Does Bush Regret Invading Iraq? Why Can't Bush Meet with Cindy Sheehan?

CINDY SHEEHAN has been camped out in front of the president's ranch in Crawford, TX for more than 10 days now and there hasn't been any sign that Bush will meet her. It's been a media frenzy thus far and unless either side budges it doesn't look like it will go away anytime soon.

With his approval ratings sinking and Cindy's face plastered all over the networks, why wouldn't Bush meet with her? Why not?

Maybe because deep down inside, Bush secretly knows that his ambitious, ideological plans to invade Iraq and build a model democracy are going down the tubes?

Maybe that, by meeting with Ms. Sheehan he would have to face the sudden reality that his fraternity-driven mind actually makes decisions that affect real Americans with real lives and real souls?

This isn't to say that Bush hasn't met with the families of fallen soldiers who served in Iraq. To be fair, Bush has met quite a lot of him. But based on Ms. Sheehan's own account when Bush met her in 2004, he, well, didn't quite take her son's loss quite seriously enough.

They say that morticians, crime scene investigators and those who deal with trauma everyday have to make light of the situation in order to keep themselves from going crazy. They make jokes about the victims they come in contact not out of disrespect, but to keep themselves unaffected by the gravity of each situation so that they could do their jobs.

I think Bush is doing the same thing here. His comments on refusing to meet with Ms. Sheehan because he needs to keep a daily routine, to move on reflect that.

Daily routine? Doesn't that sound like the words of someone who's suffered a great loss (like Mrs. Sheehan) or, better yet, someone who realizes the error of his ways. There's certainly evidence of this:

1. General George Casey and Lt. General John Vines, though not endorsed by the White House, issued a possible timetable for exiting Iraq.
2. The White House, after public support for the war has been tanking for months, decides to significantly lower its expectations from a liberal democratic Iraq to only a stable one.

However, unlike morticians, CSI-folks or emergency medical personnel, Bush caused the trauma that may very well be haunting him. He put us in Iraq -- now he has to get us out. And it looks like the world is going to be in much worse shape when we do pullout.