Demagogue

Poor Dubya. He just can't seem to do anything right lately.

His poll numbers are at the lowest ever and now there's his insult to Native Americans, exposing the dizzying hypocrisy of his "culture of life" rhetoric.

Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.
...
"From all over the world we are getting letters of condolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian who is the founder and national director of the American Indian Movement here. "When people's children are murdered and others are in the hospital hanging on to life, he should be the first one to offer his condolences. . . . If this was a white community, I don't think he'd have any problem doing that."
...
"I hope that he would say something," said Victoria Graves, a cultural educator at Red Lake Elementary School on the reservation. "It's important that there's acknowledgment of the tragedy. It's important he sees the tribes are out here. We need help."

The reaction to Bush's silence was particularly bitter given his high-profile, late-night intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman caught in a legal battle over whether her feeding tube should be reinserted.

Ouch. They neglect to mention that Bush spent Monday and Tuesday speaking to screened audiences in the West about reforming Social Security-- and still managed to not say anything about tragedy at Red Lake.

Could this really be the beginning of the great unraveling of "The Great White Father in Washington"?

Update:Bush has offered his condolences. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

If you'd like, you can help the Red Lake Nation with a donation.

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* Does not apply to everyone equally, including, but not limited to: Native Americans, non-Christians, homosexuals, children, elderly, the poor, the working class, the unemployed and the uninsured.