Apparently, I am not sufficiently sorrowful to satisfy Mr. Gatsby.

... as you can see here, to which Mr. Gatsby, in a fit of sanctimonious rage, links from here. And, naturally, in Mr. Gatsby's world, none of this is the fault of the right-wing, war-mongering imperialists in the White House who sent all of these soldiers to die for Halliburton and the Carlyle Group.

Oh, of course not. No, rather than place the blame where it would (uncomfortably) belong, Mr. Gatsby would rather deflect all that discomfort onto an anonymous Canadian blogger. And should we wait with bated breath for Mr. Gatsby to post a link to anything he's ever written where he's expressed any outrage over the deaths of clearly innocent Iraqis? We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

But while he's scouring his archives for that post, I'm sure he'd be happy to fill us in on why his beloved Simian-in-Chief can't be bothered to go to any dead soldiers' funerals. Or why, until recently, SecDef Rumsfeld couldn't even be bothered to personally sign letters of condolence.

Ah, well, I'm sure it's that the both of them are just so gosh-darned busy making the world safe for democracy. I'm sure both of them really do feel all those families' agony over the loss of their loved ones. They just have a different way of showing it, I guess.

RANDOM ADDENDUM: Mr. Gatsby accuses me of not caring about those dead troops. In a sense, he's right. In the first place, I didn't even know them, but that's not much of an excuse. What's more salient is that, at this point in the invasion, after some 1400 or so dead American soldiers, and the number of dead increasing all the time, at some point, it really is just a number, and I can't work up the outrage anymore. Sort of the way most Americans really didn't give a shit about this. Oh, I'm sorry, you'd forgotten all about that, hadn't you? We hadn't.

But it's where Gatsby directs his anger that is so puzzling. I may come across as callous and uncaring. But I'm not the reason those troops are dead, am I?

DUM DE DUM DUM ... Still waiting for that link, Jay. And while we kill time, shall we place bets on whether anything Mr. Gatsby posts will reflect any sentiment whatever along the lines of "Hey, you're right, I never thought of that"? Or perhaps, "Golly gee, I guess you might just have a point there, CC". Or maybe even, "You know, you've given me a lot to think about, maybe I'll go away and ponder this for a while."

Any takers? I'll give you odds.

THURSDAY MORNING REMINDER: Still waiting for that link, Jay. And, just so y'all appreciate this, this is an example of meticulous and intellectually-honest discourse. There is currently a well-defined issue on the table; I've challenged Jay to produce a link to any post he's ever made on his blog where he's expressed sorrow and regret for the thousands of obviously-innocent civilians killed in the illegal invasion of Iraq. So far, a deafening silence. So the issue is going to remain on the table until it's resolved. No weaseling, no tap dancing, no passing the buck, no changing the subject, as Jay likes to do. I've made the request, and I want the link. Now we'll see if Jay can suck it up and play with the big boys, or whether he's just going to run whimpering back to the safety of the keyboard in his parents' basement, and post more blog entries about how that big, bad Canadian blogger is being mean to him.

(By the way, I should point out that, if I wanted to play this game at Jay's level of maturity, I'd be over at his blog, posting numerous, identical comments every day demanding to see that link. But, unlike Mr. Gatsby, I grew out of that kind of behaviour decades ago. Besides, I suspect that, if I actually went over to comment on his blog, I'd have a powerful urge to take a shower afterwards. But that's just me.)

Still waiting for that link, Jay. Time to put up or shut up, no?