Dubya Stiffs the Tsunami

I know this might be piling on Dubya over his (as of this posting) conspicuous absence since the catastrophic tsunamis struck, but ... why did the guy not make a statement in the flesh once it became apparent the death count would top 20,000+, to say nothing of the latest count being upwards of 52,000?

A big part of leadership is appreciating how one's presence and/or absence impacts perception. Your movements and words might be largely symbolic and ceremonial, but they do mean something. They send a message, both to your constituents and to the world as a whole.

When the United States is already seen by most of the globe as culturally insensitive, nose-thumbing unilateralists -- regardless of whether that caricature is well-founded -- why in the world would the commander in chief forgo an opportunity to let the rest of the world know quickly and unequivocally that, yes, we really do care about the worst natural disaster in recent history? Dubya will speak out on the events soon enough, but already he has executed a monumental snub.

Don't get me wrong; I don't think the president necessarily needed to cut short his vacation and jet back to D.C. I mean, c'mon, when you're in the zone clearing brush on the ranch, you don't want to lose all that momentum. No one expects the president's immediate presence in the Oval Office to make a tangible difference. There is an intangible difference, however, to be gained from expressions of grief and condolence. In an increasingly connected global community, and one steeped in high-tech communication wizardry that can link a Crawford, Texas, outhouse to a Malaysian dry cleaners through fiber optics, it is unconscionable that George W. Bush wasn't up on satellite pronto to express the nation's sympathy to the people of Asia.

The Washington Post reports:

"There was an international outpouring of support after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and even some [White House] administration officials familiar with relief efforts said they were surprised that Bush had not appeared personally to comment on the tsunami tragedy. 'It's kind of freaky,' a senior career official said."

Compassionate conservatism on the march! Maybe what that ridiculous phrase meant all along was that you've gotta be conservative with how you dispense compassion.