http://sideshow.me.uk/ssep05.htm#041417
Waking up to nightmares
A lot seems to have happened while I was asleep last night. For one
thing, Mary Landrieu obviously gave up hoping that Bush would finally
locate a conscience. I had been planning to write something very much
like what Mark Kleiman did:
I didn't join in criticizing Mary Landrieu for not bashing GWB for
his failures concerning Katrina. It was legitimate for her to put her
efforts into securing help for New Orleans, and unfortunately it's the
President -- a President with a clear record of punishing those who
criticize him -- who has help to give.
It seemed obvious that there was nothing particularly brilliant about
Anderson Cooper hammering Landrieu. In fact, I wondered if even he
realized it by the end of the interview and suddenly pulled himself
together because he could see how she was looking at him. That brittle
stare was eloquent to anyone who knew how hard she has been working,
and for how long, to try to get some money into the projects that were
meant to protect Louisiana from just such a disaster. (And there's
certainly nothing new about the media hammering Democrats.)
Anyway, Mark has Landrieu's press release:
"Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his
tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a
new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the
abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24
hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a
cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a
shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at
hand.
"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft
available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA
has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate
significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses --
FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications
equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only
to be ignored by the agency.
"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th
Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President,
I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a
handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical
spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent
that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a
Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources
we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of
equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the
Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve
far better from their national government.
Kevin Drum's flow of anger is going strong, but really spiked when he
saw this missive from a reader of War and Piece:
Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:
There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International
report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday,
and reports of the same event by German TV.
ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely
staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution
point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately
after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that
others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same
time.
The people in the area were once again left to fend for
themselves, said ZDF.
Kevin observed in the same post that even many of Bush's supporters
are having that "seeing is believing" moment now that the classic Bush
method is showing results closer to home. That's certainly the
impression I've been getting. I heard one guy on the radio saying
something like, "I voted for Bush both times but today I realized what
a coward he is." Apparently, even The Washington Post lost their heads
for a minute and had a truthful headline up briefly: "White House
Shifts Blame." The story itself is titled Many Evacuated, but
Thousands Still Waiting, but the subhead is indeed, "White House
Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials."
Mr. Sideshow came in earlier and quoted to me a permutation of Arthur
C. Clarke's famous formulation that I'd never heard before:
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from
malice.
Okay, I'm behind the times, but that's a good one, and it fits.
Over at House of Labor, Nathan Newman points out that another casualty
of the flood is Acorn's national office, based in New Orleans. As Sam
Rosenfeld reminds us, "ACORN is one of the premier organizations in
the country fighting on behalf of poor citizens and really, in an age
characterized by top-down, D.C.-based nonprofit organizing, one of the
most impressive and intensively membership-based national advocacy
groups of any kind." If you were wondering where to send your money
beside the Red Cross or some "faith-based" organization, Acorn really
is a worthy organization, and more necessary than ever.
And Rehnquist died. I've been dreading this, but it's hardly a
surprise. There was a time when Rehnquist leaving the court was a
hopeful dream, opening up the possibility that at long last we'd be
rid of one of the worst reactionaries on the court. That was before we
had crackpots like Thomas and Scalia and a whole host more waiting in
the wings for appointment by a president who cares nothing for our
country and has a Congressional majority hell-bent on pushing forward
this whole program of national suicide. Of course, I'm never going to
forgive him for Bush v. Gore, but I caught myself idly wondering if
the last week finally alerted Rehnquist to what he had done and that
knowledge is what took the fight out of him.
But I suppose that's just bitterness speaking. After five years of
constant, painful reminders that I was more right than I knew in 2000,
I have to wrestle daily with the thought that it might be too late. I
won't quit fighting but the worse things get, the closer is the danger
of despair.
Anyway, the NYT obit is here (via), and the WaPo has this.
xponent
Thanks For Listening Maru
rob
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