Tsunami deaths in perspective: What if, say, Jacques Chirac said three years ago, "The September 11 attacks are a terrific chance for us to show the US how gosh-darn compassionate we are. We hope to score huge compassion points here"? We'd boycott Bordeaux, change the names of our potato products, and boycott bistros. Reducing the deaths of some 168,000 people to a political pokerchip, Secretary of State nominee Condoleeza Rice today said, "
[T]he tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think it has paid great dividends for us." Wouldn't any "dividends" made through our grief and goodwill be erased by the nominee for the top American diplomatic post saying such a crass thing? Following up the statement, Lin Wilson at
Funnel puts the southeast Asian tsunamis in perspective (click on
image for details).
Rice's statement neatly sums up the Bush Administration's approach to everything: seize upon anything tragic or controversial or sacred and twist it beyond recognition to their advantage.
ReplyDeleteIf the administration wasn't so hasty to screw things up in the first place, perhaps they wouldn't have such a desperate need to show how "compassionate" they can be. Their transparency is embarrassing.