Disposable heroes

Colbert King has an excellent piece today about what President Bush left out of his State of the Union address.

Last Tuesday night was an opportunity for George W. Bush to eulogize the fallen, a chance for him to tell their families what their sacrifices mean to the nation -- a time for the president to help heal broken hearts. That didn't happen.

Yes, in his long address to a joint session of Congress, Bush offered a few words of praise for the skill and courage of the men and women in the military. He delivered a line about "sorrow when one is lost," and shared a self-serving recollection of himself landing on the deck of a carrier in the Pacific Ocean and his Thanksgiving Day fly-in to Baghdad. There was also a pledge to supply the troops with all the resources they need to fight and win. But victims of the Iraq war, as well as their moms, dads, spouses, children, neighbors and friends, deserved more than what they got from the president.

Instead of a moment of silence for those who have paid the ultimate price, they heard presidential pitches for prescription drugs and a new immigration law, and a denunciation of steroids and gay marriage. Instead of hearing the president recognize the preciousness of young lives expended far from home, they got a plea to put Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts. Instead of telling the country why it should remember what the dead and dying stood for, Americans were given an earful on child tax credits, the death tax and cuts in taxes on capital gains.

This is one of the things that consistently has angered me over the last year with the administration. I simply cannot fathom how a man can send so many young men and women off to die on false pretenses in a virtually pointless war and then stand before the nation and expend more effort worrying about steroid use and inheritance taxes than he does on caring about what happens to valiant individuals who are willing to put their lives on the line for this nation. President Bush speaks of himself as a righteous man, but sometimes I have to wonder if he even has a soul at all.

Posted by thorswitch at January 24, 2004 05:44 PM | TrackBack