Editorial by CK Rairden
May 10, 2004
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It started out as a fluke.  Lynn Faulkner had been offered an extra ticket
to a Bush campaign event by his neighbor Linda Prince. Mr. Faulkner
decided to offer it to his 15-year old daughter Ashley who he expected
would decline, as she would have to miss some school to attend.  But his
daughter surprised him.  Ashley reminded her dad how four years ago
they attended a similar event when then Texas Governor George W.
Bush visited the same spot on the campaign trail.

Ashley remembered attending that event with both her father and her mother
Wendy Faulkner.  It was raining that day and they all stood in the rain awaiting
Governor Bush "eating Triscuit crackers" enjoying time together and hoping to
get a glimpse of the would-be president.  Ashley recalled holding her mothers
hand as they waited. So she decided to go again this year, but this time her
mother could not attend.  Wendy Faulkner was murdered on 9/11/01 in the
south tower of the World Trade Center.  She was there on the 104th floor
for a one-day meeting.  Ashley decided to miss school in honor and
remembrance of her mother and attend the event.

So the trip was on.  Linda Prince, along with Lynn and Ashley Faulkner,
were off to the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, Ohio for the event.  The group
arrived early and got a spot close to the front.  As the event wound down, the
president worked the line in full campaign mode shaking hands and signing
autographs.  As the president passed the group, Mr. Faulkner got an autograph,
and the president continued on until Linda Prince spoke up,
"This girl lost her mother on 9/11," Prince told the president.

Then everything changed.

"The president's entire _expression transformed," Mr. Faulkner told me on
Sunday.  "He turned and came back against the flow and his eyes locked on
Ashley's.  His face showed a man who was no longer the president, he was a
father and a husband." 

President Bush made his way back to Ashley and he embraced the 15-yeal
old young woman.  "She snuggled in with the president just like she did when
she was a little girl with her dad," Mr. Faulkner said.  "I know it's hard,"
Mr. Faulkner heard the president tell his daughter. 

"I'm okay," Ashley told the president. 

The embrace continued.

Mr. Faulkner had his Kodak digital camera with him and debated on
invading this very private moment between his daughter and the leader
of the free world.  "For 20-30 seconds the president belonged exclusively
to Ashley," Lynn Faulkner told me. 

So he decided to capture the moment without invading Ashley and the president's
privacy.  He held up his digital camera, not even aiming with his eye and with one
click snapped just one picture.  It showed in detail the face of a compassionate man
who just happens to be the president comforting a young woman who lost her mother
in the 9/11 attacks on America.

Mr. Faulkner told me that he saw tears in his daughter's eyes, and saw emotion
that he hadn't seen from his daughter in 2 ½ years.  Ashley told her dad ...
"The way he was holding me, with my head against his chest, it felt like
he was trying to protect me, he wanted to make sure that I was safe." 

That feeling is captured in a very clear way in this moving unscripted photo. 
It's the only photo of this special embrace as the press corps had already been
ushered back on the bus.  And the photo was never meant for publication.  All
Mr. Faulkner did when he returned home from the event was e-mail it to 15
friends and family.  But by the middle of last week, I had received the photo
from eight different people.  Others were also receiving the photo and forwarding
it along.  It became an Internet phenomenon, as it was e-mailed around America.

Mr. Faulkner called the embrace ...
"President Bush's precious gift to my daughter." 

And with his small act of e-mailing that photo to friends and family,
the picture can now become a gift to the American people.

And as sad as the story is the release and publication is a good thing. 
Disgusting photos coming out of Iraq for the past 10 days have shocked
Americans, as they should have.  But no longer are the terrible images of
9/11 shown.  While the Iraq prison photos have been picked up by the elite
media and shown time and again, this touching photo has gone largely ignored
by the mainstream media.  But the alternative media has made this touching
powerful photo one of the most e-mailed photos of last week.  The Internet once
again took over where the elite media failed.  Matt Drudge ran it on May 7th,
as did the Page 2 Politics journal, and hundreds of other blogs.  Millions have
now seen it, but millions more need to.  It gives a stark reminder why America
is at war with radical Islam and other terrorists around the world that are
determined to cause this kind of pain to other American families.

The images of 9/11 have faded in the minds of far too many Americans. 
This picture and this family's riveting story give a stark reminder of why
America is at war.  Each day around the globe our soldiers are fighting in
an attempt to prevent any other event as terrible as the murders that took
place on 9/11.  

Look hard at this picture.
 
See the compassion and sadness on the president's face.  Look at this
young woman, see her grief and listen her father's words.  Ashley and
her sister Loren just spent their third Mother's Day without their mother,
as did thousands of other children who lost their mothers on 9/11 at the
hands of ruthless uncaring terrorists.  Imagine yourself in that position.

Then remember why America is at war, and consider the
type of person America should have leading that war. 

CK Rairden is the Editor of The Washington Dispatch.