Remember that there's a lot of rage at what the administration's done, and Snow is one of the most visible faces. This, plus the recent treatment of Elizabeth Edwards, essentially telling her to just drop everything and sit around waiting for the end, is probably going to push a lot of people into rudeness.

It can be hard to take. But these are contentious times, and as difficult as it is, some of this you're going to have to shrug off. It is hard for me too, so I can say I understand what you're feeling. but you'll find rude people like this everywhere-- Americans are just a little more open about it all.

As DKos has grown (my ID is in the 40,000s, and that's considered an old-timer's number!), so has the range of opinions. Even Markos is subject to a lot of insults now. I too am having trouble with many of the comments and restrict what I read there to certain topics because I know the comments will stay within a certain level of civility.

Eurotrib has an advantage in that we all have to be careful with our comments due to simple language issues. This keeps most comments relatively polite.

(I'm being a sleep-deprived American and posting waaaay too late. @#%!#! insomnia. I'll check in tomorrow.)

But, his day-job aside, that comment was disgusting.  He's no less a human being than anybody on DailyKos, and it's sad to see that talk from someone who is allegedly a member of the more englightened and compassionate party.

We're better than that.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Tony Snow? Cancer? Buh huh for him. I bet he has health insurance that will pay for treatment. Which is more than can be said for a lot of Americans, and which is due to policies that he supports. He should count himself lucky to at least be in the segment of the population that gets regular checkups to detect problems early, and coverage that gets him the proper care.

Yeah, my compassion has definite limits. This is one of them.

I don't know about that. What I heard from the guy prior to his becoming press secretary was pretty much straight out of the Fox News School of Journalism. The running joke right after Snow became press secretary was that the Bush administration likes to promote from within.

The first thing I thought when I heard his cancer had returned was "oh, poor guy!" Not that I like the guy or agree with anything the guy stands for, but I don't wish ill on people. Someone (the ETrib contributor) raises an important point though: not everyone has access to the excellent health care he does, and the policies he advocates do nothing to repair that situation (quite the opposite, in fact). That's not irrelevant.

I don't think that comment is particularly American though (nor, to be honest, particularly harsh). Saying stuff on the Internet in a less than sensitive manner is an international phenomenon. Heck, I just realised I took a potshot at the guy at the beginning of this very comment.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde

I don't care that Tony Snow has cancer at all either. Sad for him, his family and friends, but it's no more to me than almost all the other millions of people discovering that there's something awful wrong with them.  I don't care that other celebritities get cancer either.  I have no connection to them: they're not in my community and the details of their lives are something I'm indifferent about. Why should I care, except in a very general I-wish-noone-got-cancer sort of way, about Tony Snow in particular? Were I an American, I don't see why it should mean that I should forget that he is a paid liar justifying some of the most appalling things in my name.

I care that Steve Gilliard is in  a serious condition in hospital, but that's because he's someone I know slightly, I have links to him. He's part of my community, not a random stranger on my computer screen.

I don't see anything offensive in what you quote: I can see how it might tap into your feelings though.

I, of course, don't pray for anyone.

And I also remember her telling me when I was a child "you never wish ill on anyone."

Sadly, this is the what has become of partisanship on both sides, but I still say that DKos (those it does have its moments) is more polite on average than FreeRepublic or RedState. Some of their statements are just horrible.

I also don't think that it means feeling ill at ease with being an American. It means that there are real jerks all over the world just as there are alot of really good people in the world as well.

Sometimes, I am such a Pollyanna. :)

You may (you obviously do) disapprove of what is said. But what on earth does it have to do with being American? Or rather, why did you choose to point it up with a title that says you feel sorry to be an American?

Do you mean there's some kind of unwritten law that says Americans have to behave in a particular way to be worthy of the name? And that way includes fulsomely promising prayers for anyone in distress?

You know, you're an ace away from implying this commenter is guilty of un-American behaviour...

It feels very weird to a European.

The US is drowning in horrors at the moment and there's no lack of things to feel ashamed of.

Luckily, dKos diaries are only very rarely among them.

There is always this difference between the People and the State. By and large, we Europeans do not automatically equate Americans, as individuals, with those terrible people in Washington DC. We know that a lot of you voted them in - which we find hard to understand - and we might also feel that many of you are blind to the direction the US society has taken. But in the end, people are people.

So just be you - if you disgree with an argument, say so. I personally have read most all of what you have written here - even if I haven't commented. You probably have more readers than you realise ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

As one who lost a loved one (my oldest son, to be exact) to cancer not so long ago, as one who saw late diagnoses due to inadequate access to healthcare (and in one case, death from an infinitely curable cancer - Wilm's due to that late diagnosis), as one who saw children in long hospital stays without their parents who needed to work in order to keep their healthcare access and whose places of employ were, shall we say, less than accomodating, and as one who saw first hand the financial distress such illnesses cause (in many cases resulting in bankruptcy, loss of home and worse) in America, I have no pity for a wealthy American like Tony Snow, who in his minority status as a man of wealth, suffered none of these depradations typical of those Americans of more modest means who must endure such hardship.

Wish cancer on anyone? Heaven's no! But if you expect me to, having seens what I've seen, have empathy for a human being who has done his best too make lives more unbearable for the most vulnerable, the least of my brother, I have to say you're asking the wrong person.

Mais c'est un scandâââle!!

But compulsory religiosity is only part of what made that original diary so offensive. I also object to the compulsory sentimentality, the idea that anyone (American) who suffers is ipso facto deserving of affection and "good vibes." Tony Snow is certainly not the most evil man in Washington, but he has also never done anything to warrant my affection, let alone my heartfelt (agnostic) prayers.

Here's what troubles me: A few angry posts on dKos make you "sorry to be American" and lead you to decry "the lack of compassion." Meanwhile an unknown number of non-Americans are being tortured and driven mad in prisons all over the world, and Americans have known all about that for three long years. Yet not only do they have no "compassion" for these wretches, they -- or at least some of them, including Mr. Snow -- continue to go to work in support of the sadistic perverts who are keeping the American Gulag running.

As Elizabeth Edwards said recently, "We all die eventually." And most of us die pretty miserable deaths. Sadly, a horrible death is no distinction, and there's very little we can do about it. But we do have the capacity to lessen suffering for the living, and if Americans ever committed themselves to that, I would be very proud indeed.  

I had to endure a five brownshirt rated "war on terror" supporter on the local Bush apologist radio station on the way home from work.

Yes, I approve of torture, I want to hook the electrodes up to this guy's head, 50,000 volts ought to do it.

What I don´t understand is attaching normal feelings to someone who is so totally disconnected from feelings that he is a major parasite of society, in the most destructive political regime of "the west".  On the other hand, I read your essays on the most humanly detached, cold, economic policies that deeply affect the lives of millions of people without a blink.  It does not compute.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

I really didn't think about the comments that would be coming,,,,and I guess I'm as a result quite surprised as to how helpful they have been for me.  Had I thought about that, I don't think I would have thought, or realized, that they would be helpful,,,,,but they have been.

my thoughts were very right brain driven (I think that's the correct side,,,intuitive, emotional side is what I mean).  After reading all of the above several times today, I realize my comments came from three areas of sadness that I have.  One from a somewhat recent personal tragedy, that latest several years.  One from a sadness about the state of America today.  And one from a sadness for the extreme divisiveness that we now have in our country,,,and a loss of compassion and even civility that I perceive around me.

I was not going to comment in the thread because it just didn't feel appropriate to me.  l just didn't want to explain more than I had already said, and it just didn't seem like the kind of thing where one fights one's corner.  But as the day and the comments went on, I realized that I just needed to say thank you.  So, thank you, very much.