Red Lake, Minnesota

Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post may have said it best here –

The reaction to Bush's silence was particularly bitter given his high-profile, late-night intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman caught in a legal battle over whether her feeding tube should be reinserted.

At a time when the President cuts short a vacation to fly across country (at tax payer expense) to sign a hastily crafted law designed to save the life of one woman, there has been shockingly little attention paid to the tragedy that occurred in Red Lake.

While I do not really believe that the President should stand up and offer his condolences for every unfortunate act of violence that occurs across America each day, this horrible story has not gotten the attention that it deserves from the media or the President. In the hours after the tragedy at Columbine occurred, President Clinton spoke to the nation about what happened. In the days following 9 individuals being killed at a school in Minnesota, what have we heard from the White House?

I don’t want to make this about gun rights…. while I personally do not believe that the constitution establishes a right to own a gun (establishing a state militia is different than individual gun ownership)…. this case is about a troubled youth who saw no future for himself. A separate Washington Post article describes the life that Jeff Weise was facing. Perhaps the most telling quote about what happened in Minnesota comes from the principal of the reservation school:

Sister Sharon Sheridan, 73, principal at St. Mary's Mission School on the reservation, said this of the shootings: "You can't condone what happened here, but you sure can understand it."

There is little more depressing than this sentiment.