Papers Increasingly Note Antiwar Views in Covering Funerals of the Fallen

[CatWoman]

Published: August 14, 2005 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK In a departure from past policies, newspapers around the country, with the U.S. death toll in Iraq again soaring, increasingly are reporting the antiwar sentiments of family members of the deceased in their coverage of funerals. The latest example comes from the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader on Sunday.

It concerns the funeral of Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley. The story notes that “in a departure from the norm in Kentucky -- one of the reddest of red states -- some of Comley's relatives, including a few sitting in the front pews, have spoken out strongly against the Bush administration and the war that took the 21-year-old Marine's life.”

Comley's grandmother, 80-year-old Geraldine Comley of Versailles, described herself as a former Republican stalwart who is "on a rampage" against the president and the war.

"When someone gets up and says 'My son died for our freedom,' or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it," Geraldine Comley said. She added that she would like nothing better than to join Cindy Sheehan, who has been holding a protest outside President Bush's ranch in Texas.

http://209.11.49.220/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001014529&imw=Y

[saigon68]

1. THEY died for Halliburton Profits in CHENEY'S OILY WAR

"FREEDOM MY ASS"

[leftchick]

7. and the whole Military Industrial Complex

FREEDOM MY ASS TOO! :grr:

[Olney Blue]

15. Hi leftchick,

glad to see your "birds" survived the downsizing!
:hi:

[leftchick]

20. hi Olney!

me too! ;)

[DBoon]

10. They died to create chaos in the Middle East

to further neocon dreams of world domination

[bluestateguy]

2. I would say to the Kentuckians:

"We told you so!!!"

[Doremus]

3. We ought to buy her a ticket.

She wants to join Cindy, let's send her! :thumbsup:

Go Geraldine! Tell * what you really think of him and stand up for all the other grandmothers in mourning!

[girl gone mad]

9. Yes, yes.

We should offer to help her in whatever ways she needs.

[prolesunited]

13. That would be really cool

Any way of getting ahold of her to see if she would be interested? I know we could get her there.

[DemonFighterLives]

4. Another recruit for Cindy

It seems like more are catching on every day.

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

5. How can Geraldine feel this way

when all the * supporters I know say that the troops "knew what they were getting into".

Some have actually added they don't feel sorry for them.

Of course, none of these people have anybody overseas, I guess that joining the military is not "for their kind of people".

Another young life wasted.

[AlamoDemoc]

6. This is interesting, and from the same article

Washingtonashington now does not expect to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it, officials and analysts said. There is also growing talk of turning over security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces even if they are not fully up to original U.S. expectations, in part because they have local legitimacy that U.S. troops often do not.

"’We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us,’ a U.S. official said.”"


http://209.11.49.220/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001014528


On edit: This is different article but from the same website

[John Q. Citizen]

8. This from the same artlicle..

snip

Her daughter, Missy Comley Beattie, also was critical of Bush and the war in a column she wrote for Friday's Herald-Leader.

"I've never seen my father cry, but I've heard him cry this week," she said in an interview. "And he will look at the picture of Chase that's on their hearth and say 'George Bush killed my grandson.'"

[rodeodance]

11. what to say--except how sad.

[ixion]

12. Anyone who has lost a loved one because of this BOGUS war should be mad

as hell as chimpenator.

It's ABOUT TIME the press decided to report this FACT! :grr:

[54anickel]

14. "In a departure from past policies" - whoa now there's an admission.

So, antiwar sentiment isn't climbing? It was always there they just wouldn't report it? :wtf: is with this BS?

[jhain]

16. Front Page Sunday Philly Inquirer

Polls show that Americans are losing confidence in the President and that they don't see themselves as safer.

By Dick Polman

Inquirer Staff Writer

The fog of war has settled over the home front.

Alarmed by the upsurge in casualties in Iraq - as evidenced by the deaths of seven Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers over the last week - and increasingly convinced that President Bush lacks a clear plan for victory, Americans in numbers unprecedented since the start of the war are losing confidence in the mission.

Bush is losing his domestic battle for hearts and minds; new polls report that, for the first time, a majority of Americans reject his contention that the war over there is making us safer over here. And support for the war has sagged to 44 percent, according to another recent poll.

Indeed, barring imminent progress in Iraq, 2005 might well be remembered as the year when public opinion went south and never came back - a mood shift roughly analogous to 1968, when domestic confidence in the Vietnam War began its irreversible slide.

more:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/12376825.htm

[Erika]

17. Even Republicans are finally waking up

Of course, it comes one death at a time.

[MasonJar]

18. Kentucky has become red in recent years, and that is due in part

to a democratic party that fell asleep. I was appalled at the pathetic effort when Gore ran. Last year we Kerry Kentucky took the ball in our own hands and did more. Jefferson Co. went for Kerry. We are trying to get the state back. Our new pug guv and his associates are helping us out with their illegal actions. That is a sad story about the Comley youth. The recruiters told him he'd go to Japan or Hawaii. Read the editorial in the Lexington Herald by his aunt. It is over the top....excellent and heartfelt. It should single-handedly convert some of the fence-sitters.

[femrap]

19. Kentucky could easily become blue,,,,

I lived in Lexington from '99 to '02...but I know lots of people who had always voted pug and for the first time in their lives voted for Kerry in '04...and I am talking good ol' Bubbas...!!! Now they're losing their children in this disgusting war while the pug politicians engage in corruption....Yep....KY could go blue.

Isn't Fort Campbell in KY? Lots of injured vets from there I hear...

[DrZeeLit]

21. I say we get up a fund and SEND GERALDINE TO CRAWFORD! What a headline!

Hopefully someone will see this article and SEND GERALDINE TO CRAWFORD!

I would soooo love to see an 80 year old former Repub sitting alongside Cindy.
How fast do can you say: GOOD MORNING AMERICA, TODAY SHOW, LARRY KING?????

Mmmm? How can we SEND GERALDINE TO CRAWFORD???

Great minds find a way!!!!!