First, I want to correct something I said last time. Bill Maher’s show is on HBO, not Showtime. I don’t understand how I got that wrong because I watch it every week. If you have never seen it, you oughta check it out.

When I have the TV on during the day, I usually watch the news channels; MSNBC, CNN and yes, even Fox. (I try to keep it “fair and balanced.”) So, that means I saw a lot of coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. The thing that struck me most about all the reporting, besides the vast quantities of airtime devoted to it, was the question of the mental health of Mr. Cho.

A lot of people were saying that his behavior, before he snapped, warranted his being removed from the campus, or even suggested that he should have been hospitalized. While I don’t agree with that (to me, his behavior was odd, but did not approach the level of deserving forcible detention), those same folks were opining that they saw no problem with the gun laws that allowed him to legally purchase the guns and ammunition he used in his horrible crime. And that was the glaring omission from the wall-to-wall coverage. There were not enough calls to change the firearm situation in this country that allows such events to occur.

On a completely different note, I saw a very short news conference from President Bush the other day, which managed to capture everything that’s wrong with the current Chief Executive. First, he used it as an opportunity to knock Congressional Democrats’ attempts to end the futile American presence in Iraq. He used the well-worn Conservative talking point of “politicians in Washington should not be telling the military how to run the war.” Well, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Bush himself (along with Mr. Cheney and others) is a “Washington politician”. And those “Washington politicians” not only started this ill-conceived action in the Middle-East, but have been telling the military what to do for four-years-plus. What they have been doing isn’t working, so what’s wrong with other “Washington politicians” stepping in.

Then the President went on to state that the testimony of Alberto Gonzales had given him more confidence in the Attorney General. I don’t see how he could have reached that conclusion from that gentleman’s bumbling performance before the Senate. Mr. Gonzales came across as being totally clueless as to the workings of the Justice Department. Mr. Bush could not have watched that poor performance and came out of it with renewed confidence in the AG’s fitness for his office, unless, what sadly may be the case, the President is clueless himself.