A Traitor To The Cause (In The Name Of Good Sense)

"Treason! TREASON!" you'll all say. I hear the sharpening of pitchforks and the lighting of torches as I write this. Despite fear of retrobution I feel I have to say something.

I'm going to defend President Bush.

You O.K.? How's your head? Did you hit it on the way to the floor? You can stop rocking back and forth. It's not the end of the world.

I promised myself until I was sick of myself and had to tell myself to shut up that this day would never come. Yet, here it is. On the NBC nightly news (the national news not the local news) there was a story about President Bush tonight. It was concerning his Rose Garden press conference this morning concerning his surprise trip to Baghdad earlier this week. During the 90 second clip dedicated to this press conference 80 seconds were dedicated to and exchange between a reporter from the L.A. Times and GW where the Prez give the reporter a little ribbing for wearing sunglasses when it's not a sunny day. It was kinda funny, actually, and was seemingly an example of the President's good mood. Here's what the President didn't know. The reporter was blind. He didn't have a guide dog or a red and walking stick. He was just a normal looking dude wearing sunglasses on an overcast day to hide his eyes. Most blind people wear sunglasses because it hides their eyes. It's not because they need them. Why do they hide their eyes? Because we, as sighted humans, are freaked out by the blank and unmoving stares or unsunglassed blind people. So.. no harm done. The President didn't know the guy was blind and the blind guy wasn't offended (it was obvious from the video but NBC had reached this guy for comment and were glad to report that he verbalized his lack of offense for the record). So all us viewers had a mild laugh, followed by an uncomfortable moment of politically correct guilt from laughing at a blind man, followed by a feeling of pleasing ambivalence. Now we can get on with the news conference, right? He must have talked about his trip to Iraq. He must have had something to say about the timing of the Baghdad security lockdown. He must have said, at some point, the quotes that NPR played during their coverage of the press conference. Nope. Apparently the President had nothing to say worth reporting after having just returned from a country where our troops are fighting a bitter and unpopular war. At least, if he did, NBC didn't FUCKING REPORT IT! The only thing they saw fit to air was harmless social faux pas perpetrated by a president who's list of harmless social faux pas is so damned long it's just assumed, on pretty much any occasion, that he's going to say something stupid. FUCK YOU MASS MEDIA!!!! I'm calling NPR with my pledge right now. So should you.