Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones

What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank god he’s cracking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean

Thank God

Stand up for Denmark!

Why are we not defending our ally?

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at 12:29 PM ET

Put the case that we knew of a highly paranoid religious cult organization with a secretive leader. Now put the case that this cult, if criticized in the press, would take immediate revenge by kidnapping a child. Put the case that, if the secretive leader were also to be lampooned, two further children would be killed at random. Would the press be guilty of "self-censorship" if it declined to publish anything that would inflame the said cult? Well, yes it would be guilty, but very few people would insist on the full exertion of the First Amendment right. However, the consequences for the cult and its leader would be severe as well. All civilized people would regard it as hateful and dangerous, and steps would be taken to circumscribe its influence, and to ensure that no precedent was set.

The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.

You wish to say that it was instead a small newspaper in Copenhagen that lit the trail? What abject masochism and nonsense. It was the arrogant Danish mullahs who patiently hawked those cartoons around the world (yes, don't worry, they are allowed to exhibit them as much as they like) until they finally provoked a vicious response against the economy and society of their host country. For good measure, they included a cartoon that had never been published in Denmark or anywhere else. It showed the Prophet Mohammed as a pig, and may or may not have been sent to a Danish mullah by an anonymous ill-wisher. The hypocrisy here is shameful, nauseating, unpardonable. The original proscription against any portrayal of the prophet—not that this appears to be absolute—was superficially praiseworthy because it was intended as a safeguard against idolatry and the worship of images. But now see how this principle is negated. A rumor of a cartoon in a faraway country is enough to turn the very name Mohammed into a fetish-object and an excuse for barbaric conduct. As I write this, the death toll is well over 30 and—guess what?—a mullah in Pakistan has offered $1 million and a car as a bribe for the murder of "the cartoonist." This incitement will go unpunished and most probably unrebuked.

Could things become any more sordid and cynical? By all means. In a mindless attempt at a tu quoque, various Islamist groups and regimes have dug deep into their sense of wit and irony and proposed a trade-off. You make fun of "our" prophet and we will deny "your" Holocaust. Even if there were any equivalence, and Jewish mobs were now engaged in trashing Muslim shops and embassies, it would feel degrading even to engage with such a low and cheap stunt. I suppose that one should be grateful that the Shoah is only to be denied rather than, as in some Islamist propaganda, enthusiastically affirmed and set out as a model for emulation. But only a moral cretin thinks that anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews. The memory of the Third Reich is very vivid in Europe precisely because a racist German regime also succeeded in slaughtering millions of non-Jews, including countless Germans, under the demented pretext of extirpating a nonexistent Jewish conspiracy. As it happens, I am one of the few people to have publicly defended David Irving's right to publish, and I think it outrageous that he is in prison in Austria for expressing his opinions. But my attachment to free speech is at least absolute and consistent. Those who incite murder and arson, or who silkily justify it, are incapable of rising above the childish glee that culminates in the assertion that two wrongs make a right.

The silky ones may be more of a problem in the long term than the flagrantly vicious and crazy ones. Within a short while—this is a warning—the shady term "Islamophobia" is going to be smuggled through our customs. Anyone accused of it will be politely but firmly instructed to shut up, and to forfeit the constitutional right to criticize religion. By definition, anyone accused in this way will also be implicitly guilty. Thus the "soft" censorship will triumph, not from any merit in its argument, but from its association with the "hard" censorship that we have seen being imposed over the past weeks. A report ($$) in the New York Times of Feb. 13 was as carefully neutral as could be but nonetheless conveyed the sense of menace. "American Muslim leaders," we were told, are more canny. They have "managed to build effective organizations and achieve greater integration, acceptance and economic success than their brethren in Europe have. They portray the cartoons as a part of a wave of global Islamophobia and have encouraged Muslim groups in Europe to use the same term." In other words, they are leveraging worldwide Islamic violence to drop a discreet message into the American discourse.

You may have noticed the recurrence of the term "One point two billion Muslims." A few years ago, I became used to the charge that in defending Salman Rushdie, say, I had "offended a billion Muslims." Evidently, the number has gone up since I first heard this ridiculous complaint. But observe the implied threat. There is not just safety in numbers, but danger in numbers. How many Danes or Jews or freethinkers are there? You can see what the "spokesmen" are insinuating by this tactic of mass psychology and mobbishness.

And not without immediate success, either. The preposterous person of Karen Hughes is quoted in the same New York Times article, under her risible title of "Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy." She tittered outside the store she was happily giving away: "The voices of Muslim Americans have more credibility in the Muslim world frankly than my voice as a government official, because they can speak the language of their faith and can share their experience of practicing their faith freely in the West, and they can help explain why the cartoons are so offensive." Well, let's concede that almost any voice in any world has more credibility on any subject than this braying Bush-crony ignoramus, but is the State Department now saying that we shall be represented in the Muslim world only by Muslims? I think we need a debate on that, and also a vote. Meanwhile, not a dollar of Wahhabi money should be allowed to be spent on opening madrasahs in this country, or in distributing fundamentalist revisions of the Quran in our prison system. Not until, at the very least, churches and synagogues and free-thought libraries are permitted in every country whose ambassador has bullied the Danes. If we have to accept this sickly babble about "respect," we must at least demand that it is fully reciprocal.

And there remains the question of Denmark: a small democracy, which resisted Hitler bravely and protected its Jews as well as itself. Denmark is a fellow member of NATO and a country that sends its soldiers to help in the defense and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. And what is its reward from Washington? Not a word of solidarity, but instead some creepy words of apology to those who have attacked its freedom, its trade, its citizens, and its embassies. For shame. Surely here is a case that can be taken up by those who worry that America is too casual and arrogant with its allies. I feel terrible that I have taken so long to get around to this, but I wonder if anyone might feel like joining me in gathering outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, in a quiet and composed manner, to affirm some elementary friendship. Those who like the idea might contact me at and those who live in other cities with Danish consulates might wish to initiate a stand for decency on their own account.

Update, Feb. 22: Thank you all who've written. Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading "Stand By Denmark" and any variation on this theme (such as "Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego") The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.

How Many More Will Die in Iraq?
The sacrifices are being made on the other side of the globe
by Sydney H. Schanberg
September 27th, 2005 10:35 AM

We are a nation at war—globally—against terrorism. But here at home, except for extra security at travel terminals, one could hardly guess it.

There is no war footing to be seen. Washington has not mobilized Americans on the home front. President Bush has made it clear that he wants it that way.

Yet the war is real. And the sacrifices are being borne solely by the roughly 160,000 men and women in uniform who are risking—and losing—their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. And by their grieving and worried families. National politicians, though they lavish the country's military population with warm rhetoric in public, privately do not regard them as a voting bloc to worry about.

As of early this week, 1,918 American soldiers have died in Iraq and another 236 in Afghanistan, for a total of 2,154. The count of wounded is has passed 15,000—more than 14,000 of them in Iraq. There is no official count of Iraqi civilian deaths in this war, but independent surveys put the death figure somewhere between 26,000 and 30,000. No reliable casualty figures on Afghan civilians are available.

While our soldiers die, the policies of the Bush administration call for virtually no sacrifices or commitments from the 300 million other Americans. To the contrary, they are told that their taxes will continue to be reduced—even as the war goes on, costing upwards of $5 billion each month.

The closest President Bush has come to seeking a nationwide commitment was a speech in which he asked Americans to use the Fourth of July to "find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom by flying the flag, sending a letter to our troops in the field, or helping the military family down the street." A professor emeritus of military sociology at Northwestern University, Charles Moskos, calls this "Patriotism Lite." "That's what we're experiencing now in both political parties," he was quoted as saying in a recent New York Times story. "The political leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice . . . "

So what does this failure to seek shared sacrifice mean? It seems to mean that our leaders—not only the Republicans but the Democrats, who followed meekly behind—knew that if they had spoken candidly to the public and told them that the threat from Iraq was not only not imminent but minimal and that therefore this was not a war of necessity but one of choice for other, unexplained reasons, then voters might have been aroused enough to rally and block the White House's rush to invasion. This would indicate that President Bush was convinced that, after the invasion, continued support for his crusade had to be conditioned on demanding little from the public. Meanwhile, our soldiers are being killed and crippled every day. In our system of democracy, this leaps out as a perversion. Are these volunteer men and women in uniform to be regarded simply as mercenaries? Or do we care about them?

This, therefore, has to be the strangest war ever declared by a United States president. Mr. Bush, who is commander in chief, will not attend military funerals. He will not speak with mourning family members who have publicly criticized his war policies. He gives speeches only to audiences of supporters carefully selected by his handlers. He has chosen to be sealed off from any dissenter. Even Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War came out of his bubble to talk to protesters at least once, at the Lincoln Memorial.

Also, the president keeps saying "we" must not withdraw precipitously from the war, when he should be saying "they"—the soldiers who are actually fighting the war and living, or dying, amid its bestialities. In his life, George W. Bush has never been in war of any kind. Neither have the civilians in his close circle, who, with him, conceived the Iraq war and told America that with the "shock and awe" blitzkrieg they had planned, it was going to be, well, easy.

Nothing has turned out the way these neoconservatives said it would. And they have never brought themselves to utter even a modest "excuse me." A great nation has to have enough character and spine to be able to say "I'm sorry." Our current leaders have to be tall enough to admit their mistakes—or be judged small by history. At the moment, they are sticking to their guns, in a manner of speaking.

In Iraq right now, little is stable. With a newly drafted, American-guided Iraqi constitution having alienated the Sunni portion of the population and left other key issues vague, such as the formula for how oil revenues would be shared among the competing blocs, the threat of an Iraqi civil war looms once more. This comes as no surprise to anyone who took a glance at Iraqi history before we went to war. That was another piece of the truth the Bush White House ignored as it broke all speed limits in getting the shooting started in March 2003.

Let us remember wistfully those Pentagon generals who, before the war, said openly that we were going into Iraq with too few troops. They warned that twice the number—250,000 to 300,000—would be needed if, after the initial invasion, we hoped to secure Iraq and keep the peace while the Iraqis struggled through their tribal hatreds toward a form of life, democracy, that they had never known but that Bush promised would be the end result. But Bush and his war planners rudely dismissed the generals' cautions. So here we are, as a nation, with a failed, unreal crusade, yet feeling responsible for the mess our leaders have created and therefore realizing that we can't just walk out of Iraq tomorrow and slam the door behind us.

But we can—and should—immediately produce a clearly stated plan that will set calendar goals for a phased withdrawal. The Iraqis will then know we are serious about not allowing this chaos to continue indefinitely. They, with our help, will have to speed up the training of their new army and police forces. And maybe they will have to ask their allies in the Middle East, Arab and non-Arab, to help them militarily.

President Bush, if he has any hope of being remembered as a leader who arrived eventually at reality and wisdom, will have to stop scorning as unpatriotic everyone who proposes an exit strategy. He describes such dissenters—that would include myself—as misguided Americans who want to "cut and run" and thus help the terrorists. As bold and brave as he may imagine himself, the truly brave are those on the battlefield, who were sent there by him. (Humility, he seems to forget, is another trait that marks a great leader.)

Let us honor these men and women by giving them a blueprint for getting them home. We cannot ask them to be the only Americans to make sacrifices for their country and to do so without end. Each of our soldiers' lives is as important as that of the president or any member of his family. The president might think hard about that—as the numbers of the fallen keep multiplying.

Don't Let the Crime Scene Go Cold!
by Arianna Huffington

George Bush, David Caruso, and Katrina: Why Now Is Precisely the Time for Finger-Pointing
Posted September 6, 2005 at 8:59 p.m. EDT

Here's one for the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame: At the same time the administration is putting Karl Rove's "pin-the-blame-on-the-locals" plan into effect, President Bush told reporters gathered at a cabinet meeting today, "I think that one of the things that people want us to do here is play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives."

How noble. A week and thousands of lives too late... but noble. He makes it sound as if anyone interested in trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong in the aftermath of Katrina is somehow impeding the recovery. As if we can't help the victims and analyze the debacle at the same time. As if any time spent by reporters ferreting out the truth -- and by Congress overseeing -- would otherwise be spent tossing sandbags on the levee, disinfecting the Superdome, or driving evacuees to Houston.

As if those seeking answers will have blood on their hands.

That's certainly the ominous rhetorical tack being taken by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He's all about moving forward, and not looking back (which isn't surprising given how many corpses he'd see in his personal rear-view mirror). "What would be a horrible tragedy," he said, "would be to distract ourselves from avoiding further problems because we're spending time talking about problems that have already occurred." Gee, Mr. Secretary, I thought that was called 'learning from your mistakes.'

So the White House is for time management and against "finger-pointing" -- a two-talking-points-for-the-price-of-one Chertoff scored when he asked, "What do you want to have us spend our time on now? Do we want to make sure we are feeding, sheltering, housing, and educating those who are distressed, or do we want to begin the process of finger-pointing?" Well, when you put it that way...

Also receiving the time management/finger-pointing memo were White House spokesman Scott McClellan, WH communications director Dan Bartlett, and former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh:

"This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics," said Scotty.

"I know a lot of people right now want to point fingers and criticize, but people should keep their powder dry," said Allbaugh.

"If we focused more of our attention on decisions that have already been made, rather than those before us, there's potential for making far greater mistakes... We really don't have time to play the political game right now," echoed Bartlett.

With that kind of message discipline, how long before the media start parroting the party line? With a few brave exceptions like Jack Cafferty, the correct answer would be... right about now. "Not a great time for finger pointing is it?" asked Miles O'Brien on CNN's American Morning. "When you hear it's not the right time to point the finger, doesn't that seem reasonable?" asked anchor Carol Costello a few hours later on CNN's Daybreak .

Now, it's bad enough when the media start carrying the administration's water (especially when it's as fetid as the toxic muck still covering New Orleans), but it's much, much worse when the opposition's leaders grab a bucket and join in. "Our government failed those people in the beginning," said Bill Clinton. "And I personally believe there should be a serious analysis of it...but I don't think we should do it now. I think that in a few weeks, we should have some sort of Katrina commission. It should be bipartisan, non-partisan, whatever..." Exactly: "Whatever." As in: Who gives a crap, because it will have about the same impact as all these too-long-after-the-fact commissions have -- next to none. Who knows, maybe this time President Bush will be willing to actually testify under oath -- and without Dick Cheney. Or maybe Mike Brown will pull a Condi and let it slip about a "historical" PDB entitled "FEMA Determined to Strike Out in NO."

President Clinton's helpful assertion was quickly picked up by the President's father who used it as a cudgel against anyone trying to (if you'll pardon the expression) "point the finger" at his son: "People want to blame someone... I thought President Clinton put it pretty well today when he said, 'Let's get on with it and then there'll be plenty of time to assign blame.'"

Look, if we've learned anything from watching shows like CSI, Law & Order , and their endless progeny, it's that you can't let a crime scene grow cold. You've got to start collecting and analyzing the evidence while the DNA is still fresh and let David Caruso or Vincent D'Onofrio start sweating the perps while the passions are still running high.

And make no mistake, what we saw go down -- and not go down -- in New Orleans was definitely a crime... a crime that is in many ways still in progress. Sixty percent of the city remains underwater; up to 160,000 homes in the state of Louisiana have been submerged or destroyed; 60 to 90 million tons of solid waste need to be cleaned up; experts warn that it make take "years" to fully restore clean drinking water; and an outbreak of vibrio vulnificus -- a cholera-like bacterial disease -- has been reported among some Katrina evacuees.

This is clearly going to be a very long recovery process. And the sooner we've identified those responsible for the Katrina tragedy, the sooner we can make sure they're not around to screw up the recovery.

So, yes, now is precisely the time for assessing blame. Let a thousand pointed fingers bloom!

Osama and Katrina
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

On the day after 9/11, I was in Jerusalem and was interviewed by Israeli TV. The reporter asked me, "Do you think the Bush administration is up to responding to this attack?" As best I can recall, I answered: "Absolutely. One thing I can assure you about these guys is that they know how to pull the trigger."

It was just a gut reaction that George Bush and Dick Cheney were the right guys to deal with Osama. I was not alone in that feeling, and as a result, Mr. Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

For instance, it's unavoidably obvious that we need a real policy of energy conservation. But President Bush can barely choke out the word "conservation." And can you imagine Mr. Cheney, who has already denounced conservation as a "personal virtue" irrelevant to national policy, now leading such a campaign or confronting oil companies for price gouging?

And then there are the president's standard lines: "It's not the government's money; it's your money," and, "One of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government." Maybe Mr. Bush will now also tell us: "It's not the government's hurricane - it's your hurricane."

An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town.

The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn't happen on Mr. Bush's watch - that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

So many of the things the Bush team has ignored or distorted under the guise of fighting Osama were exposed by Katrina: its refusal to impose a gasoline tax after 9/11, which would have begun to shift our economy much sooner to more fuel-efficient cars, helped raise money for a rainy day and eased our dependence on the world's worst regimes for energy; its refusal to develop some form of national health care to cover the 40 million uninsured; and its insistence on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an Army to deal with Katrina, Osama and Saddam at the same time.

As my Democratic entrepreneur friend Joel Hyatt once remarked, the Bush team's philosophy since 9/11 has been: "We're at war. Let's party."

Well, the party is over. If Mr. Bush learns the lessons of Katrina, he has a chance to replace his 9/11 mandate with something new and relevant. If that happens, Katrina will have destroyed New Orleans, but helped to restore America. If Mr. Bush goes back to his politics as usual, he'll be thwarted at every turn. Katrina will have destroyed a city and a presidency.

SHIT happens. United States of Shame

By MAUREEN DOWD

SHIT happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal SHIT 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?

George W. Bush

The Worst American President---Ever!

August 28, 2005

Katrina Proves Bush Failed New Orleans

Posted by Bob Brigham
UPDATE (Bob) Here is the full recap

So far today, I've looked at Global Warming and Katrina and the crisis resulting from Lousiana's National Guard being in Iraq instead of defending their state.

Will Bush stay on vacation? At this point, it doesn't really matter. Because Bush has been asleep at the wheel for four years. From the Houston Chronicle in 2001:

New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.

So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.

The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.

The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.

FEMA said this was the "three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters". Bush's response? Cut preparedness:

(UPDATE -- Tim:) I wanted to take a moment to spell it out for the visiting freepi fawning over the head start the Superdome is giving you supporters of minority internment. Of course we don't believe Bush caused the hurricane, although I think many of us wish he would have asked Pat Robertson to pray for a re-direction.

And most of you failed to read the article Bob linked, no surprise there. But inbetween vacations, the preznit got massive tax-cuts passed at the expense of important projects. Among them, preparedness for natural disasters--some of which happen to be in New Orleans.

In general, funding for construction has been on a downward trend for the past several years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps' programs management branch.
In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures. [...]

Unfunded projects include widening drainage canals, flood- proofing bridges and building pumping stations in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. The Corps also wants to build levees in unprotected areas on the West Bank.

Irresponsible distribution of resources has, yet again, put American lives in peril. If the freepi were able to see past 9/11 and recognize the difference between real life, health, and safety risks (ie. environment & port protection among others) and not get distracted by contrived security risks (ie. Iraq), things might not look so grim tonight.

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.
It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.

There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection 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.

Remember, this was a top-three "likeliest catastrophic disasters" and Bush shelved the study of how to protect against Category 5 hurricanes like Katrina? For most of Bush's time as President, FEMA has been saying this could be the deadliest scenario facing America. And Bush cut the preparedness funding, sent our strategic reserve National Guard troops to fight an unnecessary war and then went on vacation. Not only is Bush the worst President ever, but he is also a total asshole for fucking over New Orleans.

Hat tip to Ms Librarian and commentors.

UPDATE: (Bob) Here is some more...

BUSH LEFT GULF COAST VULNERABLE TO DISASTER

Katrina could be the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. But it was not a surprise. Experts have been warning for years of the potential catastrophic devastation that a category 4 or 5 hurricane could have on the Gulf Coast. And in Louisiana, local officials have fought for federal funding to implement hurricane defense plans that could have avoided the widespread flooding of New Orleans. But under the Bush Administration, funding for those projects has been continuously slashed, leaving the Gulf Coast unprepared for such a disaster.


DISASTER PREPAREDNESS FUNDING CUT BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Federal Government Has Neglected Disaster Preparedness, Left Enormous Vulnerabilities. Disaster and emergency experts have warned for years that governments, especially the federal government, have put so much stress on disaster response that they have neglected policies to minimize a disaster's impact in advance. Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, said “It's going to be very evident that there were an enormous number of vulnerabilities that weren't addressed. There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing.” [Newhouse News Service, 8/31/05]

Disaster Mitigation Programs Slashed Since 2001. Since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA’s Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars. [Baltimore City Paper, 9/29/04]

In 2003 White House Slashed Mitigation Programs In Half. In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) in half. Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent. Such post-disaster mitigation efforts, specialists say, are a crucial way of minimizing future losses. [Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04]

Bush Continuing To Propose Cuts To Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps of Engineers will be cut in 2006. Bush’s 2005 budget proposal called for a 13 percent reduction in the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget, down to $4 billion from $4.6 billion in fiscal 2004. [Associated Press, 2/6/05; Congressional Quarterly Online, 2/3/04]

Under Bush, FEMA Reverted To Pre-Clinton Status As One Of The Worst Agencies. Former President Clinton appointed James L. Witt to take over FEMA after its poor response to Hurricane Andrew. Witt adopted recommendations and FEMA was described as an agency reborn: “transformed itself from what many considered to be the worst federal agency to among the best.” But FEMA under the Bush administration has destroyed carefully constructed efforts. After the 9/11 attacks the agency’s inspector general in 2003 criticized portions of FEMA’s response, citing “difficulties in delivering timely and effective” mortgage and rental assistance to those in need. [USA Today, 6/1/2005]

STATES FORCED TO CARRY MORE OF THE BURDEN

States Expected To Shoulder More Of The Burden In Emergency Management With Fewer Funds. “The federal focus on terrorism preparedness has left states with an increased responsibility to provide support for natural disasters and emergencies,” noted a report released by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) this summer. “State budget shortfalls have given emergency management programs less to work with, at a time when more is expected of them. In fiscal year 2004, the average budget for a state emergency management agency was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003.” [Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04]


Bush Tried to Cut Federal Percentage of Large-Scale Natural Disaster Preparedness. The administration made a failed attempt to cut the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures. Since the 1990s, the federal government has paid 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent. The White House's attempt to reduce the federal contribution to 50 percent was defeated in Congress. [Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04]

BUSH CRIPPLED HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS IN LOUISIANA

Bush Opposed Necessary Funding For Hurricane Preparedness In Louisiana. The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. Ultimately a deal was struck to steer $540 million to the state over four years. The total coast of coastal repair work is estimated to be $14 billion. In its budget, the Bush administration also had proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need. [Newhouse News Service, 8/31/05]

Republican Budget Cut New Orleans’ Army Corps Of Engineers Funding By A Record $71.2 Million. In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding. It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said. “I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction,” said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Money is so tight the New Orleans district instituted a hiring freeze. The freeze is the first of its kind in about 10 years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the Corps' Programs Management Branch. [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Landrieu Called Bush’s Funding Priorities Shortsided. Landrieu said the Bush Administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority. “I think it's extremely shortsighted,” Landrieu said. “When the Corps of Engineers' budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation.” [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Emergency Preparedness Director Furious With Project Cuts. A study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now. Terry Tullier, the New Orleans emergency preparedness director, said he was furious but not surprised to hear that study had been cut from the Bush budget. “I’m all for the war effort, but every time I think about the $87 billion being spent on rebuilding Iraq, I ask: What about us?” he said. “Somehow we need to make a stronger case that this is not Des Moines, Iowa, that we are so critical that if it hits the fan in New Orleans, everything this side of the Rockies will feel the economic shock waves.” [Times-Picayune, 9/22/04; New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Flood Protection Projects Put On Hold Because Of Republican’s 2006 Budget. One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president. The Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects in a line item where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. “We don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem,” Naomi said. [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Senator Landrieu Urged Action After SELA Budget Slashed. Louisiana’s congressional delegation assured local officials they would seek significant increases for SELA. “We could have lost 100,000 lives had Hurricane Ivan hit the mouth of the (Mississippi) River before it turned,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., alluding to last year’s storm that largely spared Louisiana but devastated parts of Alabama and Florida. “God has been good, but one of these days a hurricane is going to come and, if we don’t get projects . . . finished, we’re sitting ducks,” she said. [Times-Picayune, 3/11/05]

NATIONAL GUARD AND COAST GUARD UNDERFUNDED AND OVERSTRETCHED

LOUISIANA GUARD WARNED OF EQUIPMENT SHORTAGES BEFORE KATRINA

Louisiana National Guard Said Before Katrina That It Needed Equipment Back From Iraq If It Is To Respond To A Natural Disaster. “The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission,” said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard. “You've got combatant commanders over there who need it they say they need it, they don't want to lose what they h ave, and we certainly understand that it's a matter of us educating that combatant commander, we need it back here as well,” Col. Schneider said. [ABC 26 WGNO, 8/1/05]

NATIONAL GUARD STRETCHED THIN, UNABLE TO FULFILL DUTIES AT HOME

Iraq Has Left National Guard Units At Home Short Of Equipment. Already suffering from manpower shortages, the National Guard’s overstretched forces are being confronted with another problem: not enough equipment to supply Guard troops at home. “To fully equip troops in Iraq, the Pentagon has stripped local Guard units of about 24,000 pieces of equipment. That has left Guard units at home, already seriously short of gear.” [Detroit Free Press, 6/13/05]

Gen. McCaffrey Said We Could Permanently Damage The Guard And Reserve. Gen. McCaffrey warned against overstretching Guard and Reserve. “[W]e're going to damage fatally the National Guard if we try and continue using Reserve components at this rate. Forty percent of that force in Iraq right now is Reserve component. We have shot the bull. We've got to back off and build an Army and Marine Corps capable of sustaining these operations.” [Meet the Press, 8/28/05]

Governors Say Long Deployments Leaving Their States Vulnerable. “[S]tate officials think continued deployments will have an effect on people who sign up for or remain in the Minnesota National Guard. At a National Governor's Association meeting…some governors criticized the burden of repeated deployment, saying that the troops' absence leaves their states unprotected against things like natural disasters. Officials in Idaho and Montana have said they are unprepared if forest fires hit their states this summer.” [AP, 8/10/05]

COAST GUARD’S RESPONSIBILITIES INCREASING WITHOUT ADEQUATE FUNDS

Coast Guard Gave Congress List of $919 Million in Unfunded Priorities. The Coast Guard has given Congress a $919 million wish list of programs and hardware not funded in the Bush Administration's fiscal 2006 budget request. For the first time, the Coast Guard has sent Congressional representatives an unfunded priorities list - a tally of needed items not included in the fiscal 2006 request. The list includes an additional $637 million for the service's Deepwater recapitalization program; $11.6 million for helicopter repairs; $4 million to increase aviation maritime patrol hours, and $59 million to renovate shore stations. [Journal of Commerce Online, 5/11/05]

Coast Guard Faced With Helicopter Problems. The head of the US Coast Guard told Congress his equipment is failing at unacceptable rates. Despite increases in spending on maintenance, the agency's older large craft -- called cutters -- experience equipment failures capable of ruining a mission almost 50 percent of the time, according to Coast Guard officials. Further, the agency's HH-65 helicopters suffered a rate of 329 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours in 2004, way over the Federal Aviation Administration's acceptable standard of 1 mishap per 100,000 hours. [UPI, 6/10/05; USA Today, 7/6/05]

Commandant Says Coast Guard Short On Resources. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas H. Collins said, “Do we have more business than we have resources? Yes.” The Coast Guard has put the cost of implementing safety regulations laid out by Congress at $7.3 billion over the next ten years. The Bush administration only asked for $46 million for aid to the ports in the 2005 budget. [Budget of the United States, www.omb.gov; House Approps Cmte Transcript, 3/31/04; Washington Post, 4/2/03; Boston Globe, 6/30/04]

Posted by Bob Brigham at August 28, 2005 06:27 PM

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Comments

Let's face it, if something goes wrong, Bush caused it. I bet he's even responsible for my allergies and my sore foot.

Posted by: olrtex at August 28, 2005 08:36 PM | Permalink

Yes its all Bush's fault not the morons and crooks that have been running the state and city for the last few decades.

Posted by: grandcosmo at August 28, 2005 09:09 PM | Permalink

How sad and pathetic to blame a hurricane on Bush. This is the height of "journalistic" laziness.

Posted by: CJ at August 28, 2005 09:29 PM | Permalink

"In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding"

If im not mistaken when did we move into 2006???What do proposed cuts in 2006 have to do with a Hurricane in 2005???

Posted by: Asphalt at August 28, 2005 09:56 PM | Permalink

"In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding"

If im not mistaken when did we move into 2006???What do proposed cuts in 2006 have to do with a Hurricane in 2005???

Posted by: Asphalt at August 28, 2005 09:56 PM | Permalink

"In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding"

If im not mistaken when did we move into 2006???What do proposed cuts in 2006 have to do with a Hurricane in 2005???

Posted by: Asphalt at August 28, 2005 09:57 PM | Permalink

And weren't liberals all for these reductions during Clintons "peace dividend?" They were so happy that this money was spent on their little social projects. The hypocrisy is stunning!

Posted by: CJ at August 28, 2005 10:08 PM | Permalink

My dog had a wicked case of the farts last night. It was George Bush's fault.

Posted by: LouMinatti at August 28, 2005 10:39 PM | Permalink

Every time I think I've seen or heard some liberal do or say something that could never be surpassed in terms of sheer stupidity -- as I did several times in the last few weeks from Camp Casey -- one of them comes along to demonstrate that there really is no limit to how stupid a liberal can be.

I hate to think what will top this.

Posted by: unclefrankie at August 28, 2005 10:42 PM | Permalink

Better to blame the Mayor who waited until too late to order evacuation.

Why Iraq?
1. Saddam was a known supporter of terrorism.
a. Abu Nidal was a known terrorist who operated out of Iraq.
b. Saddam directed the assasination of US President G.H.W. Bush.
c. Saddam provided 25,000 dollars to families of terrorists who killed Israelis.
d. Saddam provided refuge to the terrorist who killed Leon Klinghoffer.
e. Saddam killed Iranian soldiers and Kurdish villages with chemical weapons.

2. Saddam had targeted the US.
a. The terrorists who launched the first WTC bombing had Kuwait passports stolen by Iraqi intelligence during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
b. Saddam had attempted to kill President G.H.W.Bush.
3. Saddam had contacts with Al Queda
a. Iraqi state controlled press forcast the 9/11 attacks on US targets.
b. Salman Pak terrorist training site was used to train the 9/11 terrorist team.
c. Al Zarawi had already been in the Iraq coordinating operations with Al Queda and Saddam's terrorist groups.
4. Saddam had violated the Desert Storm cease fire agreement.
a. he had his people fire on US and allied forces patrolling the no fire zone.
b. he had restricted the movements of WMD inspection teams.

So the effort in Iraq was necessary, and was a legal and appropriate response to Saddam's international terrorism.

Posted by: Don Meaker at August 28, 2005 10:45 PM | Permalink

I'm out of wine.

Darn George Bush and Karl Rove.

Posted by: Slublog at August 28, 2005 11:47 PM | Permalink

The only way to fix this problem in the future is for all of us to get gay.

/Theh tuk awr jehbs!

Posted by: Beagle at August 29, 2005 12:03 AM | Permalink

I've got the new lunatic lefts meme figured out. Bush caused the hurricane so the oil flow in the gulf would be disrupted. You all know what that means don't you? More money for Bush's oil buddies.

Posted by: CJ at August 29, 2005 12:12 AM | Permalink

Busted.

The article you linked above, where the pull quotes came from, contains a KEY sentence that you neglected to quote:

"Congress is setting the Corps budget."


That's right. Congress, not the Administration. Further, the article makes it pretty clear that the reason the Democratic Representative was upset about the cuts was that they were pork-barrel cuts. Nary a word about public safety - her concern was foor the poor contractors who wouldn't be able to line up at the trough.

If you want your argument to stick, you need to demonstrate - not merely insinuate - that the unfunded projects would have made a lick of difference faced with 165mph winds and a 28-foot storm surge.

Here's a bit of unpleasant calculus for you. Libs seem to forget that W is a Harvard MBA. One of the things you learn in biz school is risk management. Sometimes it's a wiser course of action to maintain liquid funds that can be used to pick up the pieces if an unlikely event occurs (or be otherwise usefully employed if it does not occur), than sink those funds in risk-prevention that might not work.

The risk-prevention we have undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq has been demonstrably effective. It's not clear that dumping a few billion bucks into New Orleans levees would save the city from Katrina.

Oh and by the way - how about those scarce oil production platforms and refineries that have been made even more scarce over the past few decades thanks to eco-zealouts?

Posted by: corrie at August 29, 2005 12:49 AM | Permalink

I love this part...

In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures.
Wow, this guy is dense. 2001 expenditures/funding were allocated prior to the start of the recession, the September 11th attacks, etc.... the 2005 expenditures would have been determined afterward. To attribute this to the tax cuts that are now generally agreed by economists to have spurred the economy into recovery and lowered the deficit is... well... stupid.

Posted by: smitty1276 at August 29, 2005 01:11 AM | Permalink

My girlfriend broke up with me a few weeks ago.

A pox on George W Bush and Karl Rove. I know they're behind it...somehow.

Posted by: LawrenceSeattle at August 29, 2005 02:04 AM | Permalink

New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, and I'm quite surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

And this place has the audacity to blame it on GW.

Looks like some people are getting desperate. What next? The price of tea in China?

Posted by: Sailor Republica at August 29, 2005 02:31 AM | Permalink

I hope you have your tinfoil hat screwed on tight. The Mind Control Beams will be broadcast shortly after Katrina clears New Orleans.

100,000 Blue-Staters will be compelled to leave their houses so that the homeless people of New Orleans will have homes.

The 100,000 Blue-Staters will further be compelled to (horror of horrors) sing America the Beautiful while marching to their nearest enlistment center to volunteer to fight Bush's Evil War Of Oppression For Oil and Empire In The Former Iraqi Utopia. You moron.

Oh, and I'm out of toilet paper. Damn that Bush and Rove!

Posted by: jb at August 29, 2005 05:48 AM | Permalink

This just proves that there is a good reason to keep the loony left from Washington --

Posted by: Jo at August 29, 2005 07:22 AM | Permalink

Ever since Betsy in 1965, New Orleans and Louisiana have known N.O. was vulnerable. They had 40 years to do something about it. More and bigger pumps were not the answer. My heart bleeds for the city, but, unlike San Francisco and L.A, which learned their lesson about earthquakes, the 'Big Easy' partied on. Now, they may have to pay the price.

Posted by: Pine Knot at August 29, 2005 08:21 AM | Permalink

Face it. If New Orleans was important to Louisiana, the state's people would have demanded it fixed.

It's only important if anyone except Louisiana (President Bush) does not fix it.

Posted by: Bush-Rocks at August 29, 2005 09:51 AM | Permalink

Aw, Freepii, you are diappointing me... ove twenty comments, and you haven't directly blamed the hurricane on Bill Clinton yet. Y'all are off your game.

Posted by: pbz at August 29, 2005 10:10 AM | Permalink

How much are you willing to bet that even if the people and government of Louisiana (NOT the Administration) had taken steps to better prepare for a Cat 5 hurricane, we'd STILL nevertheless be reading some dribble from this idiot under the exact same headline?

Personally, I'm waiting for The Big One, the monster earthquake we all fear, to hit California. I'll make a fortune selling "It's Bush's Fault" T-shirts. Fault! Get it? Ha ha!

Posted by: GJameson at August 29, 2005 10:48 AM | Permalink

tinfoil hatter: "the crisis resulting from Lousiana's National Guard being in Iraq instead of defending their state."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050829/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard

National Guard: Enough GIs for Storm Duty

Though thousands of National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi are serving in
Iraq, officials say more than enough personnel were available for disaster duty Monday as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Don't let facts get in in the way of your tinfoil hattery. dumb bass.

massive tax cuts. let's see, 19% good, 18.5% massive tax cuts. maroon.

Posted by: jb at August 29, 2005 12:59 PM | Permalink

From the statement that George Bush is an MBA we are supposed to draw what conclusion? That he knows what he's doing? I have an MBA for a boss. He doesn't know what he's doing. Common sense is not a requirement for the awarding of this degree. I have seldom seen an MBA demonstrate common sense.

Grumpy

Posted by: GrumpyIconoclast at August 29, 2005 02:20 PM | Permalink

Before immediately jumping to the conclusion that George W. Bush is personally responsible for any damage that Hurricane Katrina causes to New Orleans, I would like to know something about N.O. city politics, and what happened to the buttloads of money that they've received in the past. The federal government has been pumping money into that city for a long time.

Oh, and Bob? Via the linked Yahoo news article mentioned above, regarding the National Guard, it looks like you and Kos got your asses handed to you once again. Nice work.

Posted by: Sloan at August 29, 2005 03:44 PM | Permalink

But the really IMPORTANT thing we need to know, is what do the experts on this matter think in relation to Bush being respponsible?

By experts, I mean highly credentialed and credible types such as Cindy "Bush is the real terrorist" Sheehan.

Posted by: baaadbeet at August 29, 2005 04:10 PM | Permalink

Oh how easy it is to spend your time judging and blaming, blaming and judging...what a waste! There is no way to "fix" New Orleans other than to move it completely...if you must blame, blame the french, spanish, cajuns, and so many other peoples who simultaneously selected this area of land to live on hundreds of years ago. Good grief...have you no compassion?

And those of you who are blaming bush for this hurricane, or any other politician for that matter, don't you realize you're now elevating them to the status of a god or someone powerful enough to control nature? Good grief...they are all just people, not gods.

Global warming, probably...but both the left and the right drive cars that use gas and consume products that are packaged in plastic. Until we are ready to get rid of the "convenieces" we blame on the politicians, industry will continue to produce products we purchase. We consumers are to blame for global warming...if we would stop consuming, industry would respond. If we keep giving them money, they will continue to sell environmentally damaging products to us. WE are in control...not them! Take a look in the mirror and thank God you and/or your loved ones don't live in that area and have to listen to you criticize them.

Posted by: Marise at August 30, 2005 02:51 PM | Permalink

Let me get this straight. Wikipedia says New Orleans was founded in 1718.

1718.

Levees have been built for decades. Worked on for decades. And the danger has been known for decades.

But it's all Bush's fault? Where was your man Clinton during HIS eight years on the job? Maybe a little less horn blowin', and a little less getting his horn blown, and he could have had 100 foot levees built?

Posted by: AmazinglyCompassionate at August 30, 2005 11:04 PM | Permalink

This is good stuff. AmazingCompassionate hit the nail on the head.
New Orleans levee system has been underfunded for YEARS and I'd venture to guess every president befor Bush knew about this too.

If you really want to blame anyone. BLAME THE FRENCH ! They created the mess in the first place.

"In its natural condition, the Mississippi River regularly overflowed its banks and meandered back and forth across the floodplain. For thousands of years, Native Americans accepted the whims of the river and adapted to its patterns. The arrival of European settled in the early 1700s, however, brought a radically new perspective on the river's habits. The river's tendency to flood was a serious hindrance to settlement and development--a problem which demanded solutions.

Early inhabitants began constructing earthen embankments (called levees) along the river's banks to contain the flow and protect residents and developed property. The French built levees to protect New Orleans as early as 1717. At the turn of the 19th century, a crude system of levees extended for 100 miles upriver of New Orleans, with individual landowners constructing and maintaining the levees.

By the 1830s, states were becoming involved in flood control on the Mississippi River through both direct funding and the creation of levee boards. These boards took over levee construction and maintenance with funds acquired from taxes on landowners. "


oh btw the Corps has also dredged the Mississipi creating an unaturally wider river which ALSO contributed to the problems in New Orleans. So you can also blame them

Posted by: strong at August 31, 2005 04:58 AM | Permalink

I may be a bit naive, but where is the president?

I look at the Whitehouse webpage I see he's doing a meet and greet with some veterans today. Shouldn't the crisis in the Gulf (that's the one in North America, not the Middle East) be the only priority right now? Shouldn't he be leading?

Posted by: Bick at August 31, 2005 10:56 AM | Permalink

The Govenors of Mississippi and Louisiana asked President Bush to wait a few days before coming to the area...they said there was nothing he could do until they assessed initial damage and got the flood waters under control. President Bush cancelled his vacation to respond to the Governors' requests and be available in a few days to help out. He was at a veterans conference as events were unfolding and responded appropriately. The Reds just gave a press conference and explained they are a back up to the States and not the leaders of disasters. The Governors' are very pleased with the Feds response to their requests for help.

Posted by: Marise at August 31, 2005 02:25 PM | Permalink

I can't go so far as to say that Bush is at fault for all the destruction Katrina's caused, but I can say how furious it makes me that he hasn't made a public appearance or any announcement todate, at least not that I know of! And where was Bush when Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast?? I believe he was on his ranch for the 100th time this year, enjoying the nice dry weather in Texas and instead of taking action - and I don't mean a senseless war in Iraq!

Posted by: kirky at August 31, 2005 03:20 PM | Permalink

POINT THE BLAME!

Everyone hurry, its never your fault if you can only find someone to blame.

Yes this is one of the greatest disasters in American History...

and yes these people chose to live there, with the knowledge that this may one day happen.

Let the finger pointing begin.

Everyone is so fixated on the politics they are missing the big picture...

whether or not you like our current president, or you are a democrat or a republican

Bush's response to one of if not the biggest disaster in American History has been pathetic...

Immediate action was necessary and is only now being put into strategic plans.

One question comes to mind after all the 9/11 hype and the homeland security B.S.

Where did our tax dollars go, where is the leadership the country needs at a time like this?

And yes I must touch on this since there is a lot of talk about it:

Troops in Iraq and not at home!
Should we have gone in there in the first place?
No! Was Saddam an evil dictator? Yes! Did papa bush fund him back in the day? YES! Does mexico (OUR NEIGHBOR) have just as many problems if not more than iraq? Maybe...Do we exploit them for cheap labor! YES! Was NAFTA just an official way to fuck them? YES! Are there bigger threats to safety than IRAQ? YES! Did we go to Iraq to remove Saddam originally? NO! Was pulling the wool over Americans eyes and spinning it into a safety threat one of the few smart things Bush has done as president? YES!

Of course all of this is just one mans opinion, which Im entitled to in this GREAT NATION! cough

In summary, get the troops where the fuck they belong, and should we expect foreign aid from all the countries we have "HELPED" over the years?

In conlusion I say lets find that man that can represent America as we want it to be represented. America needs a massive overhaul and maybe it will take events like 9/11 and Katrina to get the ball rolling. Lets move away from the two party system, and finally start governing ourselves rather than sitting around and complaining about the mess we have gotten into!

PEACE!

As a side note, does anyone know if Bush used the 747 to try to assess the damage as "air force one" was said to have done. And if so...WTF...Please! Camera moment, thats about it, can you see anything from a 747 that you couldnt see on the news?

Get in a helicopter and go into the trenches (oh wait, maybe they just lost the records of him doing so...haha)

Posted by: pik2000 at September 1, 2005 02:41 AM | Permalink

I am new to this site, and it seems to generate much more heat than light. But FWIW, I don't think people are saying that Bush caused the hurricane.

At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "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."

You can argue that even if these funds weren't diverted, it wouldn't have helped. You might be right (though many experts disagree.) But granting that, the larger issue is that the war in Iraq has attendant costs. And this Administration has been disingenuous about them from the outset.

It's too late for New Orleans, but what is next? What has been the cost of the diversion of the Iraqi adventure?

Until yesterday no Americans, other than the families and friends of those in the Service, have had to sacrifice. The tax bills have not yet hit the middle and lower classes; hence the war appears "free." No war is free.

We were told by President Bush's Budget Director that this war would cost $50 billion and last six months. Donald Rumsfeld said, "The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," on February 28, 2003. This led to the demotion of Gen. Shinseki who disagreed. It goes on. But the point is, oK , they were off a little bit in time, cost, the friendly Iraqi reception, the ability to generate oil and oil revenues, the Arab response, the settling affect on terrorism, and U.S. lives lost. These are trivial concerns and it is neither fair nor appropriate to hold The President accountable because all of this was always beyond his control.

Instead, the issue is, can you pursue a war at $1 billion+ per day and with no consequences? I would argue that answer is no.

We should not cavil about whether the extent of the damage could have been prevented (though the people in charge say it could have).

The point is, what will happen next? Is anyone accountable? When will someone in the Administration speak in forthright terms about the implications of this war, instead of hiding behind the distractions of Jesus and the flag, and shifting rationales for the war, now numbering at least 31, and most lately including the possibility that our oilfields would fall into Iranian hands?

Read this article from Editor & Publisher, which is, as you may know, the trade pub. of the newspaper industry:


Philadelphia - Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "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."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

*****

Everything that George W. Bush has gotten in his life has come free: Andover and Yale like his dad, his (albeit failed) oil businesses like his dad, his baseball job through the team's owner who was his father's financial advisor, running for Governor in his father's state, etc. All was given to him by his daddy, and from his famous surname that he has used, pardon the expression, liberally.

The only time in his life he has suffered (or learned) was when he got lost in booze and cocaine, by his own hand and his own admission.

There is nothing wrong with skating through life for free, but it does become a problem when you are President of the United States. He seems to think that this same principle applies for the rest of us. It doesn't. Not everything in life is free. Including this war.

Posted by: piedmontese at September 1, 2005 02:51 PM | Permalink

N.O. was one the three likeliest, most catostrophic disasters facing this country. The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.

So, based on your logic, if GW doesn't order the evacuation of San Francisco today and the massive quake hits tomorrow and it falls into the Ocean...it's G.W.'s fault.

Posted by: Jake at September 1, 2005 02:52 PM | Permalink

No. It appears you missed the all the logic entirely and rushed to defend George Bush for something that he was not accused of doing. That should be telling you to slow down and look around.

I said: "You can argue that even if these funds weren't diverted, it wouldn't have helped. You might be right...."

So rather than blindly defend the current occupant of the White House, let's discuss what was really stated.

The logic is that the policies of this Administration (diverting money to Iraq as part of a broader policy of subsidizing and encouraging the expanded use of fossil fuels) all have tremendous costs. He has not been honest about this policy. He has not been honest about the costs. He has not been honest about the implications. The first such implication has hit home. There will be more.

There will be more, and I can offer some educated guesses as to what they will be, if you think you can hear something that is not pure adulation of the current resident of the White House.

Not the hurricane, but its after-effects, have given us the first intimations of how severe these costs will be.

Tellingly, Bush did not mention the word "conservation" yesterday. Conservation is what got us over the 1979 shock. It is anathema to to the two oilmen and one oil-woman atop this Administration.

Gas in Georgia is $5 a gallon this afternoon because the pipeline from N.O. is down. If this prevails, the GOP is in deep, deep trouble. As it is, our children are in deep trouble due to global warming that doesn't exist, impossible deficits that don't exist, put off to the next generation, and our deteriorating security due to the fact that this Administration has squandered any semblance of international political capital we earned from the 9/11 Tragedy.

That horrible event served only as grist for the self-serving machinations of Karl Rove.

So tell us, are there any costs to the war? If Bush was off by $500 billion in its cost, and 1800% by his duration, do you think he is accountable?

Posted by: piedmontese at September 1, 2005 04:22 PM | Permalink

You guys are so typical. It didn't take you long to use a natural disaster for more Bush-bashing. Why don't you blame him for the hot summer also? Jeez. You people need to get a life and quit blaming people for things. I guess you'll blame him for the idiots shooting guns at rescue helicopters keeping them from doing their jobs and getting the people out. I guess when they die it will be his fault.

Let's just ignore all of the reports that showed the levees in New Orleans couldn't sustain a Category 3 hurricane, and all of the recommendations by our government to improve it. Do you ever wonder why Republicans never blame other people for their mistakes? Because they are mature enough not to do so (and we care enough about our families to spend our time working to put food on the table and not protesting, bitching, complaining, etc.!)!)!)!)!)!)!

Posted by: kjjack at September 1, 2005 04:26 PM | Permalink

Hurricane? Sorry, all the troops and money went to Iraq. Global warming? No, it doesn't exist. Never mind a foot of snow in LA,
Bush is making our country weaker, not stronger. As far as "facts" about Saddam and Iraq, I say read the Downing Street Memo: "The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".
Instead of rallying the nation and putting our best minds to work to make America energy independent, and less dependent on fossil fuels, our so-called leader just says "New Orleans will be back". Is that it? Isn't making America more independent and safer, part of "Homeland Security"? If we can put a man on the moon, can't we make America energy independent and thereby keep us out of misadventures in the middle east? In that photo of him looking down at the mess from his airplane, I can almost hear him saying "Sucks to be them, doesn't it?" He won't have to suffer, only the people under him will.

Posted by: AmericaFirst at September 1, 2005 05:31 PM | Permalink

I'll try this a third time. You are certainly defensive, seeing things where nothing is. Why would that be so? Let's see if you can come down from the defensive long enough to understand this with yet another try.

I did not blame the president for the hurricane, the snipers, etc. Nor did any of the people with whom you disagree.

Rather, we are saying that his decisions have greatly debilitated this country; the a-f-t-e-r-e-f-f-e-c-t-s of the hurricane are only the latest and largest signs of his bad decisions.

I am saying that he has been disingenuous about the costs and tradeoffs of his decisions.

I am also saying that he has been less than candid about his rationales and motivations.

I am saying that he shirks accountability.

****

On that subject, regarding mistakes, the Bush Administration as a matter of routine blames people for mistakes that Administration commits. Ask Karl Rove to talk to you about WMD and yellow cake from Nigeria. Sorry, he cannot talk to you about it....

There never has been an Administration held to so low a standard of accountability; owning both houses of Congress, controlling the judiciary, the Executive, and the corporate, that is to say, liberal, media certainly helps.

I can provide a dozen major instances where people are punished because of mistakes of their superiors. Have you heard how much fun it is it to work in the Pentagon these days?

But this remarkable exchange from the current President really gives the lie to your diversion:

October 8, 2004 debate:
LINDA GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.

PRESIDENT BUSH: (225 words about correct decisions, then...) Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.

(LAUGHTER)(End of answer).

It is little wonder every the U.S. is at its lowest popularity around the world since these things have been measured. Where do you think this arrogance comes from? The minority committees in the Senate?

BTW, can you tell me three mistakes the Bush Administration has made? It doesn't make him a bad President. Take a dare. We'll wait....

Dark Clouds Form Over White House
An editorial in Wednesday's Manchester Union Leader criticizes President Bush for "aloofness" in response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster:

As the extent of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation became clearer on Tuesday -- millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews can’t reach some regions -- President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before.

Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back.

This kind of criticism would not be surprising from a liberal rag, but the Union Leader's a staunchly conservative paper that endorsed Bush in both 2004 and 2000. Insight magazine rated it one of the top five conservative papers in the country along with the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, New York Post, and Daily Oklahoman.

I think it's safe to assume that President Bush's post-election political capital has all been spent, unless aides can find a little in coat pockets and couches around the White House.