8/29 America
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Frank Rich makes a similar argument that I’ve been making in his Sunday NYT column, discussing how especially in a post-Katrina America, the Republican ability to scare up votes by freaking out people just doesn’t work.
Five Years After 9/11, Fear Finally Strikes Out
What makes the foiled London-Pakistan plot seem more of a serious threat — though not so serious it disrupted Tony Blair’s vacation — is that the British vouched for it, not Attorney General Gonzales and his Keystone Kops. This didn’t stop Michael Chertoff from grabbing credit in his promotional sprint through last Sunday’s talk shows. “It was as if we had an opportunity to stop 9/11 before it actually was carried out,” he said, insinuating himself into that royal we. But no matter how persistent his invocation of 9/11, our secretary of homeland security is too discredited to impress a public that has been plenty disillusioned since Karl Rove first exhibited the flag-draped remains of a World Trade Center victim in a 2004 campaign commercial. We look at Mr. Chertoff and still see the man who couldn’t figure out what was happening in New Orleans when the catastrophe was being broadcast in real time on television.
…
Most of the 60 percent of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq also want to win the war against Al Qaeda and its metastasizing allies: that’s one major reason they don’t want America bogged down in Iraq.
Boo-yah. Can I get a witness from the congregation?
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
So, therefore, you would (A) surrender in Iraq (cut and run) and send the terrorists a strong message? (B) Stay in Iraq and continue the current policy but complain the Busheyman made you do it.
Or (C)take no position at all (the current D party status quo).
“We don’t know what we would do but we sure hate Bush.”
There’s a story in here about Katrina and fear, but it’s not the story you think.
Leave it to Frank Rich to get it 100% completely wrong.
Yes, clearly everything went well in hurricane Katrina. Surely, those dead people are all figments of our collective imaginations.
And Dugger, we should redploy from Iraq, maybe you and yours can go volunteer to be cannon fodder in Iraq while our troops get back to the job of fighting terrorism.
Actually … … they sort of are.
God, Farris, you are despicable. What the hell are you trying to say with these links anyway? More people died during Hurricane Stan than Katrina but you didn’t hear too much about it so it must be liberals blowing stuff out of proportion and so bush and chertoff are completely withough blame.
Again, I say, Ok then..
Yes, because preventable deaths from a hurricane and its aftermath in a major American city shouldn’t receive as much coverage in America than a hurricane in a far off country.
It’s all about body count to farris, but he really should be careful what he wishes for because the biggest body count comes from…..Iraq!
And Dugger, we should redploy from Iraq, maybe you and yours can go volunteer to be cannon fodder in Iraq while our troops get back to the job of fighting terrorism.
Me and mine have done our time. And of course I hope we are able to redeploy from Iraq soon, but not “redeploy” in the Democratic Orwellian sense (the terrorists and fanatics will see that as cowardly surrender and redouble worldwide – count on it).
Man, I forgot I was speaking to “progressives”: Must … use … smaller … words.
Oliver complains that Bush has been using fear and “freaking people out” as a method of retaining power, yet it’s Oliver himself who is using discredited lies to further his own agenda.
That catastrophy “being broadcast in real time” included stories of toxic soup, mass rape at the Superdome, roving gangs shooting at helicopters, dead bodies overflowing in the streets and cannibalism. All of which, we know now, were grossly exaggerated if not outright false. Oliver wants to use those first few days of coverage, where the only people doing their jobs correctly were the Coast Guard (and that includes the media), and say it’s all Bush’s fault.
Sorry. Just ain’t so.
Ok, farris, I will grant you that many of the horror stories were exaggerated and outright false. It isn’t hard to figure out why with a complete breakdown of communication and a n entire city playing a life-and-death version of “post office.” I will also grant you that the only ones doing their jobs correctly were the Coast Guard and the press. But to say it isn’t Bush’s fault that no relief got to NO for 4 days? I call Bullshit. Soledad O’Brien had better information than the head of FEMA? Bullshit.
In a situation like that, when a major US city has been completely destroyed, it is up to leadership to step up and do something. This leader didn’t do that until there was a public outcry, and even then, failed miserably.
Duros, what idiot farris is trying to say is there were false reports about rapes in the Superdome, therefore Katrina never happened, the levees never broke, and Brownie did “A heck of a job”!
I think you misread me Duros. The media DIDN’T do their job, because instead of telling us what was actually happening, they were fearmongering in the hopes of pinning it on Bush before folks could stop and think about just how badly Blanco & Nagin botched the pre-storm prep.
If you actually look at the transcript of the OBrien/Brown showdown, you’ll see Soledad starting off the interview with the (now discredited) roving gangs. Then, she spends the rest of the interview complaining about the lack of (staged photo op) food drops. Which, we now know, weren’t held up by FEMA but by Blanco & Nagin administrations.
Seeing that Soledad’s entire line of questioning has now been 100% discredited, I don’t see why you’re holding up that particular interview as a mark against Bush.
Because it still took them more than 5 days to do anything responsive, and even then, they didn’t have their shit together.
As I said, with no communication, rumors fly wild. When was a state of emergency declared?
From you transcript, Fasrris;
“I am thinking very clearly. And I don’t know whose problem it is. I don’t know whether it’s the governor’s problem, I don’t know whether it’s the president’s problem, but somebody need to get their (EXPLETIVE DELETED) on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now!”
Ray Nagin, Sept. 2.
Are you gonna sit there and tell me that Nagin and blanco are wholly responsible for the lack of Federal response? Bullshit. I know you would excoriate him solely because he is a Democrat, but I mean, come on.
And I disagree that her questions were 100% discredited, O Zen Master of Low Expectations.
What I don’t get about the whole “the Liberal Media ™ is out to get Bush” thing is that if they were really so intent on ripping him a new asshole, they would just have to dig up many parts of his past cocaine, DUIs, drunk & disorderly conduct, using his daddy’s connections to get into the National Guard, his relative trigger-happiness regarding the death penalty, his alienation of much of the world, his evisceration of the surplus with his tax cuts for the rich, etc.
“they would just have to dig up many parts of his past cocaine, DUIs, drunk & disorderly conduct, using his daddy’s connections to get into the National Guard, his relative trigger-happiness regarding the death penalty, his alienation of much of the world, his evisceration of the surplus with his tax cuts for the rich, etc.”
Which of course you heard about via the media. And do you recall Rathergate?
Well, in the Nagin quote you mention, he’s complaining about buses. Had he done his job correctly in the pre-storm, there wouldn’t have been anyone to bus out, because they would have already been evacuated. (perhaps in these?)
He’s complaining in general about the lack of response from the government, both state and federal. He’s complaining aobut the lack of empathy from FEMA and DHS. he’s complaining about people dying in the fucking streets or left to die in the sun, on overpasses, at the Convention Center and at the Superdome.
But whatever, Farris. Having buses is one thing. Having people to drive and a place to drive them to is another. Especially since Gretna and jefferson Parrish closed themselves off and refused to help anyone from new Orleans Parrish.
but whatever Farris, it was all about the Evil Democrat mayor and govenor.
Again I ask, where was the local response? Nagin spent all his time bitching about everyone else when he
A) didn’t do a damn thing pre-storm and
B) didn’t do anything about the local issues he could have effected (keeping Police & Fire personel on the job)
Nagin knew the storm was coming his way Friday, when all the bus drivers were still in town running their normal school routes. Maybe if he hadn’t waited until Sunday morning, they’d have had a full roster of drivers.
Which means the population at landfall would have been a 1/10th of what it was, local law enforcement, 1st responders, and the rations wouldn’t have been as stretched thin, and Jefferson & Gretna wouldn’t have closed themselves off so as to avoid a teeming mass they couldn’t handle.
when all the bus drivers were still in town running their normal school routes.
They have school in August, do they?
Yes we do. Have for years.
Look for yourself.