"Mom" = "Bring 'Em On"

Cindy Sheehan, who has attracted attention by camping out not far from President Bush's summer home to air her disagreement over his policies, says when she met George W. Bush he was disrespectful.

It was shortly after her son died in Iraq when she and other mothers of fallen soldiers met the president in June, 2004. She said that he called her "Mom" repeatedly throughout the brief meeting.

The president is nearly a decade older than Sheehan. He called her "mom" because he makes up nicknames for people. It is easier that way. He accomplishes at least two things: A playful familiarity, and it makes unnecessary his actually having to be attentive to detail.

That's how George W. Bush is with everyone, you might say. That proves my point. He is uninterested in details, be they other human beings' names, or thinking through what might happen if he commits billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of military personnel to an invasion that might, just might, not be a cakewalk to victory.

Democratic leadership from the moment Bush took office has been cowed by his bully-boy approach, reacting to him like caterers at a country club where he is guesting. That is beginning to change. But in the meantime, too many people are now dead either in body or in character at the hands of destructive Bush policies or smear politics.

Watch the Democratic leadership who can look their fellow citizens in the eye and not make up some pandering nickname like "mom." Look for the Democratic leadership who can address the likes of Mrs. Sheehan not by the simplistic, "I hear her, I sympathize with her, and she has every right to say what she wants because this is America," and actually engage her and the nation in adult discourse about what's going on in this country.

Calling Sheehan "Mom" is like telling us that "terrorists hate us because we're free." It's condescending, simplistic, patronizing and wrong -- and it gets us not an inch closer to understanding the dynamics of this world problem so that we can solve it. When Bush stripped away the dignity of the moment by calling her "Mom" he was reducing the moment to a caricature that his lazy intellect could grasp, like when he said "bring 'em on."