George and Laura Bush’s visit to Fort Hood

In the aftermath of last week’s horrifying attack on Fort Hood, which left 14 dead – including an unborn baby – former President George Bush and his wife Laura held a secret visit with those who were wounded in the attack, and their families. It wasn’t widely reported in the press … because that’s the way they wanted it:

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent “considerable time” consoling those who were wounded in Thursday’s shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

The couple was described as “deeply concerned” about military families on Fort Hood after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on soldiers and civilians, killing 13 and wounding 38.

The Bushes, who have a 1,600-acre property known as Prairie Chapel Ranch less than 30 miles from Fort Hood in central Texas, spent between one and two hours visiting the wounded and their families.

I suspect the bond some wartime Presidents have with the troops they commanded never goes away, even long after they’ve left office. Such appears to be the case with President Bush, who every once in a while during his administration could be seen with his eyes misting up while talking about soldiers and their families, and the sacrifices they were making in these uncertain and dangerous times. He did so, for example, at the 2004 Republican National Convention, marveling at how so many military families he had spoken to had told them that they were praying for him, even though it was he who had sent their sons and daughters off to war.

This kind, heartfelt gesture from the Bushes was not lost on the liberal bloggers at the Hillbuzz blog, who admittedly made fun of President Bush for years (via Gay Patriot):

If you have been reading us for any length of time, you know that we used to make fun of β€œDubya” nearly every day…parroting the same comedic bits we heard in our Democrat circles, where Bush is still, to this day, lampooned as a chimp, a bumbling idiot, and a poor, clumsy public speaker.

Oh, how we RAILED against Bush in 2000…and how we RAILED against the surge in support Bush received post-9/11 when he went to Ground Zero and stood there with his bullhorn in the ruins on that hideous day.

We were convinced that ANYONE who was president would have done what Bush did, and would have set that right tone of leadership in the wake of that disaster. President Gore, President Perot, President Nader, you name it. ANYONE, we assumed, would have filled that role perfectly.

[…]

The Bushes went and met privately with these families for HOURS, hugging them, holding them, comforting them.

If there are any of you out there with any connection at all to the Bushes, we implore you to give them our thanks…you tell them that a bunch of gay Hillary guys in Boystown, Chicago were wrong about the Bushes…and are deeply, deeply sorry for any jokes we told about them in the past, any bad thoughts we had about these good, good people.

You may be as surprised by this as we are ourselves, but from this day forward George W. and Laura Bush are now on the same list for us as the Clintons, Geraldine Ferraro, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and the other political figures we keep in our hearts and never allow anyone to badmouth.

Criticize their policies academically and intelligently and discuss the Bush presidency in historical and political terms…but you mess with the Bushes personally and, from this day forward, you’ll answer to us.

This has me missing George Dubya, and I’m not the only one. Caroline Glick writes:

It hurts to hear about an American President who cares deeply and sincerely about wounded soldiers and soldiers murdered in a terrorist attack and know that he is not the American President. It isn’t so much that I miss Bush personally. I had a lot of criticism about his policies – particularly in his last two years in office after he effectively abdicated his leadership of global affairs to Condoleezza Rice and the permanent bureaucracy in Washington.

But at least you always knew that Bush loved America and that he loved Americans. You knew that he valued America’s allies even if he didn’t always do right by them. You knew that his values were American values.

And you knew that even though you couldn’t depend on him to make an eloquent, soaring speech, that when it came to his commitment to the war on terrorism and honoring and respecting our men and women in uniform his heart always was and is in the right place, something I suspect that most in the military understood and greatly appreciated – and still do.

For the latest on the finger-pointing and missed signals that led to this terrorist attack, click here.

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