A Foul Deceit

Is there no end to the dishonesty of your administration, Bush? Is there no depth to which you will not sink in order to make yourself look better than you are? Is there no shame?

I’m talking, of course, about Pat Tillman, who was portrayed by your spin masters as the hero who led his troops into battle and died gloriously at the hands of the enemy. You needed a true blue American hero particularly at this time, we know. The news about Abu Ghraib was coming out, and a good-news story was needed to burnish the army’s image a bit. The heroic death of a football star who had given up a spectacularly promising career to serve his country was a Godsend. We could all feel a little better for his noble sacrifice.

The truth, as we now know, was something different. It was another story of bungled action, senseless death. But how could your folks announce, with Abu Ghraib hitting the television screens, that we had also killed our own hero? What a desperate and cynical distortion they resorted to, though! What abject twisting of the truth to suit your political interests! The audacity is breathtaking. Surely your people had to know the truth would come out sooner or later? Or did they not care, assuming blithely that, when it did, there would be other prevarications they could come up with, other slighty enhanced versions of the truth?

All this for the sake of your image, Bush. And your Rumsfeld’s, and the Pentagon’s. Not to mention America’s image in the world. Is it all, only, about making things look good, for public consumption? About creating a reality that the electorate will buy—-if only to be discarded or revised at a later date, when it would become inconvenient? But meanwhile, what a foul deceit to perpetrate on this young man’s family! What a terrible betrayal of a man who generously gave his life for the honor of fighting for his country in your war!

Are you blushing, Bush? I truly hope so.