First Things First

When a country whose government you don't like is devastated by a huge natural disaster, one would think it's pretty bloody obvious that the right approach is to respond with help and compassion. You do not take advantage of the opportunity to hit them again. And yet that is just what the Bush Administration has done.

The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar (formerly Burma) is reeling from a massive cyclone that has killed tens of thousands of people. The famously isolationist government reversed its policy of walling itself off from the world to request humanitarian assistance, and the world has responded. America has a golden opportunity to do some good while starting to rebuild our shattered international image, so of course the White House promptly flushed it down the toilet.

Yes, they sent the First Lady in front of the cameras yesterday to say briefly that "we're already acting to provide help," whereupon she turned to the real purpose of her statement - to give the Burmese government a stern tongue-lashing.

"The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta's failure to meet its people's basic needs," Laura Bush lectured, showing off what she learned from the John Bolton School of Diplomacy. "The regime has dismantled systems of agriculture, education and health care. This once wealthy nation now has the lowest per capita GDP in Southeast Asia."

On and on she went about the Burmese government's sins, grumbling about a national referendum which is still taking place (if the referendum were postponed, she would of course be going on about how they're "thwarting democracy") and the arrests of opposition leaders. Oh yes, and George has frozen the Burmese government's assets in American banks so they can't buy supplies.

Even from this White House, it was truly stunning. Here we have a country which has just experienced a major national disaster, and the Administration's response is to harangue them on all the ways they're not measuring up?

And whose bright idea was it to have Mrs. Bush castigate the Burmese government on their response to the cyclone? Does no one in the White House remember they did exactly the same thing three years ago, ignoring Hurricane Katrina until it was too late and then botching the rescue efforts afterwards? All it did was wipe out a significant portion of the Gulf Coast, not to mention a good-sized part of a major city, so even these clowns might recall it. Or maybe they just hoped that everyone else would forget.

Every time these morons on Pennsylvania Avenue make you think they've hit absolute rock bottom, they manage to outdo themselves. Heck of a job, Laura.