suffering2.jpg
REUTERS/Jason Reed 

for the long-suffering week ending 4/28/07:

Q: You know the American people are suffering, watching. [Laura Bush softly chuckles]

A: Oh, I know that, very much. And believe me, no one suffers 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.

– Laura Bush on the Today Show, 4/25/07 

[emphasis mine] 

(This, by the way, from the woman whose last registered sensation was the "thwump" she felt as she, driving drunk, ran down her high school boyfriend.)

Lest you think I'm being insensitive and uncaring, let's take a trip back to September 11, 2001, to see just how much the Bushes suffer in the face of senseless death and mayhem.  From Ladies' Home Journal (Oct. 2003): 

Peggy Noonan (the interviewer): You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?

Laura Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.

George W. Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "you'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. . . . I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura –

Laura Bush: I don't have my contacts in , and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers –

George W. Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back up stairs and go to bed.

Mrs. Bush: [LAUGHS] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.

Peggy Noonan (interviewer): So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.

George W. Bush: That's right — We got a laugh out of it!

[emphasis mine] 

Verily, I say! Sing hosannas for poor George and Laura Bush.  They are so verclempt over this whole Iraq War thing. It just tears them up, it does.  I mean, Pat Tillman's mother, that piker, what does she know from suffering? There she was, testifying before Congress last week that she didn't understand why medics would try to rescucitate her son after his head had been blown clean off.  What kind of suffering is that?  That's the stuff of high school theater productions! Jessica Lynch, her body shattered, forced to wait for her rescue while the military publicists lined up a camera crew to film the army's heroics? No, that's not real suffering.  Suffering is wearing a flightsuit in the southern California heat. Suffering is accidentallly hammering your left thumb during a photo op in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi. Real suffering is knowing that people can't comprehend the full extent of your suffering. 

And how did the Bushes actualize their suffering last Wednesday?  Through interpretive dance, best I can figure. The Rude Pundit explains:

[L]ater, the same goddamn day, the President danced like a lemur with cerebral palsy to show how burdened he is. Can you imagine how many scrips the First Lady must be on in order to function?

. . . 

Bush is dancing, man, dancing while Iraq burns, while soldiers are blown up in Diyala, while young men and women lose their dancing legs and arms, people who could probably dance a little better than some skinny old fuck who acted like he always does, like he's master coming down to play with the servants. It's a gesture that shows nothing penetrates that overly thick inbred patrician skull.

Y'know, someone in their organization thought that the one-day spree of 'Bot's remarkably insensitive, narcissistic comments and Bush's spastic gyrations symbolizing his emotional pain (to a bitchin' Senegalese beat) weren't enough to prove the extent of their suffering.  So they trotted out the Quaker Oats man herself, Bar Bush, aka the Philosopher Queen, and put her breathtaking ignorance on display as she expounded on the 'wild people' in religion, including a petit exegesis on Mormonism that bore little to no resemblance to reality.  As if anything the Beautiful Mind has to say is of value.

The Bush family:  The unintended consequence of fetal alcohol sydrome. 

—

Attaturk at Rising Hegemon provides the visual evidence of Laura's suffering.  Norbizness, Meistersinger at Happy Furry Puppy Story Time, notes that this was, indeed, a week of unimaginable suffering for Republicans. 

Via Kelly at 100 Monkeys Typing, cheer along with Michelle! TBogg appreciates the elasticity of Malkin's . . . mind.

And 'nuff said by Quiddity over at uggabugga.

In which Roy at alicublog dresses down Eugene Volokh for even contemplating a Giuliani presidency.

Heh.  divageek over at WTF is it Now? submits a visual that certainly lessens the impact of Cheney foaming at the mouth. 

Whiskey Fire's Thers has some tips for Ace O' Spades' legal team. 

d r i f t g l a s s notes that George Tenet, despite his belated protestations, did NOT return his Preznitial Medal of Freedumb. 

I loves me some Wolcott when he's gotten revved up.

The Editors at The Poor Man Institute has a new game called "Conservative Soultrain"!  Play along at home!

Oh, man!  I completely forgot about the Renzi/Harris connection!  Thanks, Cliff Shecter, for making me break out the brain bleach.

Because enough hasn't been made of the VT students who chose survival over sacrifice, Susan at Kiss My Big Blue Butt finds a bulletproof Baptist.

Mock, Paper, Scissors' Tengrain attends Pepperdine University's commencement address. 

D. Aristophanes at Sadly, No! pens Peter Beinart's apology to the world. God knows, he owes us one.

Roger Ailes gives us his take on Thursday night's . . . well, I hesitate to call it a debate. 

Via Sisyphus Shrugged, Jon Swift proves once again that satire is hard work.

Ah, the Philosopher Queen speaks! 

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