Unscripted Bush Photo

[Chewbacca]

Hey- I'm the biggest Bush critic around and a sure bet to vote for JFK, but I found this story and this unscripted photo very touching and beyond the scope of mere politics and/or policy/ideaology disagreement.

************************
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/op...cle_9003.shtml


It started out as a fluke. Lynn Faulkner had been offered an extra ticket to a Bush campaign event by his neighbor Linda Prince. Mr. Faulkner decided to offer it to his 15-year old daughter Ashley who he expected would decline, as she would have to miss some school to attend. But his daughter surprised him. Ashley reminded her dad how four years ago they attended a similar event when then Texas Governor George W. Bush visited the same spot on the campaign trail.



Ashley remembered attending that event with both her father and her mother Wendy Faulkner. It was raining that day and they all stood in the rain awaiting Governor Bush “eating Triscuit crackers” enjoying the time together and hoping to get a glimpse of the would-be president. Ashley recalled holding her mothers hand as they waited. So she decided to go again this year, but this time her mother could not attend. Wendy Faulkner was murdered on 9/11/01 in the south tower of the World Trade Center. She was there on the 104th floor for a one-day meeting. Ashley decided to miss school in honor and remembrance of her mother and attend the event.



So the trip was on. Linda Prince, along with Lynn and Ashley Faulkner, were off to the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, Ohio for the event. The group arrived early and got a spot close to the front. As the event wound down, the president worked the line in full campaign mode shaking hands and signing autographs. As the president passed the group, Mr. Faulkner got an autograph, and the president continued on until Linda Prince spoke up, “This girl lost her mother on 9/11,” Prince told the president.




Then everything changed.



“The president’s entire expression transformed,” Mr. Faulkner told me on Sunday. “He turned and came back against the flow and his eyes locked on Ashley’s. His face showed a man who was no longer the president, he was a father and a husband.” President Bush made his way back to Ashley and he embraced the 15-yeal old young woman. “She snuggled in with the president just like she did when she was a little girl with her dad,” Mr. Faulkner said. “I know it’s hard,” Mr. Faulkner heard the president tell his daughter. “I’m okay,” Ashley told the president. The embrace continued.



Mr. Faulkner had his Kodak digital camera with him and debated on invading this very private moment between his daughter and the leader of the free world. “For 20-30 seconds the president belonged exclusively to Ashley,” Lynn Faulkner told me. So he decided to capture the moment without invading Ashley and the president’s privacy. He held up his digital camera, not even aiming with his eye and with one click snapped just one picture. It showed in detail the face of a compassionate man who just happens to be the president comforting a young woman who lost her mother in the 9/11 attacks on America.



Mr. Faulkner told me that he saw tears in his daughter’s eyes, and saw emotion that he hadn’t seen from his daughter in 2 ½ years. Ashley told her dad, “The way he was holding me, with my head against his chest, it felt like he was trying to protect me, he wanted to make sure that I was safe.” That feeling is captured in a very clear way in this moving unscripted photo. It’s the only photo of this special embrace as the press corps had already been ushered back on the bus. And the photo was never meant for publication. All Mr. Faulkner did when he returned home from the event was e-mail it to 15 friends and family. But by the middle of last week, I had received the photo from eight different people. Others were also receiving the photo and forwarding it along. It became an Internet phenomonen, as it was e-mailed around America.



Mr. Faulkner called the embrace “President Bush’s precious gift to my daughter.” And with his small act of e-mailing that photo to friends and family, the picture can now become a gift to the American people.




*SNIP*


The Faulkner family is continuing Wendy Faulkner’s legacy of giving by setting up The Wendy Foundation which sends packages of clothing, food, medicine, toys and other items to orphanages and impoverished families in Third World countries. You can visit their Website at www.wendyfoundation.org.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Mm.. Yes, it's powerful. I can't hate him right now... I better find today's paper to snap me out of this.

[Timber Loftis]

setting up The Wendy Foundation which sends packages of clothing, food, medicine, toys and other items to orphanages and impoverished families in Third World countries.

And note who they are choosing to help.

Nice article.

[promethius9594]

setting up The Wendy Foundation which sends packages of clothing, food, medicine, toys and other items to orphanages and impoverished families in Third World countries.

i would like to note, at this point on this thread, that there ARE republicans who support giving to others in need... we just prefer to do it ourselves instead of being robbed by the government to pay the people who dont want to work.

[Sparhawk]

*Snip* and I still hate him...but GoSh he IS human after all...

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I admire you for posting this article and picture, Chewbacca - especially with your feelings towards President Bush.

Kudos to you. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: I admire you for posting this article and picture, Chewbacca - especially with your feelings towards President Bush. Kudos to you. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Thanks. Yeah, it is a good story. But there is a bit more to it from my perspective that I can now try to articulate....

I went to Ground Zero two weeks ago, the first time since 09/11/01 and soon after I got back- I read this article. While I stood in front of where the WTC Towers used to be I felt an amazing and sorrowful sense of emptiness that just did not go away. Not even Mamma Mia ( the ABBA musical) on Broadway could shake it! [img]tongue.gif[/img] It lingered in the back of my mind for days following. Coming acoss this article so soon after being there inspired some feeling in me other than that emptiness concerning those events and allowed me to revisit those moments and fill some of that emptiness with compassion.

[Timber Loftis]

Not only is he human, the numerous interviews I've seen over the last few years, the one thing that cannot be doubted is his conviction to the cause. He is not just doing things the way he's doing them because he wants to piss the world off or because he likes to appease his big industry backers -- IMO, he really, truly believes in his cause.

Now, if the cause is misguided, therein lies the problem.

Chewy, I don't think I could handle seeing ground zero. I worked at a firm that vied for the business of disposing of the waste from the site -- you just simply don't want to know the environmental concerns that had to be taken into account. Trying to figure out how and where to dispose of commingled asbestos, lead-based paint, petroleum constituents, and human remains debris was quite the task, to say the least.

......

Sorry, I just took a moment of silence. It doesn't take long thinking back to that day to bring out the emotions. The easiest thing to remember is the universal feeling that, "NO, this just... cannot... be happening."