Holbrooke’s dead and an object lesson in what’s wrong with American health care…
There wasn’t any chance, post-torn aorta, that he would live, but if you’re rich and/or famous enough, you can get whatever they’ll give, and they’ll give plenty.
Most of the health care dollars spent in this country go to the last few months/weeks/days of life, suggesting for the umpteenth time that an acceptance of death’s inevitability remains the greatest obstacle to genuine reform…
In life, of course, Holbrooke was one of those neocon ideologists who accomplished very little and damaged very much.
Nobody liked them, everyone had to deal with them, but once in power anyone with a bit of sense decided not to bother with them.
Such centrist folks put out to pasture (but retaining great journalistic contacts) are always portrayed in Washington as heroic and tough diplomats, but in reality their arrogance and their ignorance of facts on the ground always got in the way of their capacity to do anything.
When Bosnia is cited as your singular achievement, and 15 years later isn’t anywhere near being solved, oh well, let’s not speak ill of the dead or the hangers on at Dayton’s airport!
Gorilla says: “It helps to be a Villager in the Village of the Damned!”
