In a statement to reporters, Ms. Sheehan, 48, said that she received word around 4 p.m. that her mother, Shirley Miller, 74, was in a hospital emergency room in Los Angeles.
"As you can imagine, this is a devastating blow for my sister, my brother, my children and me," Ms. Sheehan said in her statement.
Ms. Sheehan told reporters that she would return to Texas as soon as possible, and that while she was gone, mothers of others killed in Iraq would keep pressure on Mr. Bush and continue to demand a meeting with him here. The group wants all American troops immediately withdrawn from Iraq.
The above is from Elisabeth Bumiller's "Protester Leaves Texas to See Ill Mother" in this morning's New York Times. Maybe when she's not required to speak to sources on background, Bumiller's freed to actually report? This is the third just the facts article she's turned in this week. (We noted the first. Yesterday, I made the choice to note Coretta Scott King but if you missed Bumiller's "Protester Vows to Continue Her Vigil Near Bush Ranch" you have until Wednesday to check it out without paying.) I'd love to be Vanna White here and just clap and cheer with blind enthusiasm but I'll take a wait and see on Bumiller. She could pull a Jodi Wilgoren (who has "10 Life Terms for B.T.K. Strangler as Anguished Families Condemn Him in Court" in this morning's paper) and do a turnaround. Hopefully, she will.
But I'll take a wait and see with regards to Bumiller. However, she's had three strong days and we will note that.
Today's Democracy Now! had included a plan to broadcast from Crawford, TX and interview Cindy Sheehan. Camp Casey remains and other mothers who've lost children in Iraq are there (as Bumiller rightly notes in her article in the Times) so the schedule episode may go as planned with a substitution for Sheehan. (Possibly, they'll still be able to speak to Sheehan in some form.)
We'll note Sheehan's "Why I'm Camping Out in Crawford" (The Progressive):
And I want to let him know that millions of Americans believe that the best thing we can do - for our own security, for our soldiers and for the Iraqi people - is to bring the U.S. troops home from Iraq now.
Just because it's too late for Casey and the Sheehan family, why would we want another innocent life taken in the name of this ever-changing and unwinnable mission in Iraq?
I did get to meet with President Bush two and a half months after my son was killed, but I never got to say any of these things to him. I was in deep shock and grief at the time, and all I wanted to do was to show him pictures of Casey and tell him what a wonderful man our son was.
But today things are very different. My shock has worn off, and now I've got a lot of anger along with my grief.
I'm angry because every reason the Bush administration gave for the invasion of Iraq has been shown to be false.
The 9/11 Commission Report concluded there was no link between Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The weapons inspectors gave up searching for WMDs and wrote in the Duelfer report that there were none to be found.
From the Downing Street Memo, we learned that the Bush administration "fixed" intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.
We'll also note that the Un-Embed the Media tour goes on:
Amy Goodman in Hopland, CA:
Sat, August 20
TIME: 3:30 PM
10th Annual Sol Fest Benefit
Solar Living Center
Hopland, California
Tickets: $20/day or $30/weekend
For more information, visit http://www.solarliving.org/solfest2005.cfm
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
