Bush's Absence At Soldier's Wake Insults the District

[diamond14]

Bush's Absence At Soldier's Wake Insults the District

By Courtland Milloy
Monday, September 8, 2003; Page B01


In the District, President Bush serves as commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard, the way governors do in their states. So you might have expected him to show up yesterday at the funeral for Spec. Darryl T. Dent, 21, the D.C. guardsman who was killed recently in Iraq.

Canaan Baptist Church, where Dent's funeral was held, is at 16th and Newton streets NW, not five miles from the White House. Bush could have jogged to the wake, had a courier drop off flowers and a card or, at the very least, telephoned the slain soldier's family.

Call Bush AWOL, missing in action -- or just too busy fundraising. But he blew it.

"We haven't heard from him or the White House, not a word," said Marion Bruce, Dent's aunt and family spokeswoman. "I don't want to speak for the whole family, but I am not pleased."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40317-2003Sep7.html

[grytpype]

1. Hi, my name is George. I am the President.

[scarletwoman]

37. More like: "I'm not really a president, but I play one on TV." (n/t)

[Mari333]

2. and these people are surprised?

heh..the BFEE does not consider the soldiers as actual human beings.
Bush is a spoiled frat boy whose very last concern is the dead and dying for the BFEE...His mommy doesnt like him to see such icky things...Babs has said so in her interviews...

[damnraddem]

31. Still, it could have been a cheap photo op, creating the appearance ....

of caring.

As they say: sincerity is so important that if you don't have it, you need to fake it.

That the Dubya gang didn't even think of such a response demonstrates that they are too insensitive even for their own good.

[Buns_of_Fire]

38. WhistleAss is going to be damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't

Either way, he'll be rotting in hell, far removed from the young men who died under his "leadership."

[GainesT1958]

3. The Dub/Rove mentality at work:

"What good are dead soldiers, marines, or airmen to me? They can't help me conquer for oil and PNAC anymore--so don't look for me at any funerals. Besides, they can't even vote anymore--who needs 'em?" :mad:

A D.C. National Guardsman, huh? Dub only knows the Guard as something he went AWOL to get out of!:eyes:

The moronic bastard!:grr:

B-)

[pruner]

4. it's not that dead people don't vote…

it's that when they do, they tend to vote Democratic.

[E_Zapata]

6. that will probably change with Diebold's help

Bet lots of dead soldiers will vote over the internet in the next election

[lumpy]

13. Well said

Death can make changes.

[LuminousX]

10. Maybe

he got a notice from the Guard about the funeral service and all he read was Guard and service and thought that if he went he'd be forced to fulfill his obligation to the guard.

[ixion]

5. Bush has not attended ONE funeral yet...

why should he start now? This is pretty typical behaviour for the neo-cons. They're the 'regular joe' politician, until they actually have to appear in public, at which point they become the distant tyrant.

[Ilsa]

18. Then the press would have to follow him around

and actually show that we are having funerals for KIA soldiers. They would rather we not think about it, much less see it.

[lindashaw]

25. Has he visited any of the wounded? I thought that was traditional.

Handing out medals and stuff?

[liberalhistorian]

7. This may not be surprising, but it sure as hell is

despicable, disgusting, disrespectful, and depraved! And why isn't there more coverage of his total, complete lack of attendance at ANY funeral for ANY of the dead soldiers? He hasn't attended ONE SINGLE FUNERAL, which is rare and unusual for a president. Why, why, WHY isn't there more coverage of and attention to this issue? If this were Clinton or any other Dem, you better damn well believe that's ALL we'd be hearing about!

[qb]

8. When is George going to deliver on those promised hugs?

[Mari333]

11. but but but the movie on SHOWTIME last night

showed him crying in the Oval Office for the victims of the WTC..

and Im the Queen of Sheba!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. He was actually crying because...

...he ran out of pretzels and beer.

Life is very tough for the Resident Select. Us ordinary common folk should be more understanding of the enormous pressures he has to deal with in between naps, dropping the dog, and falling off the couch while choking on pretzels.

[Gman]

9. Was the soldier Black?

D.C. doesn't have any electoral votes anyway.

[disgruntella]

14. Yes.

From the article:

"But he missed the opportunity -- if not the obligation -- to show respect for an African American who proudly gave his life in a war that the vast majority of African Americans oppose, including many of the residents in the city where Dent grew up.
It's one thing for Bush to ignore the District, where he received only about 9 percent of the vote; it's something else altogether when that city has sent a disproportionately high percentage of its young men and women into the military."

[MountainLaurel]

16. A Photo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56361-2003Aug27.html

He looks so young. And what did he die for?

[underpants]

17. Wow very young but this may be an old photo

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I56665-2003Aug27L

[MountainLaurel]

19. He was only 21

Could barely legally drink.

:mad: :nuke: :grr:


I sincerely hope the Shrub burns in hell for the death of this fellow, and all of the other others, Iraqi, Afghani, and American, who will never get a chance.

[LostInAmerica]

20. Painful to look at

I could barely stand to look at his picture. So young. What an unbelievable waste.

I thought the unelected fraud said he was the one to "hug the widows." Look at all the comfort he gave to this poor kid's family.

So far, he hasn't hugged a single soul, the heartless, narcissistic f***.

[Tansy_Gold]

29. He coulda scrawled his autograph on the marine's photo. . . .

. . . . the way he did in NYC.

From Kristen Breitweiser's review of "DC 9/11: Time of Crises"

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2003/09/08/dc911/?ref=http://images.salon.com/src/ads/soe/action.asp

<snip>

The worst part comes when the president meets a young mother and child who are desperately searching for their missing father and husband. President Bush takes the picture of the child's father and signs his name across it, telling the young girl, "When your daddy comes back, tell him you met me." For a child and wife facing the devastating loss of a loved one who very likely has just been burned, crushed and buried in rubble, meeting the president doesn't rightly matter. Nor does it matter having his signature scrawled across a photo that you wanted to display on a wall of missing victims -- something that would have offered at least a glimmer of hope.

<end snip>

sick fucks is rig-----, er, correct.

[wellstone_democrat]

35. of ALL the *sick* things I've read about this bastard

this single excerpt from Breitweiser is the single worst. I cannot even articulate my disgust at the discourtesy and insensitivity of someone who would do such a thing. Disgusting, simply disgusting.

[MountainLaurel]

12. Bastard.

This keeps taking me back to when he was first selected and denigrated the district, saying that he'd spend as much time away from it and with "real Americans" as possible. Well I'd love to see that slimy, mean, cowardly, chickenhawk motherfucker go to that kid's family now and talk to them about how you have to leave DC to find "real Americans."

As for the question posted of why he didn't go to this one when he didn't go to any others, read the article more closely. Because of DC's colonial status, the Pretzeldent serves the same purpose as a governor would in sending condolences in the wake of a military person's death.

But then again, this kid's family probably wouldn't be attending a $1K-a-plate fundraising dinner, so why would he even care about pretending to care?

[CatWoman]

21. Bush truly is his mother's son

''Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?''

- Barbara Bush

[Wwagsthedog]

28. Ever since I heard about this...

... I've avoided walking or driving on a nearby street which has a school named after her. She and her son are truely sick people.

[Michael Daniels]

22. Seriously, do presidents make a common practice of appearing at funerals

I'm just wondering. I know that the military has a department that does the actual in person notification and helps with funeral and other arrangements and offers support for a couple of years with taxes, etc. In fact, the only thing I thought that officially contained presidential acknowledgement was a letter that went to the family.

Have other presidents in recent history attended specific funerals of individual servicemen killed in duty either during war or peace or have they just attended generic memorial services?

Just wondering if Bush really is deficient in this or is this something that isn't really an official function of the president but people here are making a big deal about it just because it's Bush.

[Mandate My Ass]

23. Right from the horse's mouth

George Bush

"There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like.

So to answer your question, no, it's not just the people here making a big deal about it just because it's Bush*.

[Michael Daniels]

27. Thanks for the quote.....

.

[neuvocat]

33. One version of the argument I've heard

is that Bush shouldn't be expected to attend the funeral of every servicemember killed in combat. We'd say,"ok" but Bush used that flight onto the aircraft carrier to show how he was supposed to be so supportive of the troops.

Then another excuse was that he would be showing preferential treatment if he only went to certain funerals. However you see in that link that he went jogging with a servicemember who lost his leg.

Frankly I think the servicemembers' family would rail on him for getting their loved one killed.

[piece sine]

40. from the contrarian perspective...

I can well imagine the concern that would have been expressed in Courtland Milloy's column in the Wash. Post IF Bush had attended the funeral service. I can hear the screaming now about the "two-faced opportunist exploiting this poor black family for a callous photo-Op." So he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. We've got him boxed-in; where he can not do anything right!

my concern: can we sell our "no-exit strategy" to a general public that cuts him a lot of slack or, once we have an official candidiate and standard-bearer, do we feel-out a good-cop/bad-cop justification why Bush has been a failure? Please don't flame me ...I don't want to win the inning but lose the game 14 months from now.

[David Zephyr]

24. Dubya Put the "W" in AWOL.

Please keep the AWOL story alive.

This story reminds me of Bush's snub of the funeral of James Byrd in Texas --- Bush didn't even call the family, though he later lied and tried to say that he had called.

The fact that Bush has not attended one funeral, to my understanding, on any of the fallen men and women in Iraq is disgraceful and something every American would not be happy to learn should the learn it.

As I wrote above, DUBYA PUT THE "W" IN AWOL.

[stevedeshazer]

26. Aw c'mon!

There was a T-ball game....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/

edited to add link

[tsipple]

30. If the Cause Were So Righteous...

The President could certainly attend a serviceman's funeral, or even send some flowers. "Darryl died for a noble cause..." and so on.

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

[MaineDem]

32. Maybe he's meeting the returning flights at Dover

Maybe he's surreptitiously meeting every casket that's unloaded at Dover AFB. He doesn't want the publicity. Yeah, that's it! /sarcasm off, of course/

The lying POS! I feel like crying for the spouses, parents, and families of these war dead. This scumbag administration dishonors their memory with every new day. Hugging the widows, my ass!!!

[diamond14]

34. bush* serves as commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard

that's the BIG difference here....in the position as the Chief of the D.C. National Guard, shrub is real obligated to go to the funeral or at least express personal remorse.....

in many States, the Governor will attend if the soldier is in that state's National Guard...

however, D.C. has NO representation, such as Governor (even though DCers pay lots of taxes)...so the representative in this case is the shrub...who went AWOL on this one...pathetic...

[Corgigal]

36. I remember

Clinton standing in a hanger while coffins are coming off a plane.
Am I wrong on this? Can't Bush do the same thing?

[leetrisck]

39. Bush can't be seen with a casket

He might have to admit someone was killed. Secondly who in the hell would want the bastard at their relatives funeral. Not I.

[hiphopnation]

41. Why isn't this front page f*cking news?!?!

n/t