Death and Senator Charles Grassley

Death Stalks Us All, but some more closely than others. Whether we die from congenital heart failure, or head trauma from the shock wave of a roadside IED blast in Iraq, or even an overdose of some stupid recreational drug...eventually we all die.

Unfortunately, to me it feels like my family has experienced more than its fair share of death and loss recently, which is why it profoundly upsets me that the boorish, dishonorable Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) actually said this week that A.I.G. executives should "resign or go commit suicide."

There is rhetoric, and there is going too far. And while almost nothing in the political culture of this once-great nation shocks or bothers me, Grassley's statement angers and disgusts me.

A US Senator publicly encouraging fellow human beings to take their own lives? WTF?!

I don't care if Grassley claims that he was speaking "rhetoric" (must be some foreign language related to Mandarin, since the Chinese are going to own our asses once we default on those T-Bills)and that he "obviously" never intended to encourage anyone to kill themselves (even though that's exactly what he did).

The fact is, Grassley said the first thing that came to his (obviously under-developed) mind, which was that his fellow human beings should take their own lives because of their culpability for monetary losses at a public company.

That's horrible. Worse than horrible - it is f@cked-up, and this country is going to hell in a hand-basket. I never thought I'd say something like that...but it's in a moment of crisis that the true nature of a country's leadership is revealed, and this is what we're seeing: a supposedly pro-life Republican Senator slip-up on a local radio program and reveal the depths of his moral rottenness. And he didn't even have the guts to stick by his rhetorical statement.

I normally don't take politics very seriously, but Grassley's insanity and insensitivity wound me personally. Can you imagine if someone like me gave an interview on the record in which I said that Senator Grassley should commit suicide? I'd either be arrested or institutionalized, and whatever bullsh#t excuse I tried to come up with would be dismissed by the judge. And yet a US Senator can get away with a comment like that and not be censured for it?

Congratulations, America, this is the leadership you've chosen to steward this country through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

If people should resign or commit suicide because they spent money inappropriately, then the halls of Congress would be very quiet.