A bad day for beautiful minds
I just started reading the new David Rakoff book. In the first chapter, he recalls something Barbara Bush said on the eve of the Iraq war.
"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths...? It's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."
This seems like the appropriate time to heed Rakoff's call to arms:
Mrs. Bush is not getting any younger. When she eventually ceases to walk among us we will undoubtedly see photographs of her flag-draped coffin. Whatever obituaries that run will admiringly mention those wizened, dynastic loins of hers and praise her staunch refusal to color her hair or glamorize her image. But will they remember this particular statement of hers, this "Let them eat cake" for the twenty-first century? Unlikely, since it received far too little play and definitely insufficient outrage when she said it. So let us promise herewith to never forget her callous disregard for other parents' children while her own son was sending them to make the ultimate sacrifice, while asking of the rest of us little more than to promise to go shopping. Commit the quote to memory and say it whenever her name comes up. Remind others how she lacked even the bare minimum of human integrity, the most basic requirement of decency that says that if you support a war, you should be willing, if not to join those ninteen-year-olds yourself, then at least, at the very least, to acknowledge that said war was actually going on. Stupid fucking cow.
Update: Lindsay and friends are going wobbly. Since I clearly say BB's statement was made before the war started and then link to the full exchange, I obviously wasn't trying to hide the context of this quote. And I disagree completely that the context changes the meaning. She's not talking about generic "media speculation," she's talking specifically about whether one should give some thought to how many Americans might be killed before sending them off to war. Hell, she wasn't even asked about that -- she volunteered it as her reason for not watching TV: I don't want to even consider the possibility that other people's children are going to die. Sounds pretty let them eat cake-ish to me. C'mon Linds, where's the "hmmm"?
Comments
ok, ok, ok!
I thought that Rakoff was hiding the context, not you, by the way. I didn't follow the link. I still think she's just as bad, too!
Posted by: lindsay | August 4, 2005 5:17 PM
I didn't mean to insinuate that I don't LOVE David Rakoff. And Daniel Radosh. And the troops.
Posted by: lindsay | August 4, 2005 5:19 PM
Well, never let it be said again that Lindsay has a tendency to wobble. :)
Posted by: radosh | August 4, 2005 5:24 PM
Am I wrong about this?. I understand that Barbara Bush's "body bag" quote was included in the version of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" that was screened in Europe, but was cut in the version that was screened in theaters across America. Why? Has Michael Moore explained this publicly? Was he pressured to remove it?
Not to go too far down conspiracy-theory lane, but was it just coincidental that at virtually the same time, Pappy's Carlysle Group had purchased the Loews theater chain?
Posted by: Mark Bunnell | August 10, 2005 12:29 AM
If only it had been in there, Kerry would have won!
Sounds like more of this if you ask me.
Posted by: radosh | August 10, 2005 9:48 AM