Suggest in comment threads on liberal blogs the possibly that Obama's coffin salute was a political ploy and watch those peace lovin' lefties turn into rabid vengeance seekers - a lot of HTML threats hurled my way. Pains me. Stigmata.
Still, to be either so naive or so indoctrinated that you can't even consider the possibility that this photo was more political event than legitimate commiseration is... well, I guess I'm not that shocked, actually. Maybe a little scared - not for myself, but if the US is to spend the next 20 years floundering in a sea of ideologically driven hyper-partisanship, well, that won't be good. If Bush was so bad that we end up with a worse Obama, what if his mistakes and missteps lead to Palin [although I still have trouble not liking her for some reason] or worse, Huckabee? Please, not Huckabee - if that god addled former fat boy becomes president, I'm going feral, live in a cave. Fuck it all.
But back to that photo - shouldn't be surprised but I am - no reporter feels the need to ask Gibbs if permission to photograph that coffin was sought and given prior to Obama leaving for Dover? He took a lot of camera people with him - no one thinks that warrants a question? Wouldn't the truly respectful thing have been to not trouble the families with intrusive requests? You gotta think so since only one family out of twenty some odd agreed. I dunno - Denmark, something rotten - there's a smell and you gotta be motivated by bias or olfactorily challenged not to notice it.
Understand, I'm not suggesting that Obama invented the cynical and unseemly political calculation - as the saying goes, politics ain't bean bag, and that's fine - I don't care that much per se that Obama saw fit to use dead soldiers as a political tool, probably par for the course in many ways - what I'm interested in is what the act says about him, his ideological pathology and, if what has been revealed does not sit well with Petraeus et al, how the consequences of that will play out in the civilian/military dynamic and the formulation of strategy.
