Hail to the Chickenhawk in Chief

Just as water inevitably finds its own level, it has taken the sad Walter Reed Army Hospital saga to finally lay bare the scandalous lack of leadership that President Bush has shown regarding the care and healing of the troops that he endlessly tells us we should support.

Heads finally are rolling in a purge that reveals the depths of hypocrisy in an administration that has paid lip service to meeting the pressing needs of active-duty soldiers, as well as veterans at home, while cutting back on their programs and benefits because the war in Iraq has bled the national treasury of an extraordinary $404 billion with no end in sight.

Oh, and now there’s going to be the obligatory White House-ordered bipartisan investigation into a sordid mess for which the administration now in its seventh year of mismanaging America's most precious assets bears much of the responsibility.

Readers at The Moderate Voice, where I also blog, responded with some worthy comments and concerns to a post that I put up the other day titled Why Does America Treat Its Soldiers & Vets So Badly? But it has taken a scandal of this magnitude to reveal that the rot starts at the top with the commander in chief himself, whom you will recall had to be force fed newsreel footage of the destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina before he was prodded into action.

Shame on George Walker Bush, who once again reveals himself to be a chickenhawk extraordinaire. Compassionate conservative, my ass.

America’s men and women in uniform and veterans are owed an apology. We’re waiting, Mr. President, we’re waiting.