[spauldingg]

Everything I have wanted to express for the last few weeks.

Posted verbatim in case they start charging for content.

Message: I Care About the Black Folks

By FRANK RICH
ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.

The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.

In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.

Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam.

Taking responsibility, as opposed to paying lip service to doing so, is not in this administration's gene pool. It was particularly shameful that Laura Bush was sent among the storm's dispossessed to try to scapegoat the news media for her husband's ineptitude. When she complained of seeing "a lot of the same footage over and over that isn't necessarily representative of what really happened," the first lady sounded just like Donald Rumsfeld shirking responsibility for the looting of Baghdad. The defense secretary, too, griped about seeing the same picture "over and over" on television (a looter with a vase) to hide the reality that the Pentagon had no plan to secure Iraq, a catastrophic failure being paid for in Iraqi and American blood to this day.

This White House doesn't hate all pictures, of course. It loves those by Karl Rove's Imagineers, from the spectacularly lighted Statue of Liberty backdrop of Mr. Bush's first 9/11 anniversary speech to his "Top Gun" stunt to Thursday's laughably stagy stride across the lawn to his lectern in Jackson Square. (Message: I am a leader, not that vacationing slacker who first surveyed the hurricane damage from my presidential jet.)

The most odious image-mongering, however, has been Mr. Bush's repeated deployment of African-Americans as dress extras to advertise his "compassion." In 2000, the Republican convention filled the stage with break dancers and gospel singers, trying to dispel the memory of Mr. Bush's craven appearance at Bob Jones University when it forbade interracial dating. (The few blacks in the convention hall itself were positioned near celebrities so they'd show up in TV shots.) In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site had a page titled "Compassion" devoted mainly to photos of the president with black people, Colin Powell included.

Some of these poses are re-enacted in the "Hurricane Relief" photo gallery currently on display on the White House Web site. But this time the old magic isn't working. The "compassion" photos are outweighed by the cinéma vérité of poor people screaming for their lives. The government effort to keep body recovery efforts in New Orleans as invisible as the coffins from Iraq was abandoned when challenged in court by CNN.

But even now the administration's priority of image over substance is embedded like a cancer in the Katrina relief process. Brazenly enough, Mr. Rove has been officially put in charge of the reconstruction effort. The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns. Thus The Salt Lake Tribune discovered a week after the hurricane that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as "community relations officers for FEMA" rather than used as emergency workers to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was "to stand beside President Bush" as he toured devastated areas.

The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.

WHEN there's money on the line, cronies always come first in this White House, no matter how great the human suffering. After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place.

It was back in 2000 that Mr. Bush, in a debate with Al Gore, bragged about his gubernatorial prowess "on the front line of catastrophic situations," specifically citing a Texas flood, and paid the Clinton administration a rare compliment for putting a professional as effective as James Lee Witt in charge of FEMA. Exactly why Mr. Bush would staff that same agency months later with political hacks is one of many questions that must be answered by the independent investigation he and the Congressional majority are trying every which way to avoid. With or without a 9/11-style commission, the answers will come out. There are too many Americans who are angry and too many reporters who are on the case. (NBC and CNN are both opening full-time bureaus in New Orleans.) You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.

What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.

[spauldingg]

"The country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do."

Biden/Conyers 2008

[spacefreak]

Originally Posted by spauldingg

Everything I have wanted to express for the last few weeks.

Yet couldn't until someone wrote your thoughts into their article?

As always, Republicans are working their asses off while others spend their time complaining.

[spauldingg]

Doin' what?

[hyteckit]

Republicans are working their asses off trying to figure out whom to shift the blame to. Duh!

[tie]

Originally Posted by spacefreak

Yet couldn't until someone wrote your thoughts into their article?

As always, Republicans are working their asses off while others spend their time complaining.

Is it really so terrible to post an article in the Lounge? A few comments would have been nice, I agree, though. Give him a break (and, thanks for the reminder, but we all know how hard those horse judges are working).

Do you really excuse Bush for appointing "Brownie"? Or how about, 'Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility' does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing 'emergency plans in every major city in America.' Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job." Is accountability in the Republican vocabulary?

How about, "After Katrina, the FEMA Web site directing charitable contributions prominently listed Operation Blessing, a Pat Robertson kitty that, according to I.R.S. documents obtained by ABC News, has given more than half of its yearly cash donations to Mr. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. If FEMA is that cavalier about charitable donations, imagine what it's doing with the $62 billion (so far) of taxpayers' money sent its way for Katrina relief. Actually, you don't have to imagine: we already know some of it was immediately siphoned into no-bid contracts with a major Republican donor, the Fluor Corporation, as well as with a client of the consultant Joe Allbaugh, the Bush 2000 campaign manager who ran FEMA for this White House until Brownie, Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate, was installed in his place."

[abe]

BIDEN & CONYERS???

You ARE a freak, aren't you?

[Monique]

And the Republicans never complained; they spent 8 years to prove nothing about President Clinton; they only thing they discovered about him was that he lied about his sex life; big deal; Republicans do that all the time.

Their lies and mishaps concern real people displaces by Katrina, dying in Iraq, people with no jobs and no prospects because Bush lied about the tax cuts (I will cut taxes for the rich and it will create jobs, lie, lie...), Cheney refusing to take responsibilities for the shooting of his friend (it was the friend's fault)...

Is it FEMA fault what happened with Katrina, or Bush fault for cutting to a maximum the resources of FEMA. You cannot do much if you do not have the money for it. But, Bush had the money for a useless tax cut, and star wars, and a useless war. No Bush only take reponsibilities for the success of his government. But, he has not succeed in doing anything.

[abe]

spauldingg, I think we can all look at your 'style' here in this thread of yours and get a real good idea of exactly what you are.

Bad hominems aren't even necessary. Or, instead, the name SPAULDINGG becomes a pejorative term! Pardon me but I need to go to the restroom and take a SPAULDINGG!

The WHOLE Truth About The Katrina Catastrophe, Please
by Michael J. Gaynor
May 2, 2006

The good news is that with: (1) the passage of time; (2) former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown's frank and forceful testimony before both House and Senate committees; (3) the media's eventual publication of two August 2005 transcripts showing that Mr. Brown WAS fully focused on and leading the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and (4) Mr. Brown's many media appearances since Laura Ingraham interviewed him on her radio show on March 2; the restoration of Mr. Brown's well-deserved reputation as a highly competent manager and a compassionate conservative has largely been accomplished.

Ironically, the Senate report quietly adopted many of Mr. Brown's recommendations while publicly blaming him and putting no blame on Congress. There was Brown -- asking the right questions, urging the necessary governmental actions, and generally doing a commendable job (especially when compared to everyone else in high authority) in a catatrophic situation. The situation was made much worse by Louisiana's long history of incompetence and corruption, and the federal government's prior rejection of Mr. Brown's wise recommendations about keeping FEMA independent and efficient, and preparing for exactly the kind of catastrophe Hurricane Katrina became.

The bad news is that: (1) Congress and the President have not owned up to their responsibility for not doing a better job in bailing out the incompetent local authorities, who earned the bulk of the blame by recklessly failing to prepare properly, foolishly failing to prioritize properly, and stupidly failing to order and to implement a mandatory evacuation sooner (despite the urging of Mr. Brown and, at his request, the President); (2) there was no apology for the scandalous scapegoating of Mr. Brown; and instead, (3) the Senate report sillily chided Mr. Brown for doing what he and prior FEMA directors, both Republican and Democrat, had done for years, and what the Senate report recommended be done by the head of a new FEMA in the future -- that is, deal directly with the President during a major catstrophe.

Set forth below are excerpts from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report, "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared" which will be released publicly this week.

The Senate Committee's disconcerting conclusion? "Top officials at every level of government -- despite strongly worded advisories -- did not appear to truly grasp the magnitude of the storm's potential for destruction before it made landfall."

The reality? Mr. Brown did. And he said so before Hurricane Katrina reached Louisiana.

[abe]

Originally Posted by Monique

And the Republicans never complained; they spent 8 years to prove nothing about President Clinton; they only thing they discovered about him was that he lied about his sex life; big deal; Republicans do that all the time.

Their lies and mishaps concern real people displaces by Katrina, dying in Iraq, people with no jobs and no prospects because Bush lied about the tax cuts (I will cut taxes for the rich and it will create jobs, lie, lie...), Cheney refusing to take responsibilities for the shooting of his friend (it was the friend's fault)...

Is it FEMA fault what happened with Katrina, or Bush fault for cutting to a maximum the resources of FEMA. You cannot do much if you do not have the money for it. But, Bush had the money for a useless tax cut, and star wars, and a useless war. No Bush only take reponsibilities for the success of his government. But, he has not succeed in doing anything.

Monique, you are out of sequence. First, you should aim and THEN you fire. I think what you do is just fire-fire-fire-fire without aiming at all. You know with just a few small changes you could improve to being correct 35% or even 40% of the time when you post. All you'd have to do, if you wanted to, would be to check your facts before you post.

This 'shooting from the hip' thing isn't workin out for you, IMO.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Monique

And the Republicans never complained; they spent 8 years to prove nothing about President Clinton; they only thing they discovered about him was that he lied about his sex life; big deal; Republicans do that all the time.

Monique, Clinton did it while under oath. This is what is known as Perjury.

Perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law or in any of various sworn statements in writing. Perjury is a crime because the witness has sworn to tell the truth and, for the credibility of the court, witness testimony must be relied on as being truthful. Perjury is considered a very serious crime as it could be used to usurp the authority of the courts, resulting in miscarriages of justice. In the United States, for example, the general perjury statute under Federal law provides for a prison sentence of up to five years...

That in itself was a crime. And Clinton did much more than commit perjury.

Originally Posted by Monique

Their lies and mishaps concern real people displaces by Katrina, dying in Iraq, people with no jobs and no prospects because Bush lied about the tax cuts (I will cut taxes for the rich and it will create jobs, lie, lie...), Cheney refusing to take responsibilities for the shooting of his friend (it was the friend's fault)...

Okay, let's talk about Katrina. I live in Louisiana. I've watched the entire thing from a front row seat. The reason public officials in southern Louisiana are in so much trouble is that they DID NOT ASK FOR HELP FROM FEMA QUICKLY ENOUGH!!! This is what I will never understand: the governor of a state has to request that the federal government steps in. Otherwise, the government would be trampling on states' rights. Governor Blanco requested FEMA's help far too late in the process of Katrina's onslaught. Bush and FEMA's hands were tied until Blanco asked for them. By that time New Orleans was underwater, city buses that could have evacuated thousands were flooded in the streets (Nagan's crew were too busy hanging out in the top floors of expensive hotels to do anything to help these people), and the first line of defense (which they employed quickly) was that it was Bush's fault. After all, that's the popular means of self-defense these days.

Now, when FEMA got there, did they do a great job? Absolutely not. But how could they? I've been to New Orleans, and it's beyond repair. Parts of it are wastelands.

And now I'm going to get myself in trouble...
The majority of the evacuees from New Orleans who have found residence in other cities are criminals, gangsters, and lazy bums. 20,000 of them have come to my area, and our crime rate SKYROCKETED. They trashed hotel rooms, refused to come out 5 months later, and have trashed parts of Shreveport. They've gambled away all of the money that the federal government has given them. They've spent it on STRIPPERS (these are news stories running in our (very liberal) papers. And if you've read reports of what they've done to Houston...

Does New Orleans deserve sympathy? Absolutely. Do the people who do nothing in return deserve handouts? Not anymore. If they've made no steps to rebuild their lives, then they don't deserve help. We should focus all of our attention on those who are trying desperately to rebuild their lives. Their world will be renewed. The ones who are simply begging with no intention of putting any work into themselves...they will be in the same situation 2 years from now.

And by the way, Cheney's friend said that he returned to the group unannounced. Since I can safely assume that you've never hunted in your live, let me fill you in on hunting etiquette...this is a MAJOR NO-NO! He accepted responsibility. Cheney apologized anyways.

Is it FEMA fault what happened with Katrina, or Bush fault for cutting to a maximum the resources of FEMA. You cannot do much if you do not have the money for it. But, Bush had the money for a useless tax cut, and star wars, and a useless war. No Bush only take reponsibilities for the success of his government. But, he has not succeed in doing anything.

*cue John Williams' music*

"Luke...I am your father..."

Oh, and "useless tax cut?" The economy is booming right now, Monique. I know that gets buried in the last pages of the paper by a very disappointed media, but c'mon.

[Y3a]

I find it interesting that when somthing goes wrong you blame ONE PERSON. Government also has Senators and Congressmen who are as much, if not MORE responsible for the crap going on. YOU as voters have to take the blame too. Jeez!

[Monique]

If Bush could not be blame for the bad economy; he certainly is not responsible for the good one.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Y3a

I find it interesting that when somthing goes wrong you blame ONE PERSON. Government also has Senators and Congressmen who are as much, if not MORE responsible for the crap going on. YOU as voters have to take the blame too. Jeez!

Don't you mean "WE as voters have to take the blame too." You're a citizen of this country so if the voters have to take blame for this that would include yourself. So, how much blame have you taken upon youself for what happened with Katrina?

[Jawbone54]

Monique, Bush inherited a declining economy. He immediately got to work on giving it a shot in the arm, and now we're starting to see its effects. Is he the only one responsible for it? No, but he helped.

[RAILhead]

I'm still wondering why we give a rat's arse what Canadians think.

Oh wait — we don't!

Thanks for playing...

[tie]

Originally Posted by abe

Monique, you are out of sequence. First, you should aim and THEN you fire. I think what you do is just fire-fire-fire-fire without aiming at all. You know with just a few small changes you could improve to being correct 35% or even 40% of the time when you post. All you'd have to do, if you wanted to, would be to check your facts before you post.

This 'shooting from the hip' thing isn't workin out for you, IMO.

Abe, at least Monique bothers to make an argument. I'm not sure what you are doing, or why you are resurrecting this old thread. Nothing in the article you posted is new.

[Nicko]

Originally Posted by RAILhead

I'm still wondering why we give a rat's arse what Canadians think.

Oh wait — we don't!

Thanks for playing...

Yet you cared enough to deny it.

[RAILhead]

I cared enough to make sure Monique (and other Canadians) know some of us don't care what they think re: our nation's policies, etc.

[Jawbone54]

[spauldingg]

Man, how did this ancient thread hover back up?

[abe]

Originally Posted by tie

Abe, at least Monique bothers to make an argument. I'm not sure what you are doing, or why you are resurrecting this old thread. Nothing in the article you posted is new.

I think it is news to A LOT of you that Brownie wasn't the villain you said he was.

It seems spauldingg returned to the P/L looking to scrap, issuing little invitations in other threads. It seemed like this is just what he wanted. So, I'm obliging him and making sure he feels comfortable with the subject matter by using his own thread as the playground.

But, to reiterate, Brownie WAS doing a good job.

[tie]

Originally Posted by abe

I think it is news to A LOT of you that Brownie wasn't the villain you said he was.

It seems spauldingg returned to the P/L looking to scrap, issuing little invitations in other threads. It seemed like this is just what he wanted. So, I'm obliging him and making sure he feels comfortable with the subject matter by using his own thread as the playground.

But, to reiterate, Brownie WAS doing a good job.

Do you have any real evidence for this? The editorial you quoted said that, but didn't support the assertion.