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Responses to: A Healing Embrace

Thank you so much for the excellence with which you think and write. Your article on the healing embrace is outstanding. I did not see or hear the President's speech, but afterwards when I heard about the embrace I wept. I wept again as I read it described in your report of it. It brings to mind the necessary and healing catharsis that occurred as described in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 5. Jesus healed a man with a legion of demons. People of the time who were suffering horrible maladies and were said to have been possessed by "unclean spirits." The word for "unclean" in the Greek is a-catharto, literally without catharsis. Jesus commanded the demons to CATHART! Would that Christ continue to command this catharsis to our nation and purge our collective soul of our legion of poisons. God bless you all! - D. A.

Is it too much for an interviewer to ask a question that many people were asking? As you know this President and previous presidents were not beyond those "Kodak" moments. Even if the embrace was genuine, it was used to express several aspects of our national pain. Many of us might believe it was a spontaneous act of compassion and sorrow. It's rather interesting that no one else standing near them reached out and responded in that way. There is a great need for genuine compassion and forgiveness in our nation. However, the political play seems to take precedence over genuine healing. Thanks for the thoughtful presentation. - P. K.

Ambiguity over whether a regime with which we were still at war (and which had been firing on our planes for 10 years and impeding the inspections it had agreed to as part of the cease-fire); which has been a regular on the list of state sponsors of terror; which had not only maintained but actually used WMDs in the past on both its enemies and its own citizens; and which the world community (even opponents of the war effort) determined not only to have intent to develop such weapons but also actually to possess them, is untenable. - J. N.

Why shouldn't Sawyer suspect a set-up for the embrace? Everything else was set up. Do you think the Norwoods were there by coincidence? Do we think Safia's display of her purple finger was spontaneous? Was it mere happenstance that the two were seated so closely that the embrace could happen? It is not jaded or cynical to suspect the Bush handlers of choreographing every move to drive home their dishonest point that our mission is clear and altruistic. It is neither. Yes, there are still pure expressions of human decency in this world. With Team Bush setting the stage for this one the chances that this was one of them is fairly slim. - J. P.

Editor response: So the Bush administration should have separated Mrs. Norwood and Safia Taleb-Al-Suhail just in case they might hug?

When I read about your reaction to Diane Sawyer's question about "staging", it reminded me of a very awful thing that happened a few years ago when Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was killed in a plane wreck two weeks before the election in which he was running for re-election. Seven other people, including his wife and daughter, were killed in that accident also. There was a large memorial service for all eight who died. I was personally at that service, and it was a time of great grief--Some of the speakers were nearly incoherent with grief, not really making sense, desperately needing a catharsis, if you will. The next day, I was STUNNED to discover what the Republican party did after watching that sincere scene of horrible grief. Instead of respecting the integrity of people in deep grief, they saw it only as an opportunity to try to win an election and they "spun" the coverage of the memorial service by assaulting those who spoke (including Sen. Wellstone's sons who had the amazing grace to speak after having lost all of the rest of their family--their father, their mother and their sister) and filling the airwaves with complaints of how the entire evening had been "staged" as a political action. Remembering this, I am still astounded by their lack of compassion and their cynicism in the face of grief and loss. Of course, one of the impacts of their cynicism and lack of respect was the election of their candidate two weeks. Sadly, such a "reward" only further encourages cynicism. Perhaps persons of all political persuasions need to accept that real people display real emotions and we are not all trying to "get something" out of it--we are trying to be genuine human beings. Cynicism is a choice. - S. M.

I too found the moment when the Iraqi woman turned and hugged the lady who lost her son in Iraq to be a poignant moment. But for to question reporters asking whether it was staged is a bit naive at best. In politics, almost every event is staged and I would not at all be surprised, especially with this administration, that the Iraqi woman was encouraged to turn and hug the mom. It was still a special moment and very symbolic, even if it was "staged." That is what is important, but don't be so disingenuous in your comments. - J. M.

This was a genuine and very tender moment in the lives of the two women of this article. I loved the article and was sickened by the responses of some. That enough time has lapsed since 9-11 to enable us to forget that the attack of that date is just the tip of the iceberg in the agenda the Islamic leaders to bring America down to destruction. The attack of 9-11, the infiltrating of our ranks here at home, the removing of freedom of speech by the institution of hate crimes that will eventually be targeted against Christians, are all a well orchestrated plan to bring America down. Capitalism, Freedom, Democracy as a partial list of those things that are quoted as being forced upon other nations, are all a part of what we enjoy today, and if you take any of them away, we would feel intruded upon, yet that is exactly what will happen if we don't take the actions we are taking against those very forces we are fighting today. Fight them today over there where they are, or fight them here tomorrow. When they are on our own soil, it will be much harder to defend the very freedoms we hold so dear. Those forces are already here in an active but dormant, planning state waiting for the right time and strength to do a devastating amount of damage (as they did on 9-11) but alas... we seem to forget about that invasion. We also have forgotten that we don't really qualify for God's blessing upon America anymore... we are not humbling ourselves, we are not calling upon the Lord, or depending upon him and putting ourselves in the right position for Him to "Heal our land". I'm afraid we may have forgotten about the Lord just long enough for Him to allow us to be wiped off the face of the earth, exactly as the Roman Empire was... from decay within. - J. F.

Perhaps some people have seen the movie WAG THE DOG and just can't help thinking that the embrace was just one more staged event in political life. But perhaps we aren't supposed to think, just feel. - K. W.

Excellent article. - I.

While I do feel for Mrs. Taleb-Al-Suhail as well as Mrs. Norwood, I also feel for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens who have lost loved ones as a result of our unprovoked attack and occupation. Voting loses some of its savor when you have to bury your 4 year old the day before because occupying forces have killed him in an attempt to get the "bad guys" (as if we can say who is "bad" and who is "good" anyway). I cannot understand how a civilization and society that claims to be as progressive and forward thinking as we like to claim can be so duped by those who feed the fear and propaganda mill and in a mostly successful attempt to make us think we are always right. How dare we claim to be there to free the oppressed when we allow oppression in dozens of other nations to go unchecked, un-criticized, and in some cases even supported. We are in Iraq so that we can continue to have the cheapest gas on the face of the earth so that we might consume it at the fastest per capita rate on the face of the earth. This whole affair has been a international blemish that 100 free elections in Iraq will not wipe away. - P. S.

None of us are really so blind as to think that our intentions in Iraq were perfect. We "thought" there were weapons. We "had to enforce" the UN Resolutions. And before we blame our current President, we ought to remember that former Pres. Clinton provided the same arguments but stopped at rhetoric instead of action. Finally, terrorism was indeed being supported in Iraq. Not necessarily Al Qaeda, but none-the-less, they were state sponsors of terror. In fact, Saddam was "in your face" about it. He paid between $10,000-20,000 to the families of each suicide bomber in Israel. If that doesn't need challenged, I don't know what should. While altruism can be argued, we need to be careful with our "selective" memories...recalling only the facts that support our feelings of being right. To the anti-war folks, you can point to the intelligence failures as "lies"...but would you be willing to indict former Pres. Clinton on the same charges? Watch out how you try to take a speck out of someone's eye...each of us has a log of our own! - B. H.