I’ve often spoken of the major difference between Bush and Kerry for me being the men—their values, their principles, their inner souls, their convictions—and indeed their real honesty. Despite the liberal blathering about “lies”, which in itself is a lie, George Bush demonstrates an honesty that Kerry can’t even mimic when he tries—and sadly he does try to mimic it. I think people feel it too—and that goes a long way toward explaining Bush’s popularity despite the liberal-left media onslaught against him, as well as the Hollywood starlets and so on.
People know honesty when they see it.
I’m pasting more of this article than I should, copyright-wise, but it really got to me because it explains so much about Bush versus Kerry.
Cutting to the Quick
The mother a soldier who died in Iraq talks about John Kerry.
by Stephen F. Hayes
10/29/2004 1:00:00 PM
Canton, Ohio
ON MAY 5, 2004, Peggy Buryj, got the worst news a mother can get. Her son, Jesse, had been killed in Iraq. Jesse was manning the turret of a Humvee at a checkpoint in Karbala, south of Baghdad, when he noticed a dump truck racing towards his vehicle. Despite warnings, the driver did not stop. Jesse fired more than 400 rounds at the truck, killing the driver. But the truck didn’t stop. It rammed his Humvee, tipping it over. Jesse suffered massive internal injuries and later died on the operating table.
Jesse’s funeral got significant media attention in Canton. The military told Mrs. Buryj (pronounced “boo-dee”) that her son’s action saved the lives of at least three soldiers. “My son was a big hero in these parts,” she says. “Canton really turned out for my son’s funeral.”
Six weeks later, Peggy Buryj claims that she received a phone call from a representative of John Kerry’s presidential campaign. The caller identified herself as “Linda” and asked Mrs. Buryj, a registered Democrat, if she would appear at a Canton rally for John Kerry. Buryj agreed, but with a condition. She wanted to ask Kerry one question: “Why did you vote against the $87 billion for support troops in Iraq?”
“And I wanted to ask him—because I never hear journalists ask him, or anybody ask him—what was his reasoning for voting down the money?”
Buryj understood that her request was politically sensitive. So she told the Kerry campaign that she was willing to ask Kerry in
private, before the event, or in a phone call. She promised that she would not go public with his answer. She even offered to sign a confidentiality agreement pledging that she would not talk to reporters about Kerry’s answer.
“They were inviting me because of my son,” she says. “You know, they were using me for their benefit, you know? Local hero’s mother, you know?” Buryj notes that the Kerry campaign did not invite the Rameys, parents of Staff Sft. Richard Ramey, who died in Iraq February 8, 2004. “They were Republicans,” she says. “I’m a Democrat.”
Nevertheless, she wanted to attend the rally. “I wanted to go. I just wanted an answer to my question.”
She never heard back from the campaign.
A month later, Buryj received a call from the Bush campaign. President Bush wanted to meet her, in private, along with the families of two other fallen soldiers from Stark County. There would be no reporters in the room. She was not asked if she supported the president.
Bush spoke to a rally of 5,000 at the Canton Memorial Civic Center on July 31. Afterwards, he met for 20 minutes with Buryj, the Rameys and the family of Sgt. Michael Barkey, who had been killed in Iraq on July 7. Buryj says she cried when she saw Bush. “He cried on my shoulder as much as I cried on his.”
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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