Appalling

I don't think George W. Bush is irretrievably lost. At least, I pray that he is not. I have to believe that there is still some chance that he can salvage his soul.

This, however, has to stop.

Colleen Graffy, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC World Service the suicides were a "good PR move to draw attention."

"It does sound that this is part of a strategy in that they don't value their own life and they certainly don't value ours and they use suicide bombings as a tactic to further their Jihadi cause," she said.

Graffy coordinates efforts with Karen Hughes, a former top aide to President George W. Bush who is now a special envoy charged with trying to improve the U.S. image abroad, especially in Islamic countries.

This idea, that the Guantanamo suicides were an act of aggression against the United States, was advanced first while the bodies were still warm.

"They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed sheets," base commander Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris told reporters in a conference call from the US base in southeastern Cuba.

"They have no regard for human life," he said. "Neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us."

A remark like this made once can be accepted, if not excused, as an extraordinarily insensitive statement from a crude, ugly man.

Made twice, the remark calls attention to itself as an obvious part of a calculated communication strategy. Just as the right managed to blame the dead of New Orleans for falling victim to Hurricane Katrina, Bush aims now to avoid any responsibility for the Guantanamo suicides by portraying himself as the victim of the dead men.

Look for the "attack suicide" meme to begin showing up in stories and commentaries on FOX "News." It will filter from there onto CNN and MSNBC. Bush's defenders in the news media will defend him against anything, no matter how awful. This will be no exception.

Expect the meme to pop up also on the editorial page of the Wall St. Journal and in the columns of John Tierney, George Will and other conservative writers. They will parrot the administration line without thinking, as they almost always do. From Karl Rove's computer, straight to the right-wing brain stem.

Every time you start to think Bush cannot do anything worse that what he has done already, he does something worse. One can only deaden one's conscience so many times before it actually dies. If Bush has not reached that point yet, he is not far from it.