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Journal ellem's Journal: SEP. 2, 2005: UNFINEST HOUR 14

Journal by ellem

http://frum.nationalreview.com/

I haven't posted much on the New Orleans disaster. There are so many people on the spot, adding so much to genuine understanding, that it seemed an absurd waste of your time for me to add my distant words. Tonight though I was invited by the BBC to talk about the political fall-out from Katrina with Sidney Blumenthal. To prepare, I spent some hours immersing myself in the catalogue of left-wing attacks on the Bush administration.

Now let me declare at the onset: Katrina has obviously not been the finest hour of American emergency management. There may well be fault on the part of the federal government and this administration. I'm certainly open to evidence on that point.

But to review the wild, contradictory, and utterly opportunistic charges from the administration's critics is to enter a realm of madness. Some patient bloggers are responding to the charges one by one. Here is a post in reply to the charge that the levees were somehow neglected. Here is an accounting for the Louisiana National Guard: 8,000 of whom remain on duty in-state, including the Guard's most pertinent engineer group, numbering four battalions.

Here is a crushing reply to those who blame the Bush administration for hurricanes - when hurricane activity has in fact dropped since 1940. Here is one of many stories detailing how the notorious New Orleans police force led the breakdown of civic order. (For those who deplore the sharp drop-off in the flow of federal funds to Louisiana since 1999, here is a link to one important explanation: the resignation of former Speaker of the House and Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston [R., La.] after Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine threatened to publish details of Livingston's marital infidelity, in order to punish Republicans for the then-looming impeachment of Bill Clinton on perjury charges.)

And yet ... and yet ... is all this really necessary? The time will come, and come very soon, when the great self-critical mechanisms of American society and government will go to work to study what went wrong. Those who deserve blame will get blame in plenty then. But now - with the dead still uncounted and unburied, with the living still struggling for refuge and help, is there not something indecent about the haste with which the American left avidly tries to turn this terrible disaster to political account?

Is there not something bizarre about their willingness to fire off accusation after accusation, each contradicting the last? The disaster was caused by the Bush administration's failure to protect the environment from global warming .... no, no, it was caused by the administration's refusal to manipulate the environment by funding more levees to control the Mississippi River .... it's Iraq, no it's budget cuts, no it's wetlands, and on and on and on.

Good God, what is wrong with these people? Will they ever learn to see somebody else's misfortune as something more than their political opportunity?

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour is right. This tragedy is bringing out the worst in many people. And I wonder, as I watch the volunteers cooking food for the houseless in the Houston Astrodome, or supplies being delivered by rescue workers who are living in cars because there is no place else for them, or the elderly being hoisted to safety - I wonder: why at a moment like this can we not live up to their generous spirit. Why can't we act first, investigate afterward, and let blame and credit be apportioned as they are due, when they are due?

***

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SEP. 2, 2005: UNFINEST HOUR More

SEP. 2, 2005: UNFINEST HOUR

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  • If we can't go and help, if we've already given what we can, we can't just turn our minds off and ignore the problem. We certainly can't ignore the fact that another disaster, natural or otherwise, could befall other cities. Waiting until this one is over, months down the line, to start figuring out where the planning was wrong, etc., is therefore not only something we can't easily do, it's something we shouldn't do.

    When you see a picture of fleets of schoolbuses neatly parked, submerged to their windows, a
    • about your .sig.

      OF COURSE PEOPLE KNEW!

      WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH THE CURRENT PRESIDENT?

      I mean for fuck's sake... you're not an idiot! Stop bleating with the idiots.

      Lots of people knew. Frankly if you're building a levee you're living in the wrong place. This disaster WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. If had happened under Clinton the Right would be bleating it was all his fault. But it still wouldn't be.

      Do the people of Louisiana bear NO responsiblility in this? Tell me how the Mayor and Governor are no
      • I'm disappointed that you couldn't respond to my comment on the ostensible subject of this thread, and chose to launch a personal attack because of my signature, instead. Falsely attributing actions to me that I never engaged in is particularly dismaying.

        I really thought you wanted people to comment. Apparently I was wrong, and you wanted someone to attack, ironically enough. Had you tried to engage in reasoned discussion, you would have discovered that I think there's plenty of blame to go around to the st
        • oh you take your ,sig far too seriously.

          I hardly think of you and an enmy. Hell... CyranoVR made a threat to my family and I'm guessing he's not actually my enemy.

          I want, I NEED, the Left to fucking BUCK UP and be smart. Not sit back and whine. Your .sig gave me an opening to explain.

          • oh you take your ,sig far too seriously.

            Wait a minute, which one of us blew up over it? Wasn't it you? Why, yes, it was.

            I want, I NEED, the Left to fucking BUCK UP and be smart. Not sit back and whine. Your .sig gave me an opening to explain.

            You mean you were looking for a chance to yell at someone, and picked me. Yes, I think I mentioned that. You obviously didn't care anything about what I actually said, or you'd have responded to it.

    • about your .sig... :)

      I hope you appreciate the amount of times I had to hit Parent to get back here.

      OK. Here we are.

      Let's sack most of the Louisiana gov't. My grandfather grew up in Biloxi, the most corrupt place in the nation he told my mother once. That's why he spent a lot of time Naw'leans, the second most corrupt place in the nation.

      When the Mayor is whining and crying while he's dry and fully tolieted all I can think is... you pussy. You insufferable pussy. Get your ass down there ASAP and start

      • Let's sack most of the Louisiana gov't. My grandfather grew up in Biloxi, the most corrupt place in the nation he told my mother once. That's why he spent a lot of time Naw'leans, the second most corrupt place in the nation.

        Sounds good to me.

        I have figured out who has made the bad choices. Nagin, Blanco top the lists. FEMA is running right up there 4 or 5. But to stand here and blame Bush? Please. It is political hackery and it is precisely that kind of useless opprotunism that will lose the Democrats th

      • I have figured out who has made the bad choices. Nagin, Blanco top the lists. FEMA is running right up there 4 or 5. But to stand here and blame Bush? Please. It is political hackery and it is precisely that kind of useless opprotunism that will lose the Democrats the '08 election. At this point the only chance the Dems have is if Hillary runs. Sad to announce that even in 2005 America is not ready for a woman President.

        In my book FEMA is in the top 3 along with Blanco and Chertoff. Nagin is slightly furthe
        • I agree with a lot of what you've said. Obviously I disagree with your position on Nagin but OK...

          Here's what I saw regarding Bush. Shit hit the fan. Went past the fan. Hit the wall. Bush showed up, went fucking ape and the shit is getting cleaned up. Is he a hero. No fucking way. Is he a leader, nope. Is he even competent, yeah... I think he's doing about as well as anyone else might have given the fact the levees burst after the storm and some people refused/couldn't/didn't leave when they should
  • elsewhere. This is a failure of government. No particular party is to blame, but rather the entirety of our current system.

    Bush and the Republicans will take most of the flak, because they're the people who happen to be in power. Even my jaded, cynical opportunistic atheistic iconoclastic SoB self takes little pleasure from that fact... but it's pretty much a fact.

    The left is going to benefit from this. They always do, due to most of the motivations for leftist swings in national politics.

    In a nutshell,

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