President Bush secretly visited Fort Hood soldiers

President and Mrs. Bush grieve with traumatized soldiers

In the dignified manner we saw during his eight years in the White House, President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, made a secret visit to Fort Hood last Friday to visit and comfort grief-stricken military families.

With the Bush Crawford ranch only 30 miles away, the President wanted to make the trip but instructed that there be no publicity. That's typical of a President who had a genuine affection for the military men and women who served under him ... and the affection is returned by the majority of the troops.

According to Fox News:

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent "considerable time" consoling those who were wounded in Thursday's shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

The couple was described as "deeply concerned" about military families on Fort Hood after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on soldiers and civilians, killing 13 and wounding 38.

The LA Times wrote that the President and Larua spent their time "meeting with the wounded, family and soldiers, talking quietly and at times hugging them as they did in private at other times of crisis such as post-9/11."

A fellow Support the Troops organizer called my attention to Hillbuzz, a former Bush basher, and his blog entry, "Thank you former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush":

If you have been reading us for any length of time, you know that we used to make fun of “Dubya” nearly every day…parroting the same comedic bits we heard in our Democrat circles, where Bush is still, to this day, lampooned as a chimp, a bumbling idiot, and a poor, clumsy public speaker.

Oh, how we RAILED against Bush in 2000…and how we RAILED against the surge in support Bush received post-9/11 when he went to Ground Zero and stood there with his bullhorn in the ruins on that hideous day.

We were convinced that ANYONE who was president would have done what Bush did, and would have set that right tone of leadership in the wake of that disaster. President Gore, President Perot, President Nader, you name it. ANYONE, we assumed, would have filled that role perfectly.

Well, we told you before how much the current president, Dr. Utopia, made us realize just how wrong we were about Bush. We shudder to think what Dr. Utopia would have done post-9/11. He would have not gone there with a bullhorn and struck that right tone. More likely than not, he would have been his usual fey, apologetic self and waxed professorially about how evil America is and how justified Muslims are for attacking us, with a sidebar on how good the attacks were because they would humble us.

Honestly, we don’t think [a] President Gore would have been much better that day. The world needed George W. Bush, his bullhorn, and his indominable spirit that day…and we will forever be grateful to this man for that.

As we will always be grateful for what George and Laura Bush did this week, with no media attention, when they very quietly went to Ft. Hood and met personally with the families of the victims of this terrorist attack.

FOR HOURS.

The Bushes went and met privately with these families for HOURS, hugging them, holding them, comforting them.

The post goes on to thank them and apologize for past remarks.

President Bush's visit to Fort Hood came amid increasing reports from European newspapers that have noted the cold demeanor of President Barack Obama as compared to the previous compassionate president. More on that in another post.