President Bush is afraid. He is afraid of a grieving mother. Cindy Sheehan has been parked outside the entrance to his Crawford Ranch since Saturday and refuses to leave until he is willing to talk to her.

Cindy wants to know why her son died. He was killed in April 2004 while fighting in Iraq. Cindy just wants to simply hear the reasons for this war from the command in chief. Sadly though, our commander in chief won’t give her the decency to answer her grieving question.

In a time of war, when our soldiers and their families are making the roughest of sacrifices, the President of the United States does not even have the compassion in him to talk to one mother. He can sit there and talk his big talk with phrases like “bring it on” yet he is afraid of a soldier’s mother.

July 17, 1996 was a tragic day in American history TWA flight 800 exploded into a fireball off of Long Island. Circumstances revolving around the explosion led people to believe it was either a terrorist attack of an accidental shooting by our military. In the day’s following the tragedy, those families of victims were getting restless with the lack of reports and the thought that this could have been a man made tragedy.

President Bill Clinton understood the pain the families were going through and decided to adjust his schedule so he could meet with them. This was not a good idea in the eyes of his staff considering people thought the military could have been involved in the tragedy. Clinton defied them and went there anyway. He spoke to the families then spent the time after his speech hugging and praying with them. He showed compassion that we should expect from our President.

Now Casey Sheehan is dead from a war that our President started. The compassion of our President lies in the memories of Bill Clinton, as George Bush appears to have none. Now he is viewing the peaceful protest by Cindy Sheehan and others as a nuisance and threatening to have them arrested come Thursday if they are still there.

Cindy Sheehan is now looked at as a security threat by the administration. Even though she is still three miles from the President, his chicken hawk personality has him running scared of her. Don’t worry about catching Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora, we need to isolate the real threat – grieving mothers.

Cindy Sheehan is a true American. She is a mother and a citizen exercising her rights under the very constitution our fore fathers died defending. George Bush is a tyrannical leader wanting to shred the rights of her and others and he needs to be stopped. If in fact Cindy does end up in jail, then this country needs to get up and take to the streets. We need to start nation-wide protests and show Cindy our support. Hopefully planning is already starting for this. If she is arrested on Thursday, then Americans should skip work on Friday in protest to her arrest. Show the administration we will be heard or we will hurt them in the most sensitive of areas – the economy.

I will keep close watch of this story and post on it as it develops. Until then you can keep track of what’s going on at the following links:

• meetwithcindy.org
• afterdowningstreet.org
• iconoclast