What's This About?

Even as Petraeus and Crocker were unfolding their preposterous argument—We have to wait for condi-tions on the ground to improve, said the general. What those conditions are and to what degree they must improve, he would not say.—the Presi-dent was giving a Medal of Honor to the parents of Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor, who dove on a live grenade and sacrificed his life for his comrades.

He wept and was obviously moved. Mr. Bush is a man of feeling but devoid of empathy. He responds to emotional situations, as we have often seen, but has no real compassion for those beyond his immediate circumstances.

Bush reminds me of a character in a Pirandello play: Like Henry IV, Bush is a victim of his own mad ambition. He weeps for the tragedy of one man yet is unable to respond to the realities of the horrors he created. And he has to stay in character as a madman.

“My art is full of bitter compassion for all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion cannot fail to be followed by the ferocious derision of destiny which condemns man to deception.”

—Luigi Pirandello