BushWatch: "Let's don't play games"--The Next Hurrah

[Demeter]

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/04/bushwatch_lets_.html#more


On a Friday afternoon two weeks ago President Bush was not hunkered in his war room with his chiefs of staff, keeping America safe from terrorists. As an improvised bomb in a mosque near Baghdad killed 5 worshipers and wounded 17, the President was flying to Indianapolis and on his way to an auditorium downtown. As Baghdad police pulled 15 dead bodies from the streets, bound, blindfolded, and shot in the head, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces was speaking at a $1000-a-plate luncheon for Rep. Mike Sodrel. As Baghdad Palestinians struggled with the notes they had found on their doorsteps the previous morning saying "we will eliminate you all if you don't leave the area for good within 10 days," the President was raising campaign cash at a dinner for Sen. Rick Santorum.

In all, the number of Palestinians found murdered in the Baghdad streets climbed to about 200 that day. A Florida mother and her two children buried their husband and father, and two California parents, who had received notice on the eve of their 21st wedding anniversary that their son had been killed in Iraq, laid him in the ground. And on that day, the President of the United States went out and raised $1.2 million for political campaigning.

At the hearings on Sen. Russ Feingold's censure motion last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said of the troops in Iraq, "Let's don't play games with their lives." As Iraq headed further into sectarian war, taking more American lives with it, the President and Vice President were out playing politics at fund-raisers. As families around the country faced for the first time the wide open spaces in their lives where their sons, husbands, fathers used to be, the men who sent them to Iraq were touring the country, raising cash for political campaigns.

At the fund-raiser for Sen. Santorum the following Friday, patrons paid $1000 each to attend. The President stood one-on-one with individual Santorum supporters and had his photograph taken, for up to $10,000 per photo. The President raised about $700,000 in political campaign cash that night.