Heat Makes Hundreds of Jamboree Scouts Ill

I'm not sure what to make of the news that over three hundred scouts fell ill while waiting for the President to arrive. It's late, I can't sleep for whatever reason, and I'm prone to see the dark side to nearly every action this administration takes, but doesn't it seem careless if not insensitive and manipulative?

One: the president wedges in to a tragic story in order to offer comfort. Okay, perhaps I can give him this one. The scouts, after all, are a faith-based, discriminatory group. He probably does feel bad at losing some of his own. But my suspicion is that it was mostly done for p.r.

Two: Assuming the handlers of the president are aware of how complicated it is for any gathering to host POTUS, and assuming they can read a weather report, did it not occur to them that a significant delay on a day when temperatures approached 100 and high humidity would be at the very least, remarkably uncomfortable.

So a generous person gives the president the benefit of the doubt and assumes he wanted to make a gesture of respect and condolences to an iconic group assembling nearby. But a person disgusted with an isolationist, lying and manipulative white house with its collective head in the sand about anything outside its own sphere of interest sees one more instance of the collateral damage done.

The Bush years are best seen against a background of fallen men and boys in uniform.