Callous Disregard, Part II


While I can't say I've got ANY measure of respect re: Team Bush's response to New Orleans flooding and Hurricane Rita, I suppose it's a tad better than the latest when it comes to the Middle East. Innocent people suffering is just part of the official administration package, and corpses are, to a president Billmon aptly describes as a psychopath, just so much cordwood to stack:

One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.

"He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians," said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. "The tacticians would say: 'Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.' The president would say: 'You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let's take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.' "

I guess "managed" in this case is an equally sterile substitute for "collateral damage"--that's awfully (pun intended) easy to say when your family or friends AREN'T the ones being damaged.

Then again, this is part and parcel with Shrub's other "project" in the region, which is ensuring the complete breakdown of any semblence of order in Iraq--and then steadfastly denying there's a problem. And, as I noted a couple of days ago, the sports journalists are once again shaming their "serious" counterparts, providing a far more thorough investigation of Pat Tillman's death (Part II of a series)--and the associated lies--than I've seen anywhere else.

All lies, all the time. It's as if the administration is compulsively unable to play it straight with the American public, and the world at large. Instead the ongoing special is bullshit-on-a-stick, dutifully served up by the pathetic wait staff that is the modern press corps. Big lies, small lies...it's ALL lies.

Again, as I noted yesterday, if this was merely political gamesmanship, that'd be one thing--it'd still be appalling, but hey, I'm cynical enough to understand that politics ain't bean bag. However, we're dealing with issues that have massive ramifications. Real people are really suffering, here and abroad. Tbogg really got it right when he closed a post today with the following:

It is truly stunning to survey how much damage this shallow stupid man has done to the world in six short years, and to realize that we will be picking up after his mess for generations to come while he and Laura go back to Crawford and drink their dullwitted selves into oblivion.

And, besides, who likes being lied to?