Apparently, First Lady Laura Bush seems to think that "no one has suffered more" than she and her commander-in-chief over the Iraq war.  At least, that's what she said on the "Today" show.

Oh, REALLY???

Surely, Laura has spent some time sitting in on a soldier or Marine PTSD support group, listening to soldiers and Marines recount the horrors of wiping a buddy's brains off their shirts, or picking up the body parts of children after a car bomb explodes, or watching a chopper full of Marines right in front of them crash, or racing to help a Humvee full of buddies that has just exploded in flames from an IED and coming under fire themselves while trying to pull their friends out of the burning wreckage, or thousands of other unspeakable experiences.

Right?

Surely Laura has spent some time hanging out at Walter Reed or any of the hundreds of VA hospitals in this country that are treating amputees and troops with Traumatic Brain Injury.  Watched the men and women struggle to put the square peg in the square hole or stand upright...surely she has sat and held the hands of their exhausted families.  Prayed with them.  Tried to think what to say when they asked, WHY?

I'm sure she has.

Or maybe she's gone along, quietly, with chaplains and service sergeants when they go to notify families that their loved one is dead.  Did she do as one chaplain I saw interviewed say he always did...Pause on the front lawn for just a moment because he can't hardly bear to rip open the lives within that house?

Or I'm sure, what with ALL THE MILITARY FUNERALS GEORGE W. BUSH HAS ATTENDED*--

*(so far, none)

--she has stood in front of a mother who has just buried her beautiful daughter or her laughing son, and looked into the woman's dead eyes, and said something like, "Their sacrifice was noble"???

Or maybe she's gone along with a family to the airport or to the tarmac where they are saying good-bye to their loved one...maybe it was a loved one of her own?  Like, one of her children?  And maybe they've already been to war once, twice, three times...and Laura knows their odds of coming back decrease like the odds decrease the second, third, or fourth cock of a revolver in a game of Russian Roulette.

Laura Bush, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR CHILD AND NOT KNOW IF YOU WILL EVER SEE THEM AGAIN?

Do you have any concept whatsoever of the kind of SHEER RAW COURAGE it takes to hold yourself together, hug them tight, don't cry don't cry don't cry, give a smile, give a wave...WALK AWAY?

Has Laura ever stood on that tarmac and listened to the wails of the children for their mamas and their daddies who are leaving them AGAIN?

Or maybe she has sat in on a counseling session with the child or sibling of a servicemember who was KIA, and that child is wetting the bed, having nightmares, crying themselves to sleep, making poor grades, and otherwise struggling to get through another day in which they know they will never see that mama or daddy or brother or sister again?

Or, I know.  Surely she has offered to babysit an exhausted stressed-out mom or dad of small children whose spouse has deployed for the second, third, or fourth time, leaving them alone to cope?  And since that spouse makes such crappy money anyway, I'm sure that mom or dad is of course, working outside the home, always broke, adding stress on stress while, at the same time, they worry that THIS deployment that husband or that wife may not come back?

Or maybe Laura Bush has pulled on filthy crusted boots over cammos that haven't been taken off in two weeks, eaten Ravioli cold out of the can that came in a care package from home, loaded up and shrugged into a rucksack weighing almost 100 pounds over body armor she knows is not quite sufficient, picked up a rifle with a scope nothing nearly as nice as the KBR security boys get to carry, crawled into the driver's side of a Humvee that is improperly up-armored, loaded all her buddies up with her, and headed out into scorching heat of more than 120 degrees, driving down a road that she knows is riddled with improvised explosive devices, watched every scrap of trash or pothole or dead dog by the side of the road because one of them is hiding the wires...and sets her sights straight ahead because by God that's all the hell there is.

Because if Laura Bush has done even one of these things, then she might be qualified to speak about "suffering."

And if not, then she can just shut the f*** up.