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Defending Bush or protecting America, the conservative punditocracy has chosen sides
The Bush administration has received a torrent of bi-partisan criticism for its initial response to Hurricane Katrina. But most conservative columnists have continued to go fairly easy on George W. Bush during the past week, according to an E&P survey.
Oliver Willis
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It is seen as analogous to a ‘breeched’ levee. Conservatives recognize the house of cards is fragile and are fearful of acknowledgeing the weaknesses of the Administration. Questioning the ‘good ol’ boy’ network is to question Bush himself. He got where he is because of who he knows, not what he knows.
Objectively pro-incompetence? Where’s Glenn? I need to consult my style guide!
I am very glad that the nation has responded so well to the Katrina crisis. But I wonder how long this flurry of charity might last.
I am an middle-aged African American who knows enough history to be skeptical of the shelf life of goodwill now shown. Why?
Already we see two interesting developments in news coverage. Now in the second week of the storm, the human storm victims are sharing airtime with pets lost in the storm. Why is this important?
I think that at the moment the many black storm victims have become the nation’s pets-helpless, innocent and powerless. I have believed for many years that animal rights have superseded civil rights (and womens’ rights). Blacks have been replaced by seals and bunnies and puppies and trees-or as I call them, “the cute and the mute.” When people in suburbia discover that these are human beings, will they recoil and retreat? It is an open question.
The other phenomenon is the right wing backlash against the victims. Barbara Bush already felt as though the storm was good thing for the evacuees since “they were underprivileged anyway.” I hear conservative radio voices already saying that the storm victims have “hit the jackpot.”
I have a feeling that the outlines of the 2006 Republican campaign are being fleshed out now. I think that the GOP will run against the Katrina victims. What is now the Republicans’ bane may well be their boon next fall. Karl Rove is probably glad that many of the victims are black. It makes it much simpler to demonize people when they seem alien to you or your base.
One can almost hear the GOP commercials now: “We have done all we can for those people. It is time to send them back to where they came from. It is time to take back our neighborhoods, our shelters, our stadiums, our streets. Make Katrina victims flee-vote GOP.”
It would seem ridiculous to imagine such a thing-except that the GOP has done it over and over again (Willie Horton, Southern Strategy, etc.).
I hope I am wrong. I fear I am not.
Speaking of obfuscation, Sadie, have you explained yet how it is you’re qualified to judge a person’s loyalty to their ethnic group yet?
We’d all love to hear it.
Now that more facts are coming to light, the right wing media machine, both professional and amateur, are beginning to cast about desperately for ways to distract and obfuscate …..
Which ones, Sadie?
Like how the Salvation Army and Red Cross were blocked by state officials from brining aid to the Superdome? Or how hundreds of busses that could have been used (according to the city’s evacuation plan) were left dorminant with some of them left in low lying areas so they could later get flooded?
Or do you believe that Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco are completely exempt from any blame in this entire mess?
Sadie needs someone to feed him/her a talking point before he/she can answer.
And Oliver isn’t helping her out. Not with the Michelle Malkin thread either.
“Scotty I need those deflector shields NOW!!!
“Captain I’m doin’ the best that I can but I can’t find me arse with two hands!”
“Like how the Salvation Army and Red Cross were blocked by state officials from brining aid to the Superdome?”
According to this report
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.redcross/index.html
the Red Cross was asked to delay for 24 hours. By that time, most of the people concerned were brought out of the Dome.
Make of that what you will, but the lesson to me is that not everything has come out yet that might explain some seemingly outrageous actions.
No, that’s what happened when the left seized on the opportunity to blame FEMA for something it hadn’t done.
You gotta love it.
When the liberal blogosphere got it wrong (saying it was FEMA that was keeping the Red Cross out of NO), it was a disgrace.
Since that little discrepancy has been cleared up, and it’s clear that it ws the state that was responsible, they’re falling all over themselves to justify it.
Riddle me this: why did Brown and Chertoff claim FEMA was feeding people in New Orleans?
Well, Tuco, the other way you could put it is that instead of the Red Cross going in to serve the victims, the victims were brought out to the Red Cross; note that this was from a joint Red Cross/LA FEMA press conference.
Seems to me that you’re falling all over yourself to use it in ideological warefare.
Atrios posted this from Rod Dreher of NRO. A Republican who gets it -
“It would be very wrong, I believe, to let the ignominious Michael Brown be the scapegoat for FEMA’s sins. Check out this front-pager from the WaPo. Turns out that a raft of FEMA’s top leaders have little or no emergency management experience, but are instead politically well connected to the GOP and the White House. This is a scandal, a real scandal. How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? The main reason I’ve been a Bush supporter all along is I trusted him (note past tense) on national security — which, in the age of mass terrorism, means homeland security too. Call me naive, but it’s a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government! What if al-Qaeda had blown the New Orleans levees? How much worse would the crony-led FEMA’s response have been? Would conservatives stand for any of this for one second if a Democrat were president? If this is what Republican government means, God help the poor GOP Congressmen up for re-election in 2006.”
I wonder if Tuco would be so pugnacious in his defense of the administration and FEMA if Kerry or Gore were president now instead of Bush? Tell us what your reaction would be Tuco if that were the case.
Where are the calls for Nagin and Blanco to resign?
The sound of crickets chirping …
JD,
I would sure like to see Nagin and Blanco resign. I’m sure that progressives are not just exploiting the hole Katrina disaster for crass political purposes and will all shortly join us in a bi-partisan effort to get rid of these deadly incomeptents. Right progressives? Right? Ohhhh, progressives.
Dugger