I preface this entry by admitting that I have not gotten any sleep in the last 23 hours. Lack of sleep makes me slightly irritable.
I have InstaPundit as one of the many RSS feeds in the RSS Reader extension I installed in Firebird yesterday. From an annoying entry about Clark's campaign funding (intensifed by the fact that I have been wrestling with myself about whether I should donate) to this blog with its multiple mentions of "Weasel Clark." Classy.
Anyway, I began to wonder whether Bush had his own official blog. Apparently, he does (like all "official campaign blogs," it is less valuable insight than vapid cheerleading). I eventually wandered over to the Downloads section to take a look at their wallpapers. This one in particular annoyed me.
- Why such heavy minority representation in this wallpaper (which speaks of "citizens in need") and none of the others?
- Why do three of the children (the ones who are Bush is ignoring) look extremely unhappy? Could it be because their parents lost their jobs, making a real (negative) difference in their lives?
- While the two children on the left could reasonably fit into what I first think of when the word need pops into my head, the two children on the right are in need of something else.
- Where exactly is the "compassion" being shown in this picture? The President is not "actively helping" these children by sitting down and talking to them (By the looks of it, they should be exercising anyway). Nor do I see "responsibility and results" or "real differences" being made in people's lives, both mentioned in the conservative-smarmy quotation below the picture. Then again, maybe they should have made it the Social Security wallpaper; it is just as good a fit as the current one.
I figured that nobody else would have written anything about the Compassion wallpaper, so I googled for it ("bush compassion wallpaper"). Alas, the second page (after the aforementioned Downloads page from the Bush website) was
this Mother Jones article, which touches upon the same point that I do, although much more briefly.