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# What’s the point?
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/whats-the-point-20050816-2/
- Published: 2005-08-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:42:08.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

The war in Iraq continues to rage, despite proclamations from the administration that we have “turned a corner,” “reached a tipping point,” or achieved a “milestone.” The Bush Administration continues to put forth these bromides in the hopes that if they say it loud enough, long enough, the public will believe the false reality that the Republicans desperately need in order for the upcoming elections not to be a wholesale slaughter of their ranks. God forbid!

This president is certainly no Andrew Jackson, a president who held parties to which the public was welcome. This president has exchanged the glare of Washington and a special prosecutor, for the glare of reporters and protesters in Crawford, Tex., where he must either speed past in his tinted limousine, or fly over in his Marine issue helicopter.

In a scene reminiscent of the ’60s, President Bush must now hold the line against Cindy Sheehan, a plaintive mother and her followers trying to convince him to stop an unjust war.

Her plight is heartbreaking. The thought of having to live the rest of her life without her son is certainly enough to make anyone sympathize. Her cause is just — to prevent other parents from feeling this loss. Her chances of success are nil.

President Bush cannot meet with her. And the mainstream media, the far right wackjobs and the crazies on the left, all will point out that while she waits in the hot Texas sun, he goes to Little League games, on bike rides and putters on his ranch. The attempt to mock the president by comparing her plight with his lighthearted activities is poignant, but unfair.

This might be the only time that I agree with the president whole-heartedly. He simply cannot be held hostage and meet with a grieving mother because she is able to garner national media attention.

I hate saying that, but, as Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, the President of the United States cannot be forced to meet with someone on their terms.

The office of the president, no matter the boob in it, must be controlled by the administration and not subject to control by a sympathetic media savvy individual.

However, I also believe the president has a duty to the people, to be open to them, and to throw open the doors of the White House, figuratively, if not literally. The president’s job is to represent the will of the people and to uphold and defend the Constitution. He certainly cannot know the will of the people if he is sheltered and ensconced in a cocoon of Republican Reality Cotton Candy.

The likelihood of this president getting out to “the people” is slim to none. He is a creature that is protected, molded and controlled by his handlers in the Secret Service and the West Wing. He has never displayed a penchant to be of “the people.” He has made great fodder of his affection for the affluent and his disdain for the poor. The rich are his base, the poor his pawns. His public proclamations are based on “we” but his actions prove an “I” mentality.

This is not a president built from the mold of the Washington, Lincoln, or Carter. He is a direct descendant of Harding, Nixon and Reagan. His common-man style belies the imperial majesty he craves. His smooth execution of coming from a Wal-Mart mentality, allows him to exercise his Neiman- Marcus lifestyle.

All that aside, the office of the president, cannot bow down to the emotional pleas of a grieving parent. I say this not because I want there to be some majestic reverence for the office or the inhabitant, but rather, out of sheer practicality.

With more than 1,800 service members dead, if the office were subject to the emotional blackmail of each of the families who survive, the president would get less done than he already does. The office should be open to hearing from the public, and from the families of the fallen, but there is the realistic matter of getting on with the business of the day. There is simply too much to do as president to meet with every grieving family member.

If I were president, a fate I would welcome but which is not very likely to happen, I would order that one day a month the public has the right to come to speak with me. I would create real town hall meetings, not these produced, and handled events that are just glorified photo-ops for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

It is at these meetings that “the people” would have the opportunity to inform me of their concerns and gripes.

The office of the president has always been a gilded cage. Some presidents have left office on the verge of bankruptcy, others have gone in broke and come out wealthy. Some spouses loved the White House, some detested it so much they barely lived there. President Truman called the presidency the “Crown Jewel of the Federal penal system.”

In today’s modern world, the presidency is wherever the president is. Technology allows the occupant to be in constant touch with the world. Which does not mean that he can, or should, meet with everyone who wants to see him. But that is not really the point. The president is the leader of the country, and he serves a symbolic purpose. Symbolically he should be available to the people, and this president is failing on that front, and he does that whether he is at his ranch in Crawford, or at his post in the White House.

Cindy Sheehan just shines a bright light on that fact. And maybe that is the best message we can take from her actions. (David Pisarra or (310) 664-9969.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 16, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081605.pdf?ref=smdp.com)