Soapbox

Saturday the Columbus Dispatch, which endorsed George W. Bush in ’04, came out with a scathing editorial on the idea that we are going to spend hundreds of billions on the relief/rebuilding effort for the Gulf Coast….but won’t raise taxes to do it! They pointed out that President Bush ignored advice and pleas to suspend tax cuts when he started the war, and the result has been economic disaster. He surely must do it NOW! They asked why a man who claims to be conservative refuses to ask anyone but the soldiers to make a sacrifice for the war, and no one but the survivors should sacrifice for Hurricane Katrina.

“The bankruptcy of this approach to governance, fiscally and morally, is total. There is a complete divorce between policy and reality. The government cannot forever avoid paying what it owes.
The president said on Thursday that he takes responsibility for the problem and the solution. He should prove it by telling the nation how he is going to pay for the solution.”

I am in complete agreement with these statements, still, I couldn’t help thinking;
“Well DUHHHH!!”

Of course George Bush’s policies are “disconnected from reality”. What else would you expect from a president whose team takes pride in the fact that they don’t deal in reality!!

President Bush’s morally and economically bankrupt behavior is nothing new. The Dispatch knew in 2004 that George Bush had a record of firing people who tell the truth, promoting those who fail and using smears rather than facts–yet they endorsed him anyway!! His policy of refusing to listen to experts even when it leads to disaster was already well recognized last year, but the President showed up to glad-hand with the Columbus Republican elite and presto-chango: the Dispatch pulled an endorsement out of their hat!

To the editors of the Dispatch I would say, What were you thinking?? What in the world did you suppose would happen when you endorsed a man whom you yourself acknowledged to be leading America in the wrong direction? By encourageing the people of Ohio to vote for him, you gave him the opportunity to do to the American economy, the environment, the poor and disadvantaged of this country and to civil rights what he had already done to Iraq: tear it apart! And you have the nerve to feign surprised and dismayed that he is.

And how dare act righteous and complain about it now? When you sow lies and blind party loyalty, you reap the deluge!

OK, I’ve been thinking about this for days now, and here’s my answer to people who say, on the one hand, that George Bush hates black people and that’s why he let so many die in New Orleans, and those on other hand who say that the rescue debacle was everybody else’s fault, and anyone who is critical is just a Bush-hater throwing stones.

I’ve always been in the the “Sure, Shrub’s an idiot, but come on, he’s not guilty of everything” camp, and certainly there are many, many people who dropped the ball on this whole thing. They should all be kept awake at night with nightmares for years by this.

And I don’t really believe that what has happened is about race… but it does seem to be about blind, uncaring, even criminal indifference. Which is worse?

I can’t believe that after the outrage over the initial inaction the Bush camp didn’t get it together and make sure it is done right, even if it was too late for the thousands who died while they dithered. Whatever hideous mistakes were made before, all they can do now is to give their all for those who are left.

So why aren’t they?

~Why was a vital dept like FEMA allowed to hire a guy who had no previous experience and had been fired for lack of oversight? Why does the president tolerate it when this man shifts the blame onto the victims whom he accuses of “choseing” not to evacuate, when he knows that many of these people were living on less than $10,000 a year income, had no car or money to rent one, or family to stay with if they had been able to leave town? Why are they allowed to keep passing blame down the chain of command instead of just once saying, “We didn’t do our best, and we’re going to correct it.” ?

~Why do FEMA and Homeland Security swear they did not know that people were dieing at the Convention Center when CNN and even Fox had been reporting on it for 2 days? The director, by way of excuse, said that it wasn’t reported in the paper for several days. Homeland SEcurity gets their vital information on national disasters from newspapers?? The Homeland Security Act says that the feds have primary responsibility in a major natural disaster. Explain to me how we are secure when standing water is beyond their ability to protect us from? Do you think Bush will give Brown and Chertoff Medals of Freedom when this is all over, like he did with George Tenet?

~ Why were the national guard troops made to stay out for days and the Coast Guard initially turned away? Because they were lacking the proper piece of paperwork from a town with no paper and no phones? Why did FEMA keep water and the Red Cross out of New Orleans? Because they preferred people to evacuate? Like a person trapped on a highway overpass without a toilet or food in the 90 degree heat is going to decide to stay where they are simply because they got a bottle of Aquafina????

~Why did Barbara Bush say “many of the people in the arenas here, (in Houston) you know, were underprivileged anyway. This is working very well for them.” Like for poor people, getting sent to Houston to live in the freaking astrodome on a cot with 10,000 other stragers was a lucky break? Is this where George’s “poor people are poor because they’re lazy” attitudes were learned?

~Why, after all the criticism of the first 5 days, did Homeland Security cut communication lines for the parish rescuers, and for the Red Cross for 8 hours while Bush was STAGING his photo op this weekend? The administration effort started out with incompetence and frankly now it seems like there is still a sick, sad core of indifference.

Equipment was moved in and set up to work on part of the levy for the cameras’ benefit and they were removed after the president and the news crews left! (Check http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20050903214041794 for verification if you find it as unbelievable as I did.) This weekend the administration diverted helicopters from their rescue efforts so our fearless leader could be photographed in front of them with his shirtsleeves rolled up. People were recruited to “spontaneously” be comforted by the President’s towering humanitarian presence on camera. They set up food distribution centers to photograph the president at and then took them down and abandoned the people as soon as he left! In otherwords, the whole thing was a giant commercial for George Bush the Hero- but it was one that may have cost lives! The Picayune Times reported that three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, because the rescue choppers were not allowed to fly. Thanks, Mr. President!

So I say to the Bush defenders; don’t tell me hey, this is politics as usual, because nothing should have been “as usual” in this hideous situation. Don’t trot out your favorite song that if Bill Clinton visited, the same would have happened. Whatever you think Clinton, or Carter or Reagan would have done, the fact is that Bush is he one who DID do it.

This isn’t just him being “not the brightest bulb”. This isn’t about liberal politics. This isn’t about making Bush being a villan because he’s a republican and we love to hate Republicans.

This about man’s inhumanity to man. This is about playing the guitar and a few rounds of golf instead of making sure that the red tape was being cut in order to save the lives of thouands of drowning people. It’s about George Bush proving over and over and over that he just doesn’t care. What other explaination is there? Please tell me if you have one. There is a disconnect here from the people of America that is staggering, and heartbreaking. I listened to the president of the St. Bernard Parish talking about the woman who drowned at a nursing home on FRIDAY, after begging her son every day for rescue and he kept telling her “They’re coming for you, Mamma” because they told him they would…but no one ever did because no one was allowed to do it! He was in tears telling it, and I was in tears listening to it. My heart is breaking, and I fear that man who would divert lifesaving resources for a photo op simply doesn’t have a heart.

If he was out there genuinely pulling it together even now, even a day late and a dollar short, I would say “well, OK, he’s at least doing what he can now, lets shut up and get it done and worry about the blame later.”

But he’s not. Instead the White House plants a story in the Washington Post claiming that it’s all the fault of the governor of LA. because she never declared a disaster~ when of course, she did. People are dieing ~ and they’re spinning! Now Bush says he wants to “personally oversee” the investigation into why relief was handled so badly. I just bet he does. The better to cover you up, my dear?
Yes, I believe the worst of George Bush. He has yet to give me one instance when the worst was not the truth. Now it sounds like they’re getting ready to blame all of this on the little people whose phones weren’t even working instead of accepting even a little of it for themselves.

And if all that isn’t because he just doesn’t give a shit about these people, then why is it?

Last night on CNN PResident Bush was asked why help was so slow in coming to the devastated New Orleans area in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The president replied, “well no one could have anticipated the levee’s breaking”.

Interesting statement coming froom an administration that said that no one could have anticipated airplanes being flown into buildings, when they had , of course, anticipated that very thing. Mr. Bush also couldn’t have anticipated that there would turn out to be no wMD’s in Iraq, that more soldiers were needed than we sent or that a massive insurgency would spring up in the power vacuum left by the invasion. Problem is, plenty of people anticipated those very things, but he ignored them.

The same holds true for New Orleans. The Bush administration cut funding for levee repair and reinforcement by 40 % in 2003 and diverted the money to Iraq. This despite the fact that experts have been warning for some time of the desperate need to protect New Orleans from a hurricane.

From a 2001 issue of “Scientific American”:

By Mark Fischetti

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn’t go very far.

So you see Mr. bush, that dog won’t hunt. While you were clearing brush on your 5 week vacation, scientists were warning that a disaster of epic proportions was brewing. When you could have been mobilizing the army and national guards, getting men and supplies ready to roll as soon as the storm passed, instead you chose to attend a fund raiser. As reports of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans were coming in, you were playig guitar and going golfing.

Lots of people anticipayed the levee’s breaking, Mr. Bush. You just didn’t listen to them.