{"id":10615,"date":"2007-04-25T12:33:03","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T16:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10615.html"},"modified":"2007-04-25T12:33:03","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T16:33:03","slug":"the-burden-of-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-burden-of-worry\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘burden of worry’"},"content":{"rendered":"

December<\/a>: <\/p>\n

“I must tell you, I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” [the president] said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

NBC: Do you know the American people are suffering?<\/p>\n

Laura Bush: Oh, I know that very much. And believe me, no one sufferers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the Commander in Chief, who has asked our military to go into harm’s way.<\/p>\n

NBC: What do you think the American public needs to know about…<\/p>\n

Laura Bush: Well, I hope they do know the burden of worry that’s on his shoulders, every single day for our troops.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look, I appreciate the fact that “Do you know the American people are suffering?” is a fairly difficult question for a First Lady to answer, but the right response is to explain that the president understands<\/i> Americans’ grief. Bush sympathizes<\/i> with those who’ve sacrificed the most during this tragic war.<\/p>\n

But Laura Bush had to push it further. It’s not enough to share in the anguish; she thinks the First Couple suffers more<\/i> than anyone else. Ezra suggested<\/a> this morning that her comments have “the potential to become a destructively definitional moment for the administration.” I’m very much inclined to agree.
\n
\nIndeed, in just a few seconds, Laura Bush encapsulated so many of the White House’s failings. For example, a common refrain for years has been that this White House has no real sense of sacrifice. Consider this gem<\/a> from January:<\/p>\n

[O]n the PBS Newshour, Jim Lehrer asked President Bush why he hasn’t called on Americans — besides those serving in the volunteer military — to sacrifice something to help our country in this time of struggle. Bush claimed Americans are sacrificing: “They sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible image of violence on TV every night.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, the Bushes haven’t quite gotten past this bizarre worldview.<\/p>\n

This also plays into the notion that the president somehow feels sorry for himself, as if he’s had to struggle personally<\/i>. It’s the kind of feeling that might lead a draft-dodging war-monger to accept a Purple Heart without earning it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, the First Lady’s comments reflect a painful detachment. Thousands of families are struggling with the loss of loved ones, or those who come back seriously injured, only to find that their government isn’t quite as anxious to help as they’d been led to believe. Those<\/i> people understand anguish.<\/p>\n

“No one” suffers more than the president? He has the “burden of worry”? It’s a slap in the face to those who understand sacrifice far better than the Bushes.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>: Important point from Atrios<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Consider, if you will, a parallel universe in which Bill Clinton presided over a deeply unpopular war in Iraq which was increasingly opposed by members of the Republican party. Thousands of US troops had died, and many thousands more had life-altering injuries. And, then, First Lady Hillary Clinton said, on a popular morning show, that over the course of the war no one had suffered more then she and her husband had.<\/p>\n

Just imagine for a moment how that would’ve played out on talk radio, Drudge, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the nightly news, the Sunday shows, the wingnut columnists, the liberal columnists, NPR, etc…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would dominate the news cycle for a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December: “I must tell you, I’m sleeping a lot better than people would assume,” [the president] said. This morning: NBC: Do you know the American people are suffering? Laura Bush: Oh, I know that very much. And believe me, no one sufferers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}