The cable TV news stations have been working around the clock to show us footage of former President Gerald Ford's flag-draped coffin as it made its way from California to Washington, DC, for an official state funeral.
While he wasn't perfect (as no one is), President Ford gave this country many years of service, some during very trying times, and he deserves the pomp and circumstance.
But what about our troops who have died in Iraq? These brave men and women paid the ultimate price for George W. Bush's war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to us. Despite the senselessness of the war, they did their duty, standing far more brave and far more honorable than the chickenhawks in Washington who saw fit to trade their blood for oil. Are they not worth some degree of public reverence? Of course they are.
But, early on in the war, the Bush administraton put a ban on photos of the flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq. And Bush has yet to attend a single funeral for one our war dead. No, those things would generate the wrong kind of press. Hide the uglier aspects of reality and the American people are more likely to believe the propaganda.
Properly honoring the late President Ford is a necessary inconvenience for Bush. Properly honoring our dead troops is apparently just not worth his attention, or ours. They just don't matter.
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