White House Jokes
I just feel compelled to point out a couple of items from this Guardian article on the Bush team’s effort to undo the damage, because they’re funny.
On Saturday Mr Bush ordered 7,000 more troops to the Gulf coast. As important as the content of the speech was its sombre tone. It was clear the White House realised that making a joke about his young hell-raising days in New Orleans in the course of a flying visit to the flooded city on Friday, was a mistake that reinforced allegations he had failed to take the disaster seriously enough.
Gee, you think?
The second element of the White House plan is to insist, in an echo of the September 11 attacks, that the scale of the disaster, the combination of a hurricane and the collapse of the levee system around New Orleans, could not have been foreseen. Mr Bush was castigated for saying on Wednesday: “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees”. It was pointed out that there had been a string of investigations and reports in recent years which had predicted the disaster almost exactly. Nevertheless, administration officials stuck to the line yesterday. In a string of television interviews, Michael Chertoff, the head of the homeland security department, called the situation an “ultra-catastrophe”, as if the hurricane and flood were unrelated events.
That’s really kind of hilarious, in a sick way. (It won’t be hilarious if it works, which seems inconceivable now, but then so did Bush’s running for president at all, so whatever.) It’s disgusting as well as hilarious, because it displays such contempt for our collective intelligence, but it’s also funny. Just keep insisting, guys. Sure, sure, there are stacks of papers and studies showing that many many people did predict exactly that ‘combination’ (it’s not a combination, it’s cause and effect, you fools!), there are books on the subject, there are furious scholars telling CNN that they told various High Officials all about it, there are articles in major magazines from one or five years ago, all predicting exactly what happened. But you just keep insisting that no one could possibly have imagined such a thing. Make fools of yourselves. Go ahead, knock yourselves out.
I evacuated from New Orleans on Saturday, two days before the hurricane. Everyone I knew in New Orleans was well aware that a major hurricane was likely to hit sometime sooner rather than later, and that the city would be uninhabitable for months afterwards. My question is why a system was not put in place ahead of time to evacuate the many poor residents of the city. I did enjoy seeing Mayor Nagin’s candor. I could go on but I won’t. It is all too heartbreaking and predictable a situation.
Ophelia, I don’t want to depress you too much but opinion polls show that many Americans believe that there ARE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that there WAS a strong link between Saddam Hussein and Al-qaeda.
Don’t forget Goebbels and the ‘big lie’.
“My question is why a system was not put in place ahead of time to evacuate the many poor residents of the city.”
Well exactly. I’ve been wondering this for more than a week now. It’s bizarre the way it just wasn’t mentioned much (if at all) on Sunday before the hurricane hit. I’m baffled – is this just classic American ‘if you’re poor it’s your own fault, if you don’t have a car you should go to business school so you can buy one, good bye.’
I know, Chris…
More proof, as if it were needed, that you can’t spell bullshit without b-u-s-h”:
Sheesh. We’re supposed to count on these people to protect us from terrorists?
“Micheal Moore has done a very bitter piece on this.”
Of course if MM had his way, the American troops in Iraq would all have been killed by the brave “Iraqi freedom fighters”.
I am no fan of W, but if Michael Moore doesn’t like him, he can’t be all bad.
Gotta agree with ChrisM. Moore is a disgrace to the left. Still, stopped clocks and all that.
(Actually, Chris, MM compared the head-severing jihadists to the Minute Men and hailed them as the vanguard of “The Revolution”. What an idiot.)
Moore rallies mass support succesfully against W, then leads them into dumb infantile sloganeering, which is a stupid waste of resource. It’s not researched documentary, it’s just ranting entertainment & polemic, pretending to be the former, and many ‘undecideds’ are lured into thinking this is all they need to do to campaign succesfully for fair play and justice for all.
The cheap donut-snorting bastard, he should stick to posting easly, recriminatory, snide posts like this on the internet. Hang on…
More on Moore.
I read an article recently which reflected on the parodox that for years some Europeans’ stereotypical image of americans was overweight, loud mouth, arrogant and rich, and then they go and take Michael Moore to their hearts as their favourite American!!!
Yerse…
Further to my last post, I hope it goes without saying that the stereotype is an indictment of some Europeans rather than on all Americans.
Actually if you read the right-wing-death-beast blogs (ie centrists such as Power Line and Captains Quarters)it appears that all the relevant agencies DID have those predictions and DID act on them. The levees broke where they had been recently reinforced, indicating that the correct priorities were in place even if the event was worse than the budget covered. The evacuation plans were in place but the relevant NO and State level authorities were too busy doing a whiny act on television to read their plans and act on them.
Still, it is really really satisfying to blame chimpy, so make a nice latte and sit down for another bash at the keyboard guys.
Fly, my pretties, fly, fly!
The levees broke where they had been recently reinforced, indicating that the correct priorities were in place even if the event was worse than the budget covered…Still, it is really really satisfying to blame chimpy….
– ChrisPer
But why didn’t the budget cover that vital priority? Bush is largely responsible for that. A few months prior to Hurricane Katrina, he cut $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers. That’s a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, these severe budget cuts meant that ‘major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.’ We are now seeing the consequences of Bush’s reckless cutting.