Rick's Cafe Americain

I was originally going to post this as a comment over at Clarified, but she has ridiculously short limits on posts.  Dawn posted this about a woman who was fired (along with her husband) for taking pictures of military caskets.  Karol, while taking “the left” to task for its “hysteria”, wrote the following defense: “It’s been government policy not to allow photos of military coffins in transit since 1991. And her PRIVATE company fired her because she broke the rules.” My too-long response is below.

Oh grow up.  If you work for a company and you break their rules they may fire.  It has nothing to do with loyalty to the president and everything to do with a free, open market.  Personally, I don’t think there is anything bad about showing the coffins but the policy is in place so that if the family members have yet to be notified that they don’t see their son’s coffin on the news before learning he’s in it.  As for being ‘betrayed’, again, the left does hysterical in a way the right just doesn’t.  Bush has served my interests.  And yours too if you didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction to all things Republican.

Apparently, I’m still Kashei in your comment section.  Oops.

How does it serve his “too if you didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction to all things Republican”? 

1. It was not the company’s rules, but a politically-motivated and cynically (mis)used government regulation.

2. if that is the true reason for the policy (it is not, nor does your purported reason make any sense), then why not have a rule that such pictures not be published until the families of the caskets in question have been notified?

3. yes, the left certainly has a monopoly on hysteria.  Remember the cool-headed, calm reaction to Clinton’s indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky?

4. Please, what interests of mine has Bush served?

As a footnote, I highly doubt that the policy is in place “so that if the family members have yet to be notified, that they don’t see their son’s coffin on the news” for at least two reasons: 

1) The military is VERY good about notifying family members in the event of any casualty, because they know there would be bloody hell to pay if they weren’t.  When my brother was wounded, my parents got a phone call the same day, even though the reports of his injuries were somewhat ambiguous.

2) The military sends the bodies home as quickly as possible, but it takes time.  They have to be moved from the locales where they were killed to Kuwait, and then flown back to the U.S., usually stopping in Europe somewhere first.  Since the military isn’t running a commercial airline, there’s no such thing as “connecting flights”.

Also, it isn’t like the coffins say “BODY OF ____” on the side.

I still want to know which of my interests Bush allegedly has served.

1.  Bush promoted democracy by invading Iraq.  You are not interested in democracy Rick?!?  Granted Bush’s policy has probably made the world less stable, has killed Americans and makes us more hated, but it is the thought that counts.

2.  He has lowered your taxes.  Don’t you like money, Rick?  Granted, he is running the country into deficit by doing this combined with vastly increased military spending, but you save money Rick!

3.  He has helped protect the environment by .... I’m sure he’s done something, maybe Karol can help here.  You’re moving to Cali, you must be interested in the environment.

4.  He helped give us more reason to hate the French.  You don’t like Frogs, do you Rick?

5.  He has demonstrated the value of Yale education, which will surely help your alma mater (not Yale) attract more students.  You are interested in your alma mater, aren’t you Rick?

6.  He has packed the federal courts with right wing idealogues ... uh, forget that one.

7.  He has made the world safer by capturing Osama Bin La....I mean Sadam Hussein.  You don’t like Sadam, do you Rick?

She broke a rule/regulation/whatever and was fired for it. So what? She should have known about it. The reason for that rule/regulation/whatever is irrelevant.

Yeah, and her husband should have telepathically warned her about the regulation, too.  Good thing they fired his ass.