Semper fiery (bobvis, you out there?)

Lexington Herald-Leader

The pros and cons of U.S. involvement in Iraq were not discussed among family members who gathered last week to grieve and to prepare for the funeral, said John Whitlow, a cousin. Some family members opposed and some supported the war before Comley's death, and Whitlow said he didn't know whether that had changed.

"As you can imagine, we're not talking about what divides us right now," he said.

Nor was it a major topic as 900 people gathered in the church yesterday for a service punctuated by laughter and tears as speakers remembered the popular graduate of and athletic standout at Sayre School, a small private school in downtown Lexington.

But on Friday, Comley's grandmother, 80-year-old Geraldine Comley of Versailles, described herself in an interview as a former Republican stalwart who is "on a rampage" against the president and the war.

She said she would like nothing better than to join Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier who has been holding a peace vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Texas.

"When someone gets up and says 'My son died for our freedom,' or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it," Geraldine Comley said.

She said her view, developed before her grandson's death, is that Bush pushed for war because Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate the first President Bush, and to get control of Mideast oil.

"And it irritates me no small amount that Dick Cheney, in the Vietnam War, said he had 'other priorities,'" Geraldine Comley said. "He didn't mind sending my grandson over there" to Iraq.

It's an old refrain around these parts:

These guys don't know how to fight, or, what they're fighting against: NYT, me, me, me

And, the salient point from that last link:

If I was George Bush, I wouldn't want a second term. It will destroy the viability of a Republican President, and possibly his party, for 20 years. Too bad. And ironic. In running away from his daddy's shadow, he severed contact with the one man who perhaps could have saved him from himself.