Apparently President Bush, even on his many and lengthy vacations, cannot be bothered to even personally sign the letters he sends to bereaved families of soldiers killed in Iraq, instead having his signature stamped on them. Personally, I think a phone call is warranted. You might think that would take too long, seeing as how more than 1,260 soldiers have been killed in the line of duty. But the war has been going on for a year and nine months now, or exactly 628 days. Say Bush magnanimously grants five minutes of his time for each fallen soldier, that would average out to almost exactly ten minutes a day. Even for a president, that is eminently possible. But it seems that Bush can’t even be bothered to spend ten seconds per day even signing the form letter that someone else likely typed for him.

Even worse, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can’t even find the time to sign his letters to the grieving families, either, as his letters are also machine-stamped.

We already know how much they disrespect the soldiers from how viciously they have tried to gut the soldier’s pay and benefits; we know they would rather save their own political asses by blocking any press about returning caskets and refusing to attend any of the funerals for the fallen, even one or two symbolically. But this latest information, though seemingly trivial, sends home the message that the ultimate and final sacrifice of the men who they call “heroes” when it serves their own political ends are not worth even ten seconds of their day. That’s how much they really just don’t care.