Bob Herbert, Take A Vacation

Bob Herbert is upset that people aren't upset. A woman wants to go shopping, college kids are playing video games, the president is in Texas instead of in DC. And not enough rich kids are dying in Iraq.

Welcome to the New Assumptionville Times opinion columns. Herbert assumes:

• No one ever had fun during any other war. I remember Vietnam. I remember Bosnia. I don't remember Korea, but I remember having fun as a kid in the early and mid 50s, and I don't remember my parents minding much.
• No one in the administration is working because the President is in Texas. Last time I checked, the lights were burning in the Pentagon, so the people who need to be taking care of the war are at work.
  
• The president is on vacation. Before he writes blather like, "Instead, Mr. Bush is bicycling as soldiers and marines are dying. Dozens have been killed since he went off on his vacation," Herbert might want to check the President's schedule with the White House press office. I'm sure they'd be happy to share it with him. He might have found out about Bush's meeting yesterday with defense and foreign policy teams.
  
• There aren't enough rich people dying. "For the most part, the only people sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families, and very few of them are coming from the privileged economic classes." He doesn't mention that it's a volunteer army, so he has no argument. He doesn't call for a draft. He doesn't mention the thousands of troops who don't come from poverty.

This sort of shallow transparency we can expect to find on college campus newspapers. And while we shouldn't expect to find it at the NYT, we all know that it is, in fact, very much to be expected.