Impersonal greetings

So, the President doesn't have time to go to any funerals for the soldiers killed in Iraq, and even though he talked big about being the nation's "official" hugger in order to make the point that he wouldn't risk our soldier's lives unnecessarily (since he'd be the one who'd have to hug their mother's if they died) there hasn't been much hugging from him, either, but couldn't he at least find enough time to write an actual, personal note to the families of the fallen?

No president has ever attended every funeral of every soldier. Even President Clinton was selective in his visits. He didn't want to set the precedent of having to go to every one or being seen to play favorites, his former aides recall. And yet the Bush White House has at times acted defensively about Bush's approach. Sometimes aides suggest that Clinton was just an attention seeker (which set off a new round of barbs between the Bushies and the Clintonites). Other times they point out that Bush is "writing" letters to each of the soldiers' families instead of going to the services.

So I asked some families about the sympathy letters they had received. I assumed that they were in the Bush family style.

[...]

But those are not the letters Bush is “writing.” They are form letters. With the exception of the salutation and a reference to the fallen soldier in the text, the letters the families shared with me are all the same. Now some one has gone to the trouble of finding out if the given name of the solider and the name he or she used were different. And Bush does sign them all personally. But it would be more accurate to say he is “sending” all the families letters, a practice that goes back many presidents.

You know, even if it is a long-standing practice, sending a freaking FORM letter to the parents of someone who's died in the service of this country is just flat out lazy and cold. I don't care who's done it before - it was wrong then and it's wrong now.

These are people who have had someone they dearly loved taken away from them, sent into danger at the President's behest and killed by whomever the country has designated as "the enemy". They will spend the rest of their lives with a huge, gaping hole where that person once was. The absolute least they should be able to expect from this country is that the President who sent their loved one off to his or her death will take a few minutes to write them a personal note of condolence on the lost.

Bush promoted himself as a "compassionate conservative." Maybe he should look up "compassionate" in the dictionary sometime. He obviously doesn't have a clue as to what it actually means.

Posted by thorswitch at December 7, 2003 02:56 AM | TrackBack