Friday, March 30, 2007

They Shouldn't Even Let Him In The Door

USA Today: Bush to visit vets at Walter Reed
The news of neglected war veterans outraged Capitol Hill, caused resignations at the Pentagon and promises of better treatment from the Bush administration. Now the patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center get to hear from President Bush himself.

Bush on Friday was to tour the campus for the first time since reports surfaced of shabby conditions for veterans in outpatient housing.

He will meet with soldiers once housed in Building 18, who endured moldy walls, rodent infestation and other problems that went unchecked until reported by the media. Bush declared the situation unacceptable and ordered a full-scale review of care for veterans.

Walter Reed is considered one of the Army's premier facilities for treating the wounded. The revelations of shoddy treatment for those wounded in war was an embarrassment to Bush, who routinely speaks of the need to support the troops.

Bush will tour both Abrams Hall, where soldiers transferred after Building 18 was recently vacated, and the main hospital.
Read all about how Bush has been supporting the troops lately, from Chris Floyd:

Once Were Soldiers: More Bush Abuse for Cannon Fodder begins with a quote from Salon:
Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready.
...
Salon recently uncovered another troubling development in the Army's efforts to shore up troop levels, reporting earlier this month that soldiers from the 3rd Brigade had serious health problems that the soldiers claimed were summarily downgraded by military doctors at Fort Benning in February, apparently so that the Army could send them to Iraq.
It is truly remarkable. The Bush gang and its media bootlickers have elevated "support for troops" into, quite literally, a religious dogma, which they invoke at every turn to choke off debate and dissent about the war. Yet I doubt that there has ever been a presidential administration that has abused and neglected its soldiers as egregiously – and deliberately – as the Bush Regime has done.
Never. Just never. And the anti-war "left" still hasn't managed to defeat the lie that Bush supports the troops.

Why? Is the propaganda fog really that thick?