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Some days, you see something that is beyond appalling.

Like this bit from CNN, about general dissatisfaction about the GI Bill. Now, the GI Bill I got was worse than they have now, and far worse than the original, but hey, it was still decent, and thanks to Massachusetts not charging veterans tuition at state schools, paid for a lot of college.

However, it could be better, and even though it won't benefit me personally, I'm really happy to see that Jim Webb introduced a bill, co-sponsored by 57 other Senators, including John Warner, that will make real improvements to the current Montgomery GI Bill, like:

• Paying tuition, room and board up to the most expensive in-state public school tuition in a vet's state


• A monthly stipend, tied to local housing rates


• Additional payments for tutoring


• Additional payments for licensing/certification costs


• Dollar-for-dollar matching of any voluntary additional contributions from vets to schools whose tuition is higher than the aforementioned in-state max


• 15, instead of 10 years to use this entitlement

Again, I won't get a dime from it, but I have friends who will. This is a good bill. Unlike bullshit parades and platitudes, this will actually help a lot of people out in meaningful ways, people who under the Mongomery G.I. Bill, which does not suck, might not have been able to follow their educational dream. This is the kind of bill that will do for this generation's vets what the original did for guys like John Warner.

So the sponsors are talking about adding it to the Iraq War Spending Bill. Makes sense, I mean, compared to what we're spending on that fucking quagmire, this is cheap, and it's a chance to do some actual good for the troops that have been getting so routinely fucked over by the very people who claim to support them the most.

Bush's response?

President Bush warned Tuesday at a Rose Garden news conference that he would veto any additions to the bill.

Have you no decency? At long last, will the rest of the country finally realize that for all your bluster about morality, decency, and righteousness, that you have absolutely not a shred of human decency, and all the moral fiber of a rabid weasel?

It is too late to do anything but wait for your too-long time in power to be over before the long, hard job of trying to fix the shit you've piled on the lower and middle class of the country that gave you everything, the people who do the actual work that you barely even notice as you ride around Crawford like the petty dictator you are. I can only hope that when you finally leave the office you've sullied, that you are forgotten and abandoned, and treated with the same barely disguised disdain that you leveled on all who were not in your inner circle.

I expected little from you, George W. Bush, but to fail on something as simple as this? Shame on you sir. Shame on you.

*****Update*****

Thanks to Dave Pooser for this link in the comments, with this bit from Sen. "I am the best candidate for the military"
and vet, McCain:

Disappointingly, Sen. John McCain, presumptive Republican candidate for president, so far declines to back the measure. He seems to be responding to concerns of the military brass that enhanced educational opportunities could negatively affect retention rates. Not only is it wrong to want people to stay in the military because they have no alternatives, but such thinking ignores the advantages enhanced educational benefits offer in recruitment. To meet recruitment goals, the military has offered bonuses and lowered some of its standards. Imagine being able instead to promise possible recruits a first-class college education.

If it was possible to be more disgusted than by what the chimp is trying to pull, you have gone the extra mile. For you to offer anything but your fervent and complete support for this bill is beyond the pale of decency. For you to do anything but sign your name as a co-sponsor in letters bigger than Hancock's is unimaginable. There are not enough letters in "pathetic hypocritical suckup" to illustrate how far you have fallen in your attempt at one last bit of glory.

Of course, thanks to your trophy wife's riches and your government benefits from your years in the U.S. Senate, this will never be your personal problem ever again. But for you to backstab your own people, the veterans of war? To betray those who, like you before them voluntarily place themselves in harms way for no more reason than their country asked them to? For that sir, there can be no forgiveness, no restitution, no "making it better". For you to waffle even slightly in supporting this bill, you have lost any respect I have for you, which, once upon a time was enough for me to have been willing to vote for you instead of Al Gore.

You have betrayed every veteran everywhere, John McCain, and I would ask that you stop referring to yourself as a member of that group.

You no longer deserve that privilege.

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