W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives
United States of Shame
By Maureen Dowd
Stuff happens.
And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.
Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.
Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.
Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.
Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.
Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.
In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.
Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.
Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.
When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.
When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.
Who are we if we can't take care of our own?
From today's New York Times.
Quote:I am praying for the day when we don't describe black people as articulate.
Personally, I think articulate ten-year-olds are few and far between. I didn't see the interview--either interview--but in my experience most ten- year-olds have trouble saying "yes" or "no" to carefully-worded leading questions.
Lash wrote:I'm fuming for the day we don't describe black people as articulate.
It's the new put down.
black + ability to speak coherently = articulate
LOL!!
Anyone who took the comment I made about the young man as a put down...intentionally or unintentionally...is probably too deep into denial to realize the implications of a 10 year old being more articulate than George Bush.
Here is a link to NBC News. If you play the two pieces that have to do with the youngster in New Orleans pleading for help...you will see what I was talking about. The second of the two pieces was from the NBC Dateline...and the first is a follow up piece the news division did.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Lash: I'm not getting it. What if NBC had interviewed a retarded, stuttering, drooling black kid and Frank had reported it that way? Would that not have offended you? Is there any adjective you would permit us to describe any black individual with? Some boys in this world are ten years old. Some of them are articulate. Some of them are black. So why is it a put-down to call an articulate ten year old black boy an articulate ten year old black boy? I am especially mystified because you usually don't strike me as a zealot of political correctness.
I'll pop in here later, but wanted to link an amazing discussion from Friday evening on PBS News with Lehrer, Oliphant, Paige and David Brooks
Read or listen (real audio)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html
This article in the Observer has brought home to me a separation that is more at the heart of this whole week than I had previously been willing to contemplate, and the manifestation of the separation will affect politics US domestic politics and international politics -
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1562415,00.html
Thanks for that one, blatham. This was particularly striking, from David Brooks:
Quote:DAVID BROOKS: This is -- first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.
Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years -- this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.
We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You've seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.
And I think this is the biggest one and the bursting one, and I must say personally it is the one that really says hey, it feels like the 70s now where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let's get out of this mess. And I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just people are sick of it.
Brooks' reaction, and comments about Bush, were very gentle and understated. But then again, he has always been a Bush supporter.
Some other Republicans aren't quite so circumspect in the choice of words.
revel, on another post, summed up nicely some of the argumentation on various threads here, and in the nation:
"In any event the responsiblity became federal as soon as New Orleans was declared a state of emergency; which was before the levee broke and New Orleans flooded."
And, knowing what we knew, you don't have to wait for any formal declaration, either.
Thomas wrote:Lash: I'm not getting it. What if NBC had interviewed a retarded, stuttering, drooling black kid and Frank had reported it that way? Would that not have offended you? Is there any adjective you would permit us to describe any black individual with? Some boys in this world are ten years old. Some of them are articulate. Some of them are black. So why is it a put-down to call an articulate ten year old black boy an articulate ten year old black boy? I am especially mystified because you usually don't strike me as a zealot of political correctness.
Its not what is correct or not--it has just always been weird to me that any black person who can speak passable English is referred to as "articulate".
Almost always.
But, members of other race are RARELY described with that word. Its not a complaint...as my post hinted previously. I don't take umbrage or anything. Just an observation. Pay attention to such articles sometimes. You'll see what I mean.
I think I'll go get some references.
Frank may have described the boy as articulate because he was extraordinarily articulare for a ten-year-old of any superficial description. It is only necessary to use the link he provided to demonstrate this to oneself.
I don't want to go there on all of this.
My niece is black and can out talk all of us, except possibly set's references.
What is the question?
There is no question. Lash is typically attempting to preen herself on her tolerance by making others out to be crypto-racists. It's not worth the trouble.
If by not go there, you mean the site she linked, i suggest you might enjoy it. It's really old news online, but it's entertaining.
Personally I value people who can say what they mean.
Black, white, yellow, red....
Some trees are far more articulate than others. Shrubs tend to have limited vocabularies.
I've known two Bug Eyed Monsters, but their vocabularies were more severely limited than Shrub's.
Noddy24 wrote:Personally I value people who can say what they mean.
Black, white, yellow, red....
Some trees are far more articulate than others. Shrubs tend to have limited vocabularies.
I've known two Bug Eyed Monsters, but their vocabularies were more severely limited than Shrub's.
ummm I'm just a seedling among the old growth
Set's a bit overzealous to trot out the new word he made up.
I'm not accusing anyone of anything.
I think the word "Articulate" is very overused in a bit of a condescending manner, re black people who have the ability to speak intelligibly.
The question is, osso, do you think constantly applying the word "articulate" to only black people if they're well spoken is a bit condescending--like it's always a surprise that they can speak clearly...?
As I said before--it's not that big a deal, but I made the comment and set sees the need to make it an issue....
