As they've done after every crisis, right-wingers are insisting that to question the Bush administration is unpatriotic. But no one should be afraid to hold our incompetent leaders to account.
For the third time since George W. Bush became president, Americans are paying a catastrophic price for bad government. As the costs are tallied once more in death and dollars, we are being told that the wise and patriotic thing to do is shut up -- as if good citizens are obliged to remain silent about unwise and incompetent leadership.
Honest political debate over how and why we lost the great city of New Orleans, according to the latest dictates from the right, means "an excess of recrimination," "finger-pointing" and "villain hunting." Such a "vulgar" exercise risks overshadowing our normal national unity and generosity in confronting disaster with "divisiveness" and "partisanship." We are piously advised instead to do good and find common ground, to "be humble, compassionate and helpful." Thus speak the sages of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
In short, we must simply write checks to the Red Cross and choke off any critical impulse.
(snip)
So we are not to mention the downgrading of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from a Cabinet-level agency to a neglected sideline of the Department of Homeland Security. We must not say that FEMA was turned away from its mission when the president replaced its superb director, James Lee Witt, with political cronies who knew nothing about disaster planning. We cannot talk about the consistent underfunding of the Army Corps of Engineers, whose efforts to rebuild the Louisiana levees practically halted because of budget cuts last year. Above all, we must never, ever ask whether global warming might be making the annual perils of tropical weather systems much, much worse.
more…
http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/09/02/criticizing_bush/index.html
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