I've had something to say for a while now that I've had a lot of trouble trying to express; I've started this post maybe a dozen times, then deleted it, pissed off because it wasn't right. But then I saw this, and now I think I've got it:
The two sides of Bush as commander in chief can be hard to reconcile. His public persona gives little sense that he dwells on the costs of war. He does not seem to agonize as Johnson did, or even as his father, George H.W. Bush, did before the Persian Gulf War. While he pays tribute to those who have fallen, the president strives to show resolve and avoid displays that might be seen as weak or doubting. His refusal to attend military funerals, while taking long Texas vacations and extended bicycle rides, strikes some critics as callous indifference.
Yet the private Bush comes across differently in the accounts of aides, friends, relatives and military family members who have met with him, including some who do not support him, such as Halley. The first question Bush usually asks national security briefers in the Oval Office each morning is about overnight casualties, aides say, and those who show up for the next round of meetings often find him still stewing about bad news from Iraq.
This is all really fucked up. Imagine, the Washington Post has to assign a reporter to ask the burning question, "does the President of the United States feel bad because his decisions have killed people? Does he, in fact, give a shit?" Talk about having a fucking PR problem. "Mr. President, are you a goddamn human being?"
The answer the article seems to suggest is yeah, he's a human being, but not very much of one. Not because he lacks sympathy; the quotes from the relatives of the dead soldiers mostly seem to suggest that he does indeed get pretty sad when he hears their stories. I guess that's true.
But whatever. Who really gives a shit how he feels? What matters is what he does. And what he really puts a priority on is controlling the narrative. All these dead relatives, all these coffins coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and hell, all these dead Iraqis, pose a problem for our Man Hero Commander in Chief:
If he does not show that publicly, it's in keeping with a White House practice of not drawing attention to the mounting costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have killed more than 3,000 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of civilians. Advisers worry that sending the wrong signal would further sap public will and embolden the enemy and Bush's critics. Aides say that Bush does not attend military funerals because the presidential entourage would disrupt solemn events and that the media have been banned from photographing coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base out of respect. But they also know it would draw unwelcome attention to the price of the president's policies.
If someone is selling you something and won't tell you honestly what it costs, you're being sold a bunch of shit. Ahem.
Now, that bit up there about "advisers worrying" is a bit weaselly, but it sounds like that sentence is a paraphrase of actual off-the-record Bushites. (Who are all anonymous "because Bush does not want them to discuss his feelings." Talk about your masculinity fetishes. For fuck's sake.) God knows it all rings true. The enemy and "critics" cannot be "emboldened"! Gah. Do not ask what the point of all the corpses might possibly be! That would be bad! (It's not really clear how much more bold the enemy could possibly get, by the way. Muslim extremists do not seem especially cowed at the moment, frankly.)
We just cannot have any untidy dead people, understand? You know, the kind of corpses that don't fit into any of the prepackaged stories. Now, those dead people from 9/11, that's a different story! Literally:
Bush is less reticent about public displays of grief for victims of Sept. 11. During the recent events marking the fifth anniversary of the attacks, he teared up several times and at one point had to concentrate just to finish a speech.
No shit. Bush getting all worked up over 9/11. Who could have guessed.
What really pisses me off royally about the way 9/11 has come to be discussed is that the meaning of the day has been so deliberately and remorselessly politicized -- or, in other words, the story of what 9/11 means has been crammed into a pat narrative about how we need to confront Islamofascism by launching ambitious, glorious, if deeply squalid wars.
What this political pressure did was it prevented us from really grieving for 9/11. Genuine grief is a powerful thing. When you are caught up in the emotions caused by the death of someone close to you, it can -- and should -- be incredibly intense, more potent than any drug. When the death is senseless and violent, it can be pretty damn traumatic. How do you get out of it? Well, you have to figure out a way to tell yourself some sort of a story, some way of reconstituting some narrative of life that works for you and lets you move on, or at least take a step.
The message from the White House is, be satisfied with this half-assed, self-serving story, you ignorant goobers. Sure, some people buy the official story, for good reasons and bad. But that story is so goddamn leaky... you can't sail very far on a boat with a paper bottom.
The nation was never really allowed to grieve for 9/11, and that is a goddamn disgrace and a source of lingering anguish.