Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Why Bush does not play golf
If you’ve been out on the links and haven’t seen George W. Bush whacking the ball, it’s not because you and him always have different tee times. It’s because he has decided to acknowledge the sacrifice made by U.S. service members in Iraq by not playing golf anymore.
From Politico:
“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”
What I find interesting is that he didn’t decide to stop playing golf because of the death of an American service member, but because of the death of a United Nations official. Curious.
I wonder, has he ever thought of acknowledging their sacrifice by stop sending them to Iraq?
I stopped playing golf years ago. Not because I wanted to acknowledge anyone’s sacrifice. I quit because I realized golf really sucks.
