I'll have more to say about this soon, but I think some conservatives, like CT, honestly want to understand why we're so mad. Why, they want to know (and o ye gods, how it does so sound like a legitimate question): why o why do you want to play the blame game while there's still so much work to be done? The streets are flooded with water and decaying corpses, and you want to play politics! Another opportunistic chance to jump on that good man, that Christian man, our president! No one could have predicted, no one! And yet you libruhls want to blame God's President for an Act of God!
Please listen to me: because it is in that phrase, that idle shrug of the shoulders- "no one could have predicted"- that the germ of an answer lies.
All things come together, they say, at the Mississippi River delta. It is there that rivers meet the ocean. And it was there that all the flowing rivers of W administration incompetence, all the vast rivers of progressive rage, finally ran into the wider ocean of American public and media opinion.
There is, for example, the river of the Imperial W Administration's fear of science. Someone might have predicted, but in order to win a few votes, the Emperor W infamously exploited the Christian Right's inability to join the twentieth century, even as the twenty-first began. Right wingers who loves them some microwave ovens, plasma televisions and gastric bypasses talked smack about the scientific culture that made all those miracles possible. And the 'wingers posed and postured, pretending that the basic facts and data surrounding the greenhouse effect and evolutionary biology were in dispute. They wore their ignorance as a badge of honor and when FEMA's own scientists warned in 2004 of scenarios markedly similar to what happened this past week, they, well, they . . . prayed. Or, gods, I hope they at least prayed. Because otherwise, they did nothing, nothing at all.
There is the river of tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts which handed money to Americans who were already wealthy. Money that could have paid to shore up the levees. Or at least a workable evacuation plan.
And there is the river of supporting America in times of trouble. This afternoon, Scotty McClellan faced a White House press corps angrier than he had ever seen. He responded with predictable talking points. (What follows is heavily cut-and-pasted, but I encourage you to read the full transcript. It's even worse than my edit.)Q Scott, the reality at hand right now is that the President said that we still live in an unsettled world. This is an administration that has told us since 9/11 that it's not a matter of "if," but "when" that we could
Actually, Scott, it's way past time.
be struck by a terror attack and, obviously, other disasters that are the result of Mother Nature. So at this point, where is the accountability? Is the President prepared to say where this White House, where this administration went wrong in its response to Katrina? . . . And how [about the b]iggest tax cut, permanent tax cut for the richest people in the country -- in view of the national crisis, in view of the deficit --
MR. McCLELLAN: The highest priority for this administration right now is the ongoing response and recovery efforts --
Q . . . [J]ust to be clear, though, you're saying that Katrina, if you need to spend the money on Katrina, that comes first, and tax cuts would have to wait?
MR. McCLELLAN: No[!!!!!] . . . I'm saying that there are a number
of important priorities. . . You don't want to take away from the efforts that are going on right now. [cf. Ariel Fleischer's post 9/11 "Watch what you say"] And if you start getting into that now, you're pulling people out that are helping with the ongoing response. . . [and why do you hate America?]
Q And there are people in Louisiana and Mississippi who are doing that job very well. Your job is to answer the questions . . . [W]ould it not behoove the efforts to, in fact, save lives and secure property if the people and procedures that are responsible for the inadequacy before are excised as quickly as possible? . . . The person who says that he found out about the Convention Center [by] seeing it on the media -- the
FEMA director -- is still in place. Is that satisfactory that somebody would have responded like that? . . . Is "Brownie" still doing a "heck of a job," according to the President?
MR. McCLELLAN: We've got to continue to do everything we can in support of those who are involved in the operational aspects of this response effort. And that's what we're going to do. There will be plenty of time --
Q Does the President really believe we could respond to a terrorist attack with any -- amount of weeks, months?
MR. McCLELLAN: We've actually done a lot of exercises [jumping jacks?], David, to prepare for possible attacks
Q I'm asking a direct question. Is he confident . . . that he can secure the American people in the event of a major terrorist attack?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are securing the American people by staying on the offensive abroad and working to spread freedom and democracy in
the Middle East. [oops! Wrong tape, Teddy Ruxpin!]
Q That's a talking point. That's a talking point [well, duh] . . . Can you cite for us a specific bureaucratic impediment that has been identified and corrected today?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that in terms of the specifics, that the Secretary -- Secretary Chertoff, or FEMA Director Mike Brown can provide you the operational aspects of the specifics of what have occurred on the ground today. They'll be doing a briefing later today. But there continues to be good progress made when it comes to evacuating people. [and why isn't the media reporting the good news?] Like I said, most of the people have been evacuated. I think there's a relatively small number. All those that were sent to places where people were evacuated, I think have been evacuated out of New Orleans. The levees, those are getting repaired. [Keep in mind: Scotty is Presidential Press Secretary, the public voice of what used to be unironically referred to as the "most powerful person in the free world." He
should have good communication skillz. It's kind of in the job description.]
Q What do you see that's not working right now? What is not working? Because these people are dying from dysentery now -- . . . Does
anyone in this White House know anyone that's there, beyond Trent Lott, that's lost a home, that has lost family, that's displaced?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President visited with a number of those who have been affected by the hurricane.
Q I think they might want some answers, too.
MR. McCLELLAN: And they're going to get them. But now is not the time, Terry.
Q No, it is the time, Scott.
So we're angry because of all of this. But most of all it is the memory of 9/11. After 9/11, Republicans led by the Emperor W, demanded that we all get in line, put politics aside, support America.
And most of us did. Most of us- myself included- gave the president the benefit of the doubt. It was a national crisis after all. It wasn't the time for the blame game. We needed to stay focused on helping those who were in need right now and helping them rebuild their lives and get back up on their feet. It was a time of many challenges, enormous challenges. We needed to stay focused on the task at hand. We were problem-solving. That was what the President was doing and what we were doing.
Heh. And there's a saying, goes something like this:
"Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."And that's the last thing I'll ever believe out of those particular lips.
SPACEDARK
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