How about a little loyalty?

Here's the evolution of loyalty in the Bush years:
1) Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety, turns down a five-year, $9 million offer from the Rams to stay with his original team, and then, after September 11, turns down a three-year, $3.6 million offer from the Cardinals in order to join the Army, and then he is klled by friendly fire in Afganistan, his means of death covered up by the U.S. military.
2) Scott McClellan willfully aids the president in misleading the public about the war in Iraq, and then turns on his ex-boss, write a successful book about his failures, and tours.
The connection between these two narratives? The kind of loyal man that great countries are built from dies an unncessary death, while the kind of worm that can never be of use to anyone thrives and prospers. Betrayal grows ever more grotesque while loyalty seems increasingly futile.
- Stephen Marche, Esquire, Nov 08 p.34