Bush - Could learn a lesson from Laura

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Orlando Sentinel

Myriam Marquez

President could learn a lesson from wife

Published September 16, 2001

The most comforting words came from first lady Laura Bush the day after the attack on our country. Bless her for her calm and poise and wise words.

Ashes and smoke still spread over New York; heat still emanated from the Pentagon's rubble; thousands were dead, injured or suffering. As we braced for a war, Mrs. Bush told us to think of what messages we would be sending our children, to put unspeakable evil into terms they could understand.

NBC's Katie Couric was asking Mrs. Bush, a former teacher and librarian, what parents should do to help their kids, particularly young children, understand the magnitude of what had happened without the children fearing that they would be the next victims of a terrorist strike.

Turn off the television, Mrs. Bush said.

Simple, eloquent, sane.

Read with your children; talk to them; ask them how they feel. Tell them bad things happen to good people. Pray.

Compared with her husband's scripted response the first night of the tragedy, Mrs. Bush was cool and collected. She spoke from her heart, as a mother and a teacher whose warmth enveloped us and gave us solace.

George W. could learn a lesson from his wife, and perhaps he already has. There were two times last week in which I saw the president react with a type of genuine humanity and grief that made it easy for Americans to connect with the leader of our country, to look up to him and expect great things of him. Both times he was looking straight at us, speaking without talking points, just expressing what was in his heart and his gut.

The first time he showed his bravado, he was leaving the Pentagon Wednesday, having visited with staffers and consoled them after the suicide hijackers' attack on a section of America's military fortress. There was no mistaking his resolve. This country would leave no grain of sand unturned to find the culprits and seek justice for those who perished.

Then on Thursday, after nervously talking on the phone from the White House to New York officials as reporters watched and cameras clicked, the president seemed to revert to the Saturday Night Live parody of Bush-lite lost in the flashbulbs. He kept repeating key words: "resolve," "this will not stand," and so forth. When he put down the phone, though, it was magical.

"The nation must understand this is now the focus of my administration," he told reporters. "Now that war has been declared on us, we will lead the world to victory."

A reporter asked what he was praying for, how he had been affected by the tragedy. That seemed to get his dander up.

"I'm not thinking about me," he said, then he showed us a window into his soul.

"I think about the families, the children," he said, pausing to shake his head. You could sense he was doing all he could to hold back the tears. "I'm a loving guy. I'm also, however, someone who has a job to do and this is a terrible moment."

He choked again. I choked, too. Who couldn't see his "resolve" without needing him to say the word. "This country will not relent."

I went to sleep that night praying for the real George W. Bush to speak up and make his handlers shut up. It's time to show us who he really is -- a guy with a big Texan heart, emotional at times, a jokester by nature, a man of depth and smarts.

So he messes up on words from time to time. Who doesn't?

George W. Bush shouldn't try to be his father. He's no Ronald Reagan, nor should he want to emulate an actor who told big tales mixing fact with film fiction.

God gave each of us our own special gifts. George W. Bush's handlers should let him be who he is, the man Laura Bush loves. To show emotion is not a sign of weakness.

It is a mark of courage.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2001

Answers

AMEN...and he didn't point that finger, either...makes him all the more sincere..speaking from his HEART... my prayers for him, too.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2001

"Turn off the TV."

Yep. I have to admit that after I saw the shots of the bodies falling from the building on the local FOX station, I switched over to NPR and tried not to look at a TV set if I encountered one in a public place. Several of the parents at the hotel borrowed radios with headphones and only allowed their children to watch the Disney channel, Animal Planet, or other non-news station when it was appropriate for them to watch TV. I heard that many of the foreign visitors didn't care much for TV in the first place and only allowed their children to watch it as a treat while they went out to secure flights, etc. Some of the scenes really were too graphic. I was glad when I heard that they stopped running pictures of the bodies falling.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2001


Local station was scheduled to air Independence Day last evening. They changed the movie to Mrs. Doubtfire.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

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