While the infamous “let them eat cake” line may never have been uttered by Marie Antoinette, the sentiment is real – and enduring — enough: Why should the well-off worry about the peasants not having enough bread to eat when there’s plenty of cake to go around the palace halls?

The story of Antoinette’s casual lack of concern and empathy and understanding for those less fortunate may have been apocryphal, but our Commander in Chief’s latest blunder during his recent press conference is not. It’s there on video and in transcript.

“I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Well, thanks very much, Georgie-boy, for explaining that to the American peasantry out here in let-them-eat-cake land.

If you missed President Bush’s press conference on July 11th, you can catch most of the highlights in Dan Froomkin’s reporting at washingtonpost.com, where Froomkin somewhat forgivingly described Bush’s comment merely as the “Clueless Quote of the Day.”

I think Bush’s comment is a bit more than clueless. Try crass … careless … classless. Try cruelly blithe.

His comment reveals that he truly has no concern or understanding for what the majority of Americans are experiencing simply in the struggle to stay alive, much less well, – whether they have health insurance or not. To imply that emergency room — over-crowded, over-worked, under-staffed – health care is the best this nation can do, that it’s the best our uninsured and poor should expect, is stomach-churning. He showed us exactly what he thinks about Americans – at least the mass of less-than-well-off Americans.

Has he ever even been in an emergency room? Does he know who pays for the non-preventative, stop-the-bleeding, get ‘em in and get ‘em out kind of care that you get in an emergency room?

He made me sick, really.

What medicine can I take that will ease the acute nausea brought on by Bushie’s noxious natter? Are we to believe he’s simply grossly naïve (at best), or willfully negligent (more likely)?

Lucky me, I’ve got health insurance. No running to the emergency room for me. I can call up my doctor and ask what she prescribes for my intense, post-press conference desire to throw up.

Do I sound angry? I am. And you should be too.

Whether you think Bush is an ill-bred, intellectually-deficient bozo (as I do) or whether you think he’s the smart and decent-hearted leader of the free world (as he does), this ridiculous comment – one in a long line of many – should make you spitting mad.

The indifference, the depraved indifference, it takes on the part of our country’s president to imply that reasonable health care is as readily accessible as the nearest emergency room is beyond comprehension. It’s insulting.

He ought to be ashamed.

Instead of telling the American people, in so many words, to eat cake if they don’t have bread, he should be asking for a honking serving of humble pie.

He could eat it in the waiting area of the nearest emergency room.

With the rest of his peeps.