Part 2 of the Conversation on Sean Hannity’s show on Aug 23rd between Melanie Morgan, Bob Beckel, and John Roblieski.
S – On our newsmaker line is John Roblieski, we now have gotten to know John, he lost his son in Iraq and I’ve had the honor of meeting him recently and John how are ya?
J – Alright Sean, how are you doing and thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.
S – We love having you on and this is a short segment so if need be I’m gonna bring you into the next one if you mind. Um, you hear Bob Beckel and you see what’s going on and you hear Melanie’s movement what are your thoughts?
J – Well, first of all I want to thank Mrs. Morgan for what she’s doing and I take my hat off to her, that’s a great thing that she’s organizing and you know the only thing I can really say is actually the way that I feel. When this whole thing started to develop with Mrs. Sheehan and like I said to you once before I understand what she’s going through, I understand her pain and her heartache and everything she’s going through. And in the beginning I felt sorry for her and really could understand. Then when you start to hear some of these organizations that are supporting her in Code Pink and MoveOn.Org and things of that nature and then you hear that she was at a rally supporting Lynne Stewert who was convicted of aiding terrorists, you know I started to say to myself you know what’s in God’s name is going on? Alright, now it’s like where, where is our voice? Where’s the other side of it? You know we hear so much of Cindy Sheehan and I’ve spoke to other families who have lost son’s also and we all kinda have the same feeling. You know all we hear about the face of Cindy Sheehan and the media trying to put her face on like the speaker for families of the fallen and it’s far from it and where’s our voice? That’s what really tugs at me quite a bit.
S – You called the Sheriff of Crawford Texas where this camp Cindy is going on and you said if one of those crosses has my son’s name I want it taken down. Explain the outcome of that?
J – Alright, we haven’t heard anything back yet from them and actually it was my wife who made the call. But I will tell you this, the Sheriff told us, he said to my wife, he said Maam don’t you worry, he took the spelling of my son’s name he said he’s going to ride over there and if your son’s name is on any of those crosses that he would personally remove that cross. And the reason we wanted that done Sean is because you know we don’t want our son’s name associated with what’s going on over there. We met the President you know and he’s a sincere, compassionate, caring person I mean he shed a tear with us and he cried with us and you knew that he felt our pain. We support the President and what we feel is very very important is that this mission is completed and that we do complete the mission.
Commercial Break
S – Anyway we continue the battle over Camp Cindy down in Crawford Texas continues and now there is a counter Cindy Sheehan caravan led by Melanie Morgan and she’s going cross country and when do you expect by the way Melanie to be in Crawford?
M – Our tour is under way right now, I’m still in San Francisco I only went with the first 3 legs of it I have to unfortunately work for the rest of the week then I’m joining up with the rest of the caravan Friday evening in Dallas and then we’re caravaning from there down to Crawford.
S – Ok, and also with us is John Roblieski, he lives in New Jersey and he’s told us a story about losing his son in Iraq and Bob Beckel, Democratic strategist is with us. Bob first of all you want to respond at all to what John said or…
B – Well, first of all I wanna just say that I’m sympathetic with your loss and all and also I think that the important point here is that for those of us who do not support this war now to understand this has nothing to do with the troops who are fighting this war ah they are patriots they are professionals and they have done their duty but that doesn’t mean, I assume you would agree, that those of us who do not agree with this war oughta be quiet.
S – Nobody is saying that but do you at all, you didn’t answer my question originally when Cindy Sheehan says that George Bush is the biggest terrorist of them all, compares him to being a fascist, say’s America is not worth dying for, say’s she’s not going to pay taxes, Israel out of Palestine and all the other things she has said that is over the top, aligns with MoveOn and aligns with Michael Moore I mean at what point does she lose credibility?
B – Well, Sean, your asking me the question do I agree with her statements, no. The question about her credibility you know I suppose that’s a question the American people answer I mean she still has as far as I’m concerned an enormous amount of credibility she lost her son there but leaving that aside I mean she’s clearly put herself in a position where she has now been attacked from a number of different directions, she’s said some things that has brought a lot of this upon herself, I don’t think she had any idea what she was getting into when she started this thing but nonetheless I don’t understand how any of that negates the fact that the vast majority of the people in this Country do not support this war.
M – I would like to say one thing you cannot delink the troops from their mission. I have heard this over and over again from Democrats, from liberals, from people from the anti-war movement. We support our troops we just don’t support their mission. You cannot have it both ways, the troops and their mission are inextricable entwined. I am tired of hearing that.
B – Can I just repeat one more time Melanie if I could for you, I said that I thought that George Bush when we went into Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction he believed it and at one time their were they just happened not to be there. When Saddam Hussein was overthrown that was a good thing. When we got people to go to vote that was a good thing. They’re now drafting a charter, that is a good thing. There’s now going to be a vote this Fall, that is a good thing. After that is done enough is enough, what more are we going to be asked to do?
M – Alright, I heard you the first time and I’m going to ask you this question what would you do differently if there were a Democratic President in charge right now? I would posit that you wouldn’t do a damn thing differently that it would look exactly the same because we cannot cut and run on this mission. We must have a stable and free and Democratic Iraq because it serves America’s interests in the Middle East from now until eternity.
B – Well lemme ask you that question, do you believe then you can answer this yes or no, that George Bush has managed this war well.
M – I have several criticisms of the prosecution of this war.
B – So the answer is no.
M – The answer is that I think their have been mistakes made there’s no question about it but whether or not I think there have been mistakes made is irrelevant to the discussion that I have been involved in with Move America Forward.
S – Well, Melanie do you think overall do you feel he’s done a good job executing, not perfect, a good job?
M – I think overall there has been a good job, yes, I think there’s some things we could of done differently but my criticism with the left is very specific. You people, the anti-war people, have offered no different vision what would America look like if we weren’t fighting the terrorists overseas? I tell you what it would look like, we would have the Golden Gate bridge blown up the Sears tower gone and another high rise in New York attacked with airplanes.
B – Melanie that borders with all due respect as delusional. I mean the idea that you could sit there and make that kind of statement absent any specific facts do you think let me ask you this if 138,000 American military personnel were here and a half trillion dollars we’re spending on this war were spent here to protect our borders do you think we would be less safe, we would be better off being in Iraq?
M – I think that the American troop presence in Iraq which have toppled a murderous regime, you people seem to have forgotten that over a million people were murdered do you not care about the Iraqi women, the mother’s over there who have lost their children
(talking over each other)
S – Alright, let me
B – Melanie you gotta be careful about putting, you know what we gotta do here is lower the rhetoric here a little bit, you better be careful about the allegations that your making when you say you anti-war people your talking about a majority of the American people.
S – Ok, hang on, that’s that’s not been the case Bob I think your distorting that but lemme just give John here, who has been very patient ah an opportunity to respond, you know what John, I guess you more then anybody else your comments mean more because your family has sacrificed the most. You lost your son, you described him to us one day and it was literally bringing tears to everybody’s eyes and I mean it’s the price we’ve all paid for freedom and you paid the biggest price of all losing your son.
J – Yeah, um, you know Sean, the like Bob said I don’t dislike people that are against the war you know everybody has the right, everybody has their opinion, Cindy has her opinion and I respect that, I don’t have a problem with that but like I said it’s just you know that face, that she’s the only voice, and to say that most of America is against the war I guess the polls show that but you know the people that I talk to, the town that I live in, you would definitely think differently with regard to anything like that. These guys that go there, like my son, like Cindy’s son, they volunteer to do that, they just don’t get dragged out of their houses and this is something that they love to do and they take pride in what they do.
S – Listen John, we’ve taken a lot of your time and you’ve been very gracious as you have been now for a couple weeks as we’ve talked to you a couple of times and I really enjoyed meeting you, I really did and your family are just great people and your always in our thoughts and prayers and I hope we can check in with you often. Now are you, your not planning on going down there are you John?
J – No, I, you know Sean I would love to but you know it’s ah I have to work I got 3 other boy’s at home
S – I understand
M – John can I just say to you from all the people at Move America Forward and from all the military families with whom I have been speaking on the tour that we are grateful for your son’s sacrifice and our hearts break in half for your loss and we love you very much and honor you.
Sean then offers to pick up John and his families airfare to go visit with the tour on Saturday, while John is responding his phone cuts off.
B – You know Melanie let me just say one thing to you which is that I think what you are doing expressing your point of view and organizing people to go do what your doing is admirable and I wish you well and I think that’s a good byproduct of Democracy and I think maybe in the scheme of things the idea that you get people organized on the other side is a good idea, that doesn’t belittle what Cindy Sheehan is doing, it certainly shouldn’t belittle what your doing and so the fact that you organize and you did this I wish you well.
M – Thank you Bob, I appreciate that and I also want to say to you that it is a Country of constitutionally guaranteed protections for free speech, I have never and would never suggest that Cindy Sheehan doesn’t have the right to say whatever she’s saying, that’s far from it but we don’t have to pay attention to what she is saying and we can also point out that there’s another point of view.
B – Absolutely, that’s the greatness of the Country and I think frankly when you do get there I think there is going to be a awful lot of press coverage and it will be interesting to see how it plays out at that point because it’s true, she did get a awful lot of attention but frankly I don’t think that should be a negative for her I mean she went down there and did that and now your organizing a counter force and that’s what this is about we’ll see how it plays out.
Go here to download the audio.
Previous:
See author page