From the Wards of New Orleans to the Wards of Walter Reed

As with most Americans, I have been seething about the care badly wounded vets are receiving after coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you realize how difficult it is for this administration to hit a new low? I guess if you are capable of sending a young person into harm's way under false pretenses, anything is possible, but this is still shocking. I tell you one thing the Bush administration can be thankful for: That my mother didn't live to see it.

She spent some very difficult years helping American soldiers in hospital wards in France and elsewhere during World War 2, and I can only imagine what she'd do if she found out the federal government was mistreating "her boys."

What's happened to this country? How can we go on enjoying ourselves while these scoundrels in charge screw over these badly wounded soldiers? Okay, let's put aside the anger for a moment and analyze this for what it says about the character of Bush and Cheney and their loyal supporters. That's right: This is an issue that defines your moral character.

We have an administration here that lives to spin. They've never really taken an interest in governing right, even when the consequences of poor management hurt them. It's all about enriching their friends - giving tax breaks to Exxon while they cut the Vets budget. Then you throw in the incompetence - the sheer inability and lack of desire to get things done correctly. That's the key clue here. This story doesn't help them but Bush and Cheney don't care or can't work the problem. They don't have the moral fiber, the drive, or the skill. They would rather run their mouths about how great it's going, than make it so. They rely more on the careful line in the press, than really doing their jobs. Then they unleash the right wing talking-points machine and trust that things will turn out okay. As usual, their morally-challenged group of sheep-like supporters nod their heads in reverence as the new lies come tumbling down.

Did you see what Brit Hume of Fox "News" said about this? It may have been the most revealing comment about this entire wretched crew. Summing up the mistreatment of our wounded soldiers he said, "It looks terrible, which is the problem." It's not the reality that's the concern here - the problem is how it looks. It's a failure of spin.

The Drudge Report called it an "embarrassment." An embarrassment? It's a national disgrace and a human tragedy. With the Bush administration there are only two outcomes to any situation: Spin that works, and spin that doesn't work. Of course, if it doesn't work you try and spin that.

Maybe it's the idealist in me, but I always maintained some appreciation for the Republicans skill in governing. I didn't go so much for the foreign policy hype - I never believed they were as good as they claimed at that, but I gave even Richard Nixon some credit for being able to turn the knobs and flip the switches of the apparatus of government. He was actually someone who could be in charge of something.

But this group? Every decision just happens to be the lazy thing to do. Really get in there and research something? Really plan for anything? Nah, that would be too much hassle. They would rather screw up and try and talk their way out of it, than do it right. I wouldn't hire Dick Cheney or George Bush to run a hot dog stand at the Rose Festival. Disregarding everything else that's wrong with them, they just suck at doing their jobs.

It's only appropriate - in some horrible way - that the people who have paid the worst price in the Iraq fiasco should get screwed over by Bush and Cheney upon their return. Why? Because it's the most incompetent, shameful, disgusting thing that could possibly be, so with the Bush administration it was bound to happen.