The Huffington POST
The Flyover Presidency of George W. Bush
Posted August 31, 2005 at 9:45 p.m. EDT
The president's 35-minute Air Force One flyover of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was the perfect metaphor for his entire presidency: detached, disconnected, and disengaged. Preferring to take in America's suffering -- whether caused by the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina -- from a distance. In this case, 2,500 feet.
Apparently, the president "sat somberly on a couch on the left hand side of the presidential jumbo jet peering out the window" at the catastrophe below, joined at different times by White House staffers including Karl Rove and Scott McClellan. McClellan later quoted the president as saying, "It's devastating. It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." Ya think?? Hey, here's an idea, Mr. President: maybe you should, y'know, get off the plane and see for yourself?
Instead, he jetted on to Washington for a brisk 9-minute Rose Garden speech designed to let us know that his administration was doing everything in its power to mitigate the looming PR disaster the flooding of New Orleans could create for the White House... Uh, I mean, everything in its power to aid the recovery.
The speech contained the usual Bush bonhomie (he's "confident" New Orleans "will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it"). But the most telling moment came when the president discussed the ways his administration was moving to help ease the suffering of profit-soaked oil companies impacted by the storm, pointing out that he had instructed Energy Secretary Sam Bodman to work with refineries to "alleviate any shortage through loans" and that the EPA had waived clean air standards for gasoline and diesel fuels in all 50 states. You could almost see him getting misty.
He also unleashed a torrent of facts and figures: "The Department of Transportation has provided more than 400 trucks to move 1,000 truckloads containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat -- or MREs, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 20 containers of pre-positioned disaster supplies, 135,000 blankets and 11,000 cots." It was as if by piling so many disparate numbers so high he might be able to block out the two most significant numbers of all: the number of National Guardsmen unable to help out in Louisiana and Mississippi because they are deployed in Iraq, and the tens of millions of hurricane and flood-control dollars that never made it to Lake Pontchartrain because they had been diverted to Iraq.
The president's Rose Garden speech followed an all-hands-on-deck press briefing earlier in the day featuring Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and as many cabinet members and agency heads as could be crammed around a podium, including Bodman of Energy, Mineta of Transportation, Johnson of the EPA, Leavitt of HHS, and McHale of DoD. It had the feel of the old circus bit where clown after clown after clown piles out of the impossibly small car.
And, like the president, Chertoff and company came armed with plenty of designed-to-obfuscate numbers. In one head-spinning riff, Chertoff rattled off info on "39 disaster medical assistance teams," "1,700 trailer trucks," "truckloads of water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarpaulins," as well as the Coast Guard's "three national strike teams" and other "ships, boats and aircraft" that had "worked heroically for the last 48 hours, rescuing and assisting well more than 1,000 people who were in distress." But still no mention of those unavailable Guardsmen or the funds that were taken away from shoring up Lake Pontchartrain and shipped over to Iraq.
Those are the blood-red elephants floating belly-up in the middle of this deadly disaster -- and the reason for the full-court PR press.
During his press briefing, Chertoff declared the aftermath of Katrina "an incident of national significance." It's clear from Bush and his team's actions how worried they are that, as the facts come out, it will become "an incident of political significance" as well.
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Are People Dying Over Here Because We're Fighting Them Over There?
Posted September 1, 2005 at 3:47 p.m. EDT
Is the aftermath of Katrina part of the price we are paying for Iraq?
To the growing list of collateral damage caused by the Iraq war and Bush's stunningly inept leadership, we can now add the city of New Orleans. It's no surprise that RNC chairman Ken Mehlman doesn't want "politics" injected into the national discussion about Katrina. Or that Scottie McClellan would echo that "this is not a time for politics." Why would he when President Bush's politics and policies have made this disastrous situation so much worse than it otherwise would have been?
In his insultingly absurd "flypaper theory" Bush likes to posit an intrinsic connection between what's going on in Iraq and what's going on here at home. His version of the theory is, of course, completely wrong, but he's right that there is a connection. And it's a tragic one. And 100% airtight: every national guardsman who is in Iraq (and there are 118,000 of them) is one less guardsman who can help out right now in Mississippi and Louisiana.
About 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard and 35 percent of Louisiana's -- a combined total of roughly 6,000 troops -- are unavailable to help out because they are currently in Iraq. And despite the protestations of unnamed officials that "this had not hurt the relief effort," does anyone really believe that having 6,000 more well-trained citizen-soldiers on hand would not have made a huge difference?
As Lt. Andy Thaggard, a spokesman for the Mississippi National Guard, put it: "Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people."
And this isn't a problem that will disappear once we -- if we -- bring the troops home. Iraq is a gift that won't stop giving for years and years. National Guard recruiting is down and so are retention rates. As Alabama Guard spokesman Norman Arnold explained: "We're just losing too many out the back door." Indeed, the Alabama National Guard currently has 11,000 troops -- 78 percent of the authorized number.
And it's not just the manpower; it's the allocation of resources. The truth is that the Army Corps of Engineers was desperately trying to get the funds to prepare for just the kind of flooding that has left 90% of the homes in New Orleans underwater. Why didn't they get this much-needed funding? As Editor and Publisher explains: "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." The damning article goes on:
"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.'"
The administration's distorted priorities have deeply affected FEMA too. According to Eric Holdeman, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in King County, Washington, "the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security." His "obituary" for FEMA is both sorrowful and alarming, warning that we, as a country, are "to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond" to the "tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires" that are inevitably coming our way. Don't those affect our national security, too?
Oh, and you want to know who's running FEMA? His name is Michael Brown. And you'll be relieve to know that previous to FEMA, he was an estate lawyer.
So, yes, Ken and Scottie, I can see why you don't want this "politicized." And there will no doubt be a succession of news anchors and reporters who think it's somehow inappropriate to speak of politics at a moment like this. But it's a lot more inappropriate to refuse to acknowledge what we know. Decisions were made that unequivocally affected how disastrous this disaster has become. The Bush administration will surely call into question the patriotism of anyone who dares note the obvious. But it's holding back from pointing out the consequences of catastrophic decisions that is unpatriotic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush Hits the Scene, Giving Hope to... Uh, Trent Lott
Posted September 2, 2005 at 2:04 p.m. EDT
So President Bush has finally made it to the scene -- only four days after the storm. Unfortunately, there was no "bullhorn moment" a la his post-9/11 tour of Ground Zero -- no stirring rhetoric. Indeed, his staged briefing with the governors of Alabama and Mississippi did not inspire confidence or hope in anyone -- except maybe Trent Lott. And Lott's realtor. "The good news," said the president, "is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Yes, he actually said that. Way to look on the bright side, Mr. President. "Fantastic!"
The president's sunny-side-up take on the Gulf Coast's Extreme Makeover came after Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced that he was launching "Operation Golden Rule." Uh, Governor... given what the authorities have been "doing unto" the beleaguered victims of Katrina, do you really think that's such a good idea?
During the briefing, FEMA head Michael Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, stood to the side, looking weak and ineffectual. Which, given their woeful performance and idiotic comments over the past few days, is probably just as well. At least they all had on their getting-down-to-business khakis.
I hope New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wasn't watching -- his head just might explode.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responding to the Disaster in the Gulf: 3 Heroes Who Get It and a U.S. Senator Who Absolutely Doesn't
Posted September 2, 2005 at 6:35 p.m. EDT
Finally, a politician has provided a response worthy of the magnitude of suffering -- especially the unnecessary suffering -- going on in New Orleans. It's just too bad it wasn't the person who has the most power to alleviate it.
At the press conference held this morning by the Congressional Black Caucus, it was an incredible relief to hear Rep. Elijah Cummings give the speech the nation has been waiting to hear. He was brimming with anger and emotion -- an appropriate response for anyone who has turned on a television or read a newspaper in the last few days, and isn't detached from any kind of human emotion.
"The difference," Cummings said, "between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age, or skin color. It would be unconscionable to stand by and do nothing... We have long heard claims of compassionate conservatism among our nation's leaders. We now want the compassion."
And given the biblical level of suffering going on, it was only appropriate that Cummings ended by quoting the bible: "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
Contrast that impassioned response to the tragedy with Mary Landrieu's robotic responses yesterday to Anderson Cooper. She apparently thought this would be a good time to write her thank you notes for the woeful federal response that has surely resulted in the deaths of many of her constituents.
On the other hand, Cooper was nothing short of heroic -- speaking truth to power and representing the people of New Orleans in a way that put Landrieu to shame:
"There are a lot of people here," Cooper said, "who are kind of ashamed of what is happening in this country right now, what is -- ashamed of what is happening in your state. And that's not to blame the people that are there, it is a terrible situation, but you know, who -- no one seems to be taking responsibility. I know you say there's a time and a place for kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. There are people that want answers, and people want someone to stand up and say: we should have done more."
Another journalist doing his profession proud is NBC's Tony Zumbado, whose coverage from the New Orleans convention center on MSNBC last night was remarkable. He put aside all the conventions of reporting and just spoke from his heart. He was no longer a detached journalist doing a job; he was a human being who had been shaken to his core by what he had seen. His deeply empathetic response is just the kind of thing missing from our national leaders.
"You would never ever imagine," Zumbado said, "what you saw in the convention center in New Orleans... The sanitation was unbelievable. The stench in there... was unbelievable. Dead people around the walls of the convention center, laying in the middle of the street in their dying chairs. ... They were just covered up ... Babies, two babies dehydrated and died. I'm telling you, I couldn't take it."
The words of Cummings, Cooper, and Zumbado should be required reading for all those keeping this disaster at arm's length -- starting with Bush and Landrieu. Because the urgency and intensity of our actions in this disaster will be proportionate to the depth and intensity of our feelings for those who are suffering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Clinton, Suck-Up-in-Chief
Posted September 2, 2005 at 9:40 p.m. EDT
What the hell was Bill Clinton thinking, standing there next to President Bush and providing verbal cover for the administration's ludicrous claims that the problems plaguing New Orleans were unforeseeable?
He even defended the administration's catastrophic response to Katrina. When asked on CNN whether the federal response was fast enough, Clinton bobbed, weaved, and fell back on this utterly absurd claim: "You and I are not in a position to make any judgment because we weren't there." C'mon, Bill, "...we weren't there"? I know this sucking up business is hard, but you've got to do better than that.
This disaster has been extraordinarily revealing, exposing not only Bush's failure of leadership, and the deadly consequences of his distorted priorities but also the many, many years of political neglect of the poor and the needy by both political parties. You couldn't get a much clearer illustration of the myriad ways that we have indeed become Two Nations than the stories and pictures coming out of New Orleans this week. Not too many Bush Pioneers were forced to wallow in their own feces at the Superdome.
But it's mighty hard to have a teachable moment when you have Bill Clinton, still the reigning symbol of the Democratic Party, failing to connect the dots between the Bush administration's chronic abandonment of the poor and its recent abandonment of the poor in the Big Easy -- as well as the dots between the war in Iraq and the undermining of our security here at home. And as if all this wasn't enough, there he was defending the indefensible. "I'm telling you," he said in a White House sit-down with CNN (along with Bush, Sr.), "nobody thought this was going to happen like this...they had problems they never could have foreseen." Which is absolutely, incontrovertibly, and provably untrue (many, many times over). And he is too smart not to know it.
Instead of acting like a Bush lapdog and gratefully accepting his role as Co-Disaster-Fund-Raiser-in-Chief, imagine the impact Clinton would have had if he had stepped up and made the connection between the increase in poverty and the stagnation in incomes for the fifth straight year and the post-storm suffering among the poor in New Orleans. Or imagine if he had spoken out about how the GOP's beloved new bankruptcy bill is going to further the misery of those ruined by Hurricane Katrina.
Chances to radically shift the national debate, alter the nation's perspective, and rearrange our priorities don't come along very often. President Bush squandered the teachable moment provided by 9/11, calling us not to national service but to shopping. Bill Clinton is now making it harder to use the current disaster as a wake-up call about the pent-up anger bubbling just beneath the surface of our country, about the Other America largely hidden from view, and about the urgent need to redefine national security.
Even devoted Clintonites are scratching their heads and wondering what has happened to the man once lauded as "the first black president." Is his need to be a part of this country's wealth and power establishment so great that it blinds him to reality? Is his need to be fawned over so desperate that he has forgotten how to speak the truth?
Sadly, Clinton has been remarkably consistent when it comes to sucking up to Bush -- offering his support on everything from the invasion of Iraq ("I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq," he told Time last summer) to Bush's infamous phony State of the Union claims about Saddam attempting to acquire uranium ("You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," he told Larry King sympathetically. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in a while.")
And now providing cover for George W. Bush and undermining this teachable moment. Again I ask: What the hell is he thinking?
© 2005 TheHuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Posted August 31, 2005 at 9:45 p.m. EDT
The president's 35-minute Air Force One flyover of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was the perfect metaphor for his entire presidency: detached, disconnected, and disengaged. Preferring to take in America's suffering -- whether caused by the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina -- from a distance. In this case, 2,500 feet.
Apparently, the president "sat somberly on a couch on the left hand side of the presidential jumbo jet peering out the window" at the catastrophe below, joined at different times by White House staffers including Karl Rove and Scott McClellan. McClellan later quoted the president as saying, "It's devastating. It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." Ya think?? Hey, here's an idea, Mr. President: maybe you should, y'know, get off the plane and see for yourself?
Instead, he jetted on to Washington for a brisk 9-minute Rose Garden speech designed to let us know that his administration was doing everything in its power to mitigate the looming PR disaster the flooding of New Orleans could create for the White House... Uh, I mean, everything in its power to aid the recovery.
The speech contained the usual Bush bonhomie (he's "confident" New Orleans "will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it"). But the most telling moment came when the president discussed the ways his administration was moving to help ease the suffering of profit-soaked oil companies impacted by the storm, pointing out that he had instructed Energy Secretary Sam Bodman to work with refineries to "alleviate any shortage through loans" and that the EPA had waived clean air standards for gasoline and diesel fuels in all 50 states. You could almost see him getting misty.
He also unleashed a torrent of facts and figures: "The Department of Transportation has provided more than 400 trucks to move 1,000 truckloads containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat -- or MREs, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 20 containers of pre-positioned disaster supplies, 135,000 blankets and 11,000 cots." It was as if by piling so many disparate numbers so high he might be able to block out the two most significant numbers of all: the number of National Guardsmen unable to help out in Louisiana and Mississippi because they are deployed in Iraq, and the tens of millions of hurricane and flood-control dollars that never made it to Lake Pontchartrain because they had been diverted to Iraq.
The president's Rose Garden speech followed an all-hands-on-deck press briefing earlier in the day featuring Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and as many cabinet members and agency heads as could be crammed around a podium, including Bodman of Energy, Mineta of Transportation, Johnson of the EPA, Leavitt of HHS, and McHale of DoD. It had the feel of the old circus bit where clown after clown after clown piles out of the impossibly small car.
And, like the president, Chertoff and company came armed with plenty of designed-to-obfuscate numbers. In one head-spinning riff, Chertoff rattled off info on "39 disaster medical assistance teams," "1,700 trailer trucks," "truckloads of water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents and tarpaulins," as well as the Coast Guard's "three national strike teams" and other "ships, boats and aircraft" that had "worked heroically for the last 48 hours, rescuing and assisting well more than 1,000 people who were in distress." But still no mention of those unavailable Guardsmen or the funds that were taken away from shoring up Lake Pontchartrain and shipped over to Iraq.
Those are the blood-red elephants floating belly-up in the middle of this deadly disaster -- and the reason for the full-court PR press.
During his press briefing, Chertoff declared the aftermath of Katrina "an incident of national significance." It's clear from Bush and his team's actions how worried they are that, as the facts come out, it will become "an incident of political significance" as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are People Dying Over Here Because We're Fighting Them Over There?
Posted September 1, 2005 at 3:47 p.m. EDT
Is the aftermath of Katrina part of the price we are paying for Iraq?
To the growing list of collateral damage caused by the Iraq war and Bush's stunningly inept leadership, we can now add the city of New Orleans. It's no surprise that RNC chairman Ken Mehlman doesn't want "politics" injected into the national discussion about Katrina. Or that Scottie McClellan would echo that "this is not a time for politics." Why would he when President Bush's politics and policies have made this disastrous situation so much worse than it otherwise would have been?
In his insultingly absurd "flypaper theory" Bush likes to posit an intrinsic connection between what's going on in Iraq and what's going on here at home. His version of the theory is, of course, completely wrong, but he's right that there is a connection. And it's a tragic one. And 100% airtight: every national guardsman who is in Iraq (and there are 118,000 of them) is one less guardsman who can help out right now in Mississippi and Louisiana.
About 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard and 35 percent of Louisiana's -- a combined total of roughly 6,000 troops -- are unavailable to help out because they are currently in Iraq. And despite the protestations of unnamed officials that "this had not hurt the relief effort," does anyone really believe that having 6,000 more well-trained citizen-soldiers on hand would not have made a huge difference?
As Lt. Andy Thaggard, a spokesman for the Mississippi National Guard, put it: "Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people."
And this isn't a problem that will disappear once we -- if we -- bring the troops home. Iraq is a gift that won't stop giving for years and years. National Guard recruiting is down and so are retention rates. As Alabama Guard spokesman Norman Arnold explained: "We're just losing too many out the back door." Indeed, the Alabama National Guard currently has 11,000 troops -- 78 percent of the authorized number.
And it's not just the manpower; it's the allocation of resources. The truth is that the Army Corps of Engineers was desperately trying to get the funds to prepare for just the kind of flooding that has left 90% of the homes in New Orleans underwater. Why didn't they get this much-needed funding? As Editor and Publisher explains: "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." The damning article goes on:
"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.'"
The administration's distorted priorities have deeply affected FEMA too. According to Eric Holdeman, the director of the Office of Emergency Management in King County, Washington, "the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security." His "obituary" for FEMA is both sorrowful and alarming, warning that we, as a country, are "to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond" to the "tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires" that are inevitably coming our way. Don't those affect our national security, too?
Oh, and you want to know who's running FEMA? His name is Michael Brown. And you'll be relieve to know that previous to FEMA, he was an estate lawyer.
So, yes, Ken and Scottie, I can see why you don't want this "politicized." And there will no doubt be a succession of news anchors and reporters who think it's somehow inappropriate to speak of politics at a moment like this. But it's a lot more inappropriate to refuse to acknowledge what we know. Decisions were made that unequivocally affected how disastrous this disaster has become. The Bush administration will surely call into question the patriotism of anyone who dares note the obvious. But it's holding back from pointing out the consequences of catastrophic decisions that is unpatriotic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush Hits the Scene, Giving Hope to... Uh, Trent Lott
Posted September 2, 2005 at 2:04 p.m. EDT
So President Bush has finally made it to the scene -- only four days after the storm. Unfortunately, there was no "bullhorn moment" a la his post-9/11 tour of Ground Zero -- no stirring rhetoric. Indeed, his staged briefing with the governors of Alabama and Mississippi did not inspire confidence or hope in anyone -- except maybe Trent Lott. And Lott's realtor. "The good news," said the president, "is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's gong to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Yes, he actually said that. Way to look on the bright side, Mr. President. "Fantastic!"
The president's sunny-side-up take on the Gulf Coast's Extreme Makeover came after Alabama Governor Bob Riley announced that he was launching "Operation Golden Rule." Uh, Governor... given what the authorities have been "doing unto" the beleaguered victims of Katrina, do you really think that's such a good idea?
During the briefing, FEMA head Michael Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, stood to the side, looking weak and ineffectual. Which, given their woeful performance and idiotic comments over the past few days, is probably just as well. At least they all had on their getting-down-to-business khakis.
I hope New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wasn't watching -- his head just might explode.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responding to the Disaster in the Gulf: 3 Heroes Who Get It and a U.S. Senator Who Absolutely Doesn't
Posted September 2, 2005 at 6:35 p.m. EDT
Finally, a politician has provided a response worthy of the magnitude of suffering -- especially the unnecessary suffering -- going on in New Orleans. It's just too bad it wasn't the person who has the most power to alleviate it.
At the press conference held this morning by the Congressional Black Caucus, it was an incredible relief to hear Rep. Elijah Cummings give the speech the nation has been waiting to hear. He was brimming with anger and emotion -- an appropriate response for anyone who has turned on a television or read a newspaper in the last few days, and isn't detached from any kind of human emotion.
"The difference," Cummings said, "between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age, or skin color. It would be unconscionable to stand by and do nothing... We have long heard claims of compassionate conservatism among our nation's leaders. We now want the compassion."
And given the biblical level of suffering going on, it was only appropriate that Cummings ended by quoting the bible: "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
Contrast that impassioned response to the tragedy with Mary Landrieu's robotic responses yesterday to Anderson Cooper. She apparently thought this would be a good time to write her thank you notes for the woeful federal response that has surely resulted in the deaths of many of her constituents.
On the other hand, Cooper was nothing short of heroic -- speaking truth to power and representing the people of New Orleans in a way that put Landrieu to shame:
"There are a lot of people here," Cooper said, "who are kind of ashamed of what is happening in this country right now, what is -- ashamed of what is happening in your state. And that's not to blame the people that are there, it is a terrible situation, but you know, who -- no one seems to be taking responsibility. I know you say there's a time and a place for kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. There are people that want answers, and people want someone to stand up and say: we should have done more."
Another journalist doing his profession proud is NBC's Tony Zumbado, whose coverage from the New Orleans convention center on MSNBC last night was remarkable. He put aside all the conventions of reporting and just spoke from his heart. He was no longer a detached journalist doing a job; he was a human being who had been shaken to his core by what he had seen. His deeply empathetic response is just the kind of thing missing from our national leaders.
"You would never ever imagine," Zumbado said, "what you saw in the convention center in New Orleans... The sanitation was unbelievable. The stench in there... was unbelievable. Dead people around the walls of the convention center, laying in the middle of the street in their dying chairs. ... They were just covered up ... Babies, two babies dehydrated and died. I'm telling you, I couldn't take it."
The words of Cummings, Cooper, and Zumbado should be required reading for all those keeping this disaster at arm's length -- starting with Bush and Landrieu. Because the urgency and intensity of our actions in this disaster will be proportionate to the depth and intensity of our feelings for those who are suffering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Clinton, Suck-Up-in-Chief
Posted September 2, 2005 at 9:40 p.m. EDT
What the hell was Bill Clinton thinking, standing there next to President Bush and providing verbal cover for the administration's ludicrous claims that the problems plaguing New Orleans were unforeseeable?
He even defended the administration's catastrophic response to Katrina. When asked on CNN whether the federal response was fast enough, Clinton bobbed, weaved, and fell back on this utterly absurd claim: "You and I are not in a position to make any judgment because we weren't there." C'mon, Bill, "...we weren't there"? I know this sucking up business is hard, but you've got to do better than that.
This disaster has been extraordinarily revealing, exposing not only Bush's failure of leadership, and the deadly consequences of his distorted priorities but also the many, many years of political neglect of the poor and the needy by both political parties. You couldn't get a much clearer illustration of the myriad ways that we have indeed become Two Nations than the stories and pictures coming out of New Orleans this week. Not too many Bush Pioneers were forced to wallow in their own feces at the Superdome.
But it's mighty hard to have a teachable moment when you have Bill Clinton, still the reigning symbol of the Democratic Party, failing to connect the dots between the Bush administration's chronic abandonment of the poor and its recent abandonment of the poor in the Big Easy -- as well as the dots between the war in Iraq and the undermining of our security here at home. And as if all this wasn't enough, there he was defending the indefensible. "I'm telling you," he said in a White House sit-down with CNN (along with Bush, Sr.), "nobody thought this was going to happen like this...they had problems they never could have foreseen." Which is absolutely, incontrovertibly, and provably untrue (many, many times over). And he is too smart not to know it.
Instead of acting like a Bush lapdog and gratefully accepting his role as Co-Disaster-Fund-Raiser-in-Chief, imagine the impact Clinton would have had if he had stepped up and made the connection between the increase in poverty and the stagnation in incomes for the fifth straight year and the post-storm suffering among the poor in New Orleans. Or imagine if he had spoken out about how the GOP's beloved new bankruptcy bill is going to further the misery of those ruined by Hurricane Katrina.
Chances to radically shift the national debate, alter the nation's perspective, and rearrange our priorities don't come along very often. President Bush squandered the teachable moment provided by 9/11, calling us not to national service but to shopping. Bill Clinton is now making it harder to use the current disaster as a wake-up call about the pent-up anger bubbling just beneath the surface of our country, about the Other America largely hidden from view, and about the urgent need to redefine national security.
Even devoted Clintonites are scratching their heads and wondering what has happened to the man once lauded as "the first black president." Is his need to be a part of this country's wealth and power establishment so great that it blinds him to reality? Is his need to be fawned over so desperate that he has forgotten how to speak the truth?
Sadly, Clinton has been remarkably consistent when it comes to sucking up to Bush -- offering his support on everything from the invasion of Iraq ("I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq," he told Time last summer) to Bush's infamous phony State of the Union claims about Saddam attempting to acquire uranium ("You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," he told Larry King sympathetically. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in a while.")
And now providing cover for George W. Bush and undermining this teachable moment. Again I ask: What the hell is he thinking?
© 2005 TheHuffingtonPost.com, LLC
posted by T. Scott Brineman | 12:26 PM
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