The moment

[NeoConIV]

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050203/s/r2490966058.jpg

Just an amazing moment. My heart was swelling with pride...just sat there, paralyzed...

Humbled by the Iraqi's gratitude to the Marine's mom...and boundless pride for that fine Marine and his parents...

[desflood]

Okay Dan, we know you're out there somewhere with a comment all set to ruin this touching moment...

[home handle]

not dan but while that is moving did anyone ever stop to think that the administration is using scenes like this to try to make everyone forget that this war was predicated on faulty intel?

anticipating some retorts:

-yes, democratic administrations have done that as well.
-its my country as much as it is yours
-no, im not a liberal socialist
-i have relatives in iraq right now providing security, how about you?

[exstatic]

I wonder if that Iraqi lady knew that she was going to be part of Karl Rove's new reality TV show? Shit like this makes me want to puke. Not that the lady wasn't grateful, but that it was so transparently staged. This is like something out of the show Cheaters, where they have the wronged party confront the cheater. Emotion always makes great TV. :rolleyes.

[Yonivore]

I wonder if that Iraqi lady knew that she was going to be part of Karl Rove's new reality TV show?
Jeeze, what's Karl Rove got to do with it? Bush is through running for office.

Shit like this makes me want to puke. Not that the lady wasn't grateful, but that it was so transparently staged.
I think the interaction between the soldier's mother and the Iraqi woman were genuine, not staged. And, as far as having them there being "staged," well, duh...Presidents have long used persons who epitomize, exemplify, or model one or more of the themes in their SOTUA. But, to say the genuine gratitude and affection shown by the Iraqi woman to the American Soldier's mother was "staged" is the pinnacle of cynicism.

This is like something out of the show Cheaters, where they have the wronged party confront the cheater. Emotion always makes great TV. :rolleyes.
He didn't force them to confront each other. The Iraqi lady represents the success of the Iraqi vote, due in large part to the sacrifice of the mother's son. Chances are, if she hadn't turned and said something to the mother you'd be calling her an ungrateful bitch.

Wow. You Bush haters are just going off the deep end now that Iraq hasn't turned into a total disaster...

[JoeChalupa]

I can't believe it but I agree with Yonivore.
Of course it was a planned moment but all presidents do it.

I being a Marine say Semper Fi!!

[Clandestino]

they were regular people and not actors... those were true emotions they showed the rest of the world watching... if they were "faking it" like some of you pessimists like to say then they should be actresses!

[JoeChalupa]

I didn't say they were faking it.
I said it was a planned moment, a sincere one, but planned.
Of course it was a touching moment. Damn right.

[Yonivore]

I can't believe it but I agree with Yonivore.
Of course it was a planned moment but all presidents do it.

I being a Marine say Semper Fi!!
I don't think it was a planned moment. I think the planning didn't go beyond having the Iraqi woman there to represent the success of Iraq's liberation and the soldier's parents were there to represent the American sacrifice to bring that about. Were organizers hopeful the two would interact in a postive way? Sure. Did they plan for it? That would be crass.

[NeoConIV]

One of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates is Safia Taleb al-Suhail. She says of her country, "We were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost, but most of all, to the soldiers." Eleven years ago, Safia's father was assassinated by Saddam's intelligence service. Three days ago in Baghdad, Safia was finally able to vote for the leaders of her country -- and we are honored that she is with us tonight. (Applause.)

[JoeChalupa]

Kudos.

[bigzak25]

i heard his address on the radio. i thought it was awesome. i'm very proud to be a bush supporter.

[JoeChalupa]

I'm very proud to be an American.

[Nbadan]

All this is Touching... However, A deeper look into Ms. Sofia Taleb Al Souhail reveals...


US Secretly Helped Saddam
Al Bawaba – December 20, 2003

The daughter of a prominent Iraqi opposition leader, who was assassinated in Beirut by Saddam Hussein's secret service in 1994 said she would sue the ousted Iraqi president before three international courts, charging that the U.S. was a virtual accomplice in her father's murder.

Nora al Tamimi, daughter of slain Iraqi opposition activist Taleb al Suhail al Tamimi, said from Beirut in a newspaper interview published Saturday that her father had planned a coup d'etat to overthrow Saddam in 1993, operating from Beirut and Amman.

"Zero hour was set for a certain June day in 1993 to stage the coup when Saddam would have been sponsoring an official event in Baghdad," Nora told the London-based Asharq Al Awsat newspaper in an interview conducted at the family house in Beirut.

"But the Americans, who did not want the coup to succeed possibly because they were certain my father would not go along with their polices, tipped off Saddam about the impending putsch by my father and gave the names of his top aides," Nora said. "All of them died in Saddam's torture chambers."

Sheik Taleb Al Tamimi, who led a million-member Central Iraqi tribe called the Bani Tamim, was shot dead April 12, 1994 at his apartment in Beirut's Ein El Tineh district in an assassination officially blamed by the Lebanese authorities on four Iraqi embassy diplomats, who were detained and then released on the grounds they enjoyed diplomatic immunity, Nora recalled.

Saddam has severed Baghdad's diplomatic ties with Beirut upon the detention of the four.

Nora said she plans to sue Saddam at the United Nations, before the International Court of Justice at The Hague and before the world organization of human rights.

Nora said her sister Saffia, 38, a human rights activist, has already returned to Iraq and is currently making the needed arrangements in Baghdad to recover the family's bank accounts and property, which were confiscated by Saddam in 1968, when her father fled Iraq.

She said the family would return to Iraq soon with the remains of her father for reburial in his native country.

Truthseeker (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1379)

The Safia's sister blame the United States for not protecting her father and telling Sadaam about a pending coup attempt because they didn't trust Safia's father.

Is the prominent position within current policy a payback to cover some behinds? Perhaps Bill Hemmer wasn't far off when he said "she will soon be the Mayor of Baghdad."

[Opinionater]

IMHO, she's a two-face.

[bigzak25]

93? 94?

Fucking Clinton....

[Clandestino]

All this is Touching... However, A deeper look into Ms. Sofia Taleb Al Souhail reveals...



Truthseeker (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1379)

The Safia's sister blame the United States for not protecting her father and telling Sadaam about a pending coup attempt because they didn't trust Safia's father.

Is the prominent position within current policy a payback to cover some behinds? Perhaps Bill Hemmer wasn't far off when he said "she will soon be the Mayor of Baghdad."

i seriously doubt your story is true.. if it were i doubt the administration would have her in such prominent places...

[exstatic]

if it were i doubt the administration would have her in such prominent places...
Why? It makes a great visual bite, and his supporters will believe anything that Rove tells them to, and attack anyone who says different.

[Clandestino]

Why? It makes a great visual bite, and his supporters will believe anything that Rove tells them to, and attack anyone who says different.

it doesn't seem like a woman who says the u.s. had her father killed would even attend the event either...

[IcemanCometh]

http://members.cox.net/pimpbot9000/roflcopter.gif

[Spurminator]

Sigh... Everything's political. Yay cynicism.