That cowardly and barbarian terrorist act is some days away so I think we can now discuss here the reaction of Mudcatters. I agree with Big Tim's observation (few posts) but I disagree with the reasons for that. (BTW, to answer a general observation with a single case response is based upon a complete misunderstanding of the nature of a general observation)

The reason for the comparably few posts I see is that there was no obvious angle by which the USA or Bush could be blamed. I never have seen here a shortage of American catters' outrage if the victims have been foreigners (Afghanistan, Iraq) but the blame was on the Bush government. The majority of catters (and of American catters) loves to blame Bush and his government for all possible evils. Now, I do agree that this blame is well merited in many fields. Bush has worked hard to make it easy to often see the blame with him.

But that bias of some catters to see all evil in Bush goes a bit far in some instances. Not everything that goes wrong on this world can be blamed on the present American government. The let's-blame-Bush bias of the majority of 'political' catters makes that they either do not contributed to threads in which the obvious blame for an evil lies not with the American government (or, for a change other Western governments) but with a group, nation, person from other parts of the world, or try as quickly as possible to turn the thread into a thread about their favourite topic.

Look at this thread how quickly the name Bush appeared, look at the Bali thread linked to above, how quickly the name Bush appeared. There was a thread about Venezuela in which a catter thought it was appropriate to mention the last American elections. In a thread about Arafat's purported embezzlement of money it took just five or six posts until Bush was mentioned.

Those catters are in that respect exactly like the politicians they mostly dispise: If a theme comes up they consider either embarrassing or far from what they prefer to discuss, then they mutate to spin doctors telling others what should be discussed. Frank's post is a prime example but by far not the only example.

So in my eyes the unsuitability (but see Frank's spin for a creative counterexmple) of this crime for blaming Bush is the true reason for the observation made by Big Tim.

Wolfgang