Yesterday in Fallujah. Hope this guy made it.
All hope is not lost however,
if you believe exiting Attorney General John Ashcroft ( see below) who says, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and
terror has been achieved."
Honestly, this American doesn't look terribly safe.
Ashcroft, Evans Resign From Bush Cabinet
By SCOTT LINDLAW, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON
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They served President Bush in different ways, but both will leave large, empty chairs in the Cabinet Room: Attorney General John Ashcroft, the face of the administration's tough tactics against terrorism, and Don Evans, the longtime friend who headed the Commerce Department, are leaving the president's team.
Both resigned Tuesday, the first members of the Cabinet to leave as Bush heads from re-election into his second term.
The gospel-singing son of a minister, Ashcroft is a fierce conservative who doesn't drink, smoke or dance. His detractors said he gave religion too prominent a role at the Justice Department _ including optional prayer meetings with staff before each work day.
He has also been a willing lightning rod for critics who said his policies for thwarting terrorists infringed on the rights of innocent people.
Ashcroft championed many of the most controversial government actions following the Sept. 11 attacks, most notably the USA Patriot Act. It bolstered FBI surveillance powers, increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado for months and allowed secret proceedings in terrorist-related immigration cases. When there was a break in a terror case, he was the man at the lectern soberly informing the American people.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," Ashcroft said in his handwritten resignation letter to the president, dated Nov. 2 _ Election Day.
"Yet I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," said Ashcroft, whose health problems earlier this year resulted in removal of his gall bladder. "I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons," he said.
Evans, Bush's 2000 campaign manager and close friend of more than three decades, said he longed to return to Texas.
"While the promise of your second term shines bright, I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home," he wrote.
Bush issued statements of praise for both men, and for the policies they advanced.
"John Ashcroft has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer," the president said. "John has served our nation with honor, distinction and integrity."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was less flattering.
"We wish John Ashcroft good health and a good retirement, and we hope the president will choose a less polarizing attorney general as his successor," Schumer said.
Bush's farewell to Evans was effusive and personal. They have been friends for more than three decades, dating back to the oil business in Midland, Texas, where they would attend church together and meet every day for a three-mile jog. Evans was CEO of Tom Brown Inc., an independent energy company, when Bush picked him to head Commerce.
Evans partied with Bush the night the president says he swore off drinking. It was 1986 and both men were celebrating their 40th birthdays. The lingering hangover from that night prompted Bush to abandon the bottle altogether, Bush has said.
Evans has been part of Bush's political career from the start: a fund-raiser for Bush's losing congressional campaign in 1978 and chairman of Bush's successful gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998. He raised more than $100 million for Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
"Don Evans is one of my most trusted friends and advisers," Bush said. "Don has worked to advance economic security and prosperity for all Americans. He has worked steadfastly to make sure America continues to be the best place in the world to do business."
Evans has told aides he was ready for a change.
Bush was considering this year's campaign money man, Mercer Reynolds, for Evans' job at Commerce. As national finance chairman for the Bush campaign, Reynolds raised more than $260 million to get him re-elected.
Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.
Meanwhile, three high-ranking Bush administration officials said they would like to remain on the job. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Leavitt all said they want to continue.
Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, is considered a possible successor for either Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin Powell, should either depart.
Toward the end of the story below, I could feel the faint tuggings of the sorrow that resonates from September 11, 2001. What first caught my eye though, was in the opening sentence with the phrase the weeping cherry tree.
A cherry tree that weeps.
Weeps for whom or what?
Then information gleaned, and the 'sigh'.
Dead kids and parentless children.
Sigh.
What started me reading these too related stories was my curiousity about what the gov't is saying about how things are going in the war in Fallujah (they can put a cheery face on anything) versus the mainstream media's spin .
Dead babies and mother and fatherless children.
At least the cherry tree will weep for them.
Memorial Tree Honors Child Victims of Sept. 11
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2004 -- A newly planted weeping cherry tree on the grounds of the Pentagon will serve as a living memorial to the children killed or who lost parents during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the building.
Carol Carter, president of the National Capital Area
Federation of Garden Clubs, Inc., spreads soil around the newly planted
children's memorial tree at the Pentagon, Nov. 9. With her are, from left, Tara
Speisman, who lost her father in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack; Ralph Newton,
director of Defense Facilities Directorate for Washington Headquarters
Services; and Darryl Kosisky, the Pentagon's chief landscape architect. Photo
by Donna Miles
high-resolution image available.
A group of Pentagon officials, friends and families of those killed in the attack and representatives of local garden clubs gathered today for a ceremonial tree planting. The ceremony took place just outside the Pentagon's busy subway entrance and bus terminal, the busiest mass-transit point in Northern Virginia.
During the ceremony, Ralph Newton, director of Defense Facilities Directorate for Washington Headquarters Services, helped scatter soil and ashes around the tree taken from the debris of the crash site.
Joining him was Tara Speisman, whose father, Bob Speisman, was aboard the American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon; Darryl Kosisky, the Pentagon's chief landscape architect; and Carol Carter, president of the National Capital Area Federal of Garden Clubs, Inc., which sponsored the event.
Newton said the memorial tree will serve as a constant reminder to the more than 34,000 Pentagon workers, commuters and visitors to the Washington area who will pass it daily.
But no one is likely to find it more meaningful, he acknowledged, than those who lost loved ones or friends or who work in the building the terrorists targeted. "That day is a constant in our hearts," he said.
Speisman said she hoped the memorial tree would help others remember her father and others killed in "an act of unfettered hatred." She urged attendees at the ceremony to "remember the love" extended by those they lost. "Through this love, they will live forever," she said.
Mary Gregerson, chair of the local garden club federation's memorial tree committee, called the new memorial tree a fitting way to recognize those lost and provide "solace, comfort and peace" to those who carry on without them. She said she got the inspiration for the memorial tree after visiting the Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001, and seeing a lone tree standing amid the devastation of the attack.
Carol Carter, local garden club federation president, said the tree's weeping posture represents ongoing sorrow over the losses of the attack. But next spring, when the tree bursts into full bloom, Carter said, it will represent hope, rebirth and life.
"To plant a tree is to believe in the future," said Shirley Nicolai, a vice president for National Garden Clubs, Inc.
Seventh grader Zachary Jongema, who with his brother Matthew, played taps at the end of the ceremony, said it held special significance to him. Zachary's fellow Boy Scout, Bo Dolan, lost his father, Navy Capt. Bob Dolan, in the attack.
I like to think that I'm playing for him, Mr. Bob Dolan, he said.
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A memorial plaque near the children's memorial tree at the Pentagon honors "the children who perished and those who lost parents on Sept. 11, 2001." Photo by Donna Miles |
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High resolution photo |
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