Finding a Voice

For the past several weeks, the White House has been put on the defensive by Cindy Sheehan. As I've already noted, I find her grief understandable, her loss immense, and her behavior reprehensible. That said, it's very difficult to say anything against her--especially for the President.

I don't know who set up the meeting in Idaho yesterday with the Pruett family, but that was a perfect counterbalance to the media circus in Crawford. The Pruetts are simply unassailable. And by publicly thanking them and speaking on their behalf (and then the inevitable round of interviews they did themselves), President Bush finally found a face for the pro-war cause.

He needs to keep doing events like that--preferrably two or three times a week. This is not a war we wanted to be in. But it's a war we cannot avoid, other than by converting to Islam and giving up the rights and freedoms we've treasured. It is a war we must win, but a war which we could lose, not on the battlefield, but here at home. The President's most important job is to lead the nation to continue fighting. It's not enough just to say we have to stay the course--he needs to be out in front, just like he was yesterday in Idaho, showing the human face of the sacrifice along with the importance of the cause.