Irony Tuesday

Headline should be later this afternoon...

BUSH MANAGES TO SHOW UP, AND ADDRESSES NATIONAL GUARD

From the AP:

President Bush is honoring the sacrifice of National Guardsmen in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting their special role in the war on terror, and saying he also is proud of his own Vietnam-era stint as a citizen soldier.

Bush was not expected to address the controversy swirling around unexplained gaps in his service in the Texas Air National Guard in his address to the 126th National Guard Association of the United States conference Tuesday in Las Vegas...

... Hours before Bush addresses the convention, members of Military Families Speak Out, a nearly 2-year-old group representing 1,700 military families, were to tell stories about relatives who have served in Iraq or have been killed in the conflict. At a news conference in a hotel next to the convention center where Bush was speaking, the relatives were expected to accuse the Bush administration of betraying National Guard soldiers who signed up to serve at home, but were sent overseas for extended periods of time to fight a "war based on lies."

One of the family members, Dante Zappala, a 28-year-old high school history teacher in Los Angeles, said he never blames Bush for the death of his brother, Army Sgt. Sherwood R. Baker, 30, who died on April 26 in Baghdad. His older brother, who is survived by a wife and 9-year-old son, was an Army National Guardsman from Plymouth, Pa.

But Zappala said he thinks the president is using the "sacrifice of soldiers for political gain," and doesn't believe Bush deeply understands the human cost of war.

Zappala is right, and obviously you can add that to the list, most profoundly, of things that Bush does not "deeply" understand.