues to deafen our ears.

…

ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, the people of Enterprise, Alabama are waiting. Waiting for you to end the silence, waiting for you to break into your latest reports of negative events within the White House. Just once they would like to here, “This just in: President Bush is human after all. He showed us this recently as he cried, grieved and reassured the citizens of the community of Enterprise, Alabama.”

Oops, did you just hear that?

Me neither.

Every wrong or perceived wrong this president has ever done has been widely published and ridiculed. He has been called stupid, a chimp, worse than Hitler and Saddam. He has been the object of a movie depicting the assassination of him and still he perseveres.

I have some friends in Enterprise and I’ve been there once. They called me shortly after the tornado and told me they had gone down to see the damage and it was horrific, but how much did we hear about it?

We heard all the caterwauling from politicians about what went wrong in New Orleans after Katrina and heard some say it was a conspiracy from the Administration to fix the levees so the water would get through, but we hear nothing of the compassion this president shows, and it’s real.

As President Bush told Student Body President Megan Parks, “It’s tough being president.” I believe it most certainly is.

We are commanded in the New Testament to pray for our leaders. I pray for our leaders from dog catcher up to President and everyone in between regardless of party because I believe no one is in office without God allowing it. I’m not saying they are “chosen” by God, but they are where they are because He has allowed it for whatever reason.

Like the Anchoress, I ask: When was the last time you prayed for our leaders?

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Mitt Romney, a candidate I could never support BTW, was in the Cuban part of Miami the other day, but got into some trouble when he tried to speak Spanish to the Cuban exiles.

People chuckled when presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon raised in Michigan and elected in Massachusetts, bungled the names of Cuban-American politicians during a recent speech in Miami.
But when he mistakenly associated Fidel Castro’s trademark speech-ending slogan — Patria o muerte, venceremos! — with a free Cuba, listeners didn’t laugh. They winced.

Castro has closed his speeches with the phrase — in English, ”Fatherland or death, we shall overcome” — for decades.

”Clearly, that’s something he was ill-advised on or didn’t do his homework on,” said Hialeah City Council President Esteban Bovo. “When you get cute with slogans, you get yourself into a trap.”

Romney’s fumble demonstrates the potential snags for state and national politicians trying to navigate the Cuban-American community of South Florida.

I think the bigger question is when are we going to stop being hyphenated Americans?

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This is an excellent example of the problems with big government bureaucracy.

Read the article and see if you need a flow chart to figure out who did what and when while our soldiers were going to Walter Reed Army Hospital for treatment of wounds suffered in combat.

If you get it all figured out after the first read please explain it to me.

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Are you as sick of hearing about Global Warming when it’s freezing outside as I am? Thirty years ago all we heard about was Global Cooling, and now it’s the opposite.

The following is a quote from what I consider to be a very funny article.

The latest point of emphasis in the global warming movement is that cattle farming endangers the planet by producing too much methane. So now, steaks and hamburgers are classified as instruments of destruction, along with large vehicles, lawn mowers, and charcoal grills. It can’t be much longer before cowboy movies, cigars and hockey are held to be enemies of the earth as well.

This has got to be the most blatant assault on guyhood since ABC moved Coach to the same night as Roseanne, and turned Hayden Fox into Phil Donahue. It’s a wonder that liberals don’t cut to the chase, by simply claiming that global warming is caused by testosterone. Then, they could make public school nurses siphon the offending fluid from the boys during health class.

Many environmentalists believe that the earth is a living organism, personified by the Greek goddess Gaia. Conveniently, it turns out that Gaia is a shrew, who demands that her men be reduced to henpecked, metrosexual noodles. Manliness makes Gaia angry, and we wouldn’t like her when she’s angry, because she’ll turn into a green monster and start smashing everything to bits. Hell hath no fury like an earth goddess exposed to excessive cattle-produced methane emissions.

Go here to read the whole thing.

Note: Testing track back feature to The Anchoress, Sister Toldjah and Musing Minds.

Please delete when you receive this and notify me by email if it shows up in case I miss it. Thanks.

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