Frank Rich: Falluja Floods the Superdome

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html?pagewanted=print

AS the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

After dispatching Katrina with a few sentences of sanctimonious boilerplate ("our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens"), he turned to his more important task. The war in Iraq is World War II. George W. Bush is F.D.R. And anyone who refuses to stay his course is soft on terrorism and guilty of a pre-9/11 "mind-set of isolation and retreat." Yet even as Mr. Bush promised "victory" (a word used nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln more than two years ago. For this return engagement, The Washington Post reported, the president's stage managers made sure he was positioned so that another hulking aircraft carrier nearby would stay off-camera, lest anyone be reminded of that premature end of "major combat operations."

This administration would like us to forget a lot, starting with the simple fact that next Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the day we were attacked by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Even before Katrina took command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall. But hard as it is to reflect upon so much sorrow at once, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the real history surrounding 9/11; it is the Rosetta stone for what is happening now. If we are to pull ourselves out of the disasters of Katrina and Iraq alike, we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the administration's faith-based propaganda. Everything connects.

Though history is supposed to occur first as tragedy, then as farce, even at this early stage we can see that tragedy is being repeated once more as tragedy. From the president's administration's inattention to threats before 9/11 to his disappearing act on the day itself to the reckless blundering in the ill-planned war of choice that was 9/11's bastard offspring, Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance.

[tanyev]

1. "Sanctimonious boilerplate"

That's a good one.

[BQueen]

2. I like the visual of Smith tossing "hand grenades of harsh reality"

into the "No Spin Zone"

great read, and don't miss the E&P excoriation here http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054581

[kstewart33]

3. Frank Rich column (NYT Sunday): "Fallujah Floods the Superdome"

Falluja Floods the Superdome

By FRANK RICH
Published: September 4, 2005

AS the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html

[Penndems]

4. Frank Rich/NYT: "Falluja Floods the Superdome"

Published: September 4, 2005

<snip>

The president's declaration that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." The administration's complete obliviousness to the possibilities for energy failures, food and water deprivation, and civil disorder in a major city under siege needs only the Donald Rumsfeld punch line of "Stuff happens" for a coup de grâce. How about shared sacrifice, so that this time we might get the job done right? After Mr. Bush's visit on "Good Morning America" on Thursday, Diane Sawyer reported on a postinterview conversation in which he said, "There won't have to be tax increases."

<snip>

In that sense, the inequality of the suffering has not only exposed the sham of the relentless photo-ops with black schoolchildren whom the president trots out at campaign time to sell his "compassionate conservatism"; it has also positioned Katrina before a rapt late-summer audience as a replay of the sinking of the Titanic. New Orleans's first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was a horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself.

<snip>

On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped "people don't play politics during this period of time." Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won't be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he'll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won't Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.

But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy. Eventually we're going to have to examine the administration's behavior before, during and after this storm as closely as its history before, during and after 9/11. We're going to have to ask if troops and matériel of all kinds could have arrived faster without the drain of national resources into a quagmire. We're going to have to ask why it took almost two days of people being without food, shelter and water for Mr. Bush to get back to Washington.
**********************************************************************
Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html?pagewanted=1

[norml]

5. Falluja Floods the Superdome: By FRANK RICH

Falluja Floods the Superdome

By FRANK RICH
Published: September 4, 2005

AS the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

After dispatching Katrina with a few sentences of sanctimonious boilerplate ("our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens"), he turned to his more important task. The war in Iraq is World War II. George W. Bush is F.D.R. And anyone who refuses to stay his course is soft on terrorism and guilty of a pre-9/11 "mind-set of isolation and retreat." Yet even as Mr. Bush promised "victory" (a word used nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln more than two years ago. For this return engagement, The Washington Post reported, the president's stage managers made sure he was positioned so that another hulking aircraft carrier nearby would stay off-camera, lest anyone be reminded of that premature end of "major combat operations."

This administration would like us to forget a lot, starting with the simple fact that next Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the day we were attacked by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Even before Katrina took command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall. But hard as it is to reflect upon so much sorrow at once, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the real history surrounding 9/11; it is the Rosetta stone for what is happening now. If we are to pull ourselves out of the disasters of Katrina and Iraq alike, we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the administration's faith-based propaganda. Everything connects.


snip


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html

[norml]

6. Well, I guess people noticed this article.

Discussion Topic Author Last updated date Replies
Falluja Floods the Superdome: By FRANK RICH norml Sun Sep-04-05 02:47 AM 0
Frank Rich/NYT: "Falluja Floods the Superdome" Penndems Sun Sep-04-05 02:47 AM 0
what Republican "leaders" really think of NO mzteris Sun Sep-04-05 02:47 AM 4
New Orleans and the Death of the Common Good- By CHRIS FLOYD KG Sun Sep-04-05 02:46 AM 9
Frank Rich column (NYT Sunday): "Fallujah Floods the Superdome" kstewart33 Sun Sep-04-05 02:45 AM 0
Frank Rich: Falluja Floods the Superdome RamboLiberal Sun Sep-04-05 02:44 AM 0

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. Always eagerly anticipated, rarely disappoints. Thanks, Frank.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Thanks for posting. Excellent article.

[biscotti]

9. I checked NYT about

an hour ago and no Frank Rich yet. Thanks so much for posting this.I would have missed it.

[Catt03]

10. Thanks Rich!

[Lifelong Protester]

11. Thanks for posting the link

we often don't get the NYTimes here in the boondocks, although I read it online, I might have missed it. Frank Rich has eloquently put into words the thoughts and disgust, that we all have been feeling here, at the LONG CHAIN of screw-ups of this administration.

Hey, bush BASE people, the 'haves and have mores', ya listening? Getting the idea that come the revolution you won't be able to hide out in those gated communities for too long?

[pippin]

12. Great on the Mark

piece. More people ought to be reading this analysis.

For those including * who say we shouldn't "politicize the situation":

"On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped "people don't play politics during this period of time." Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won't be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he'll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won't Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.
But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy."

[belle]

13. Rich outdoes himself, which is saying something. Right on, Frank.

A classic, really.

[teryang]

14. The California energy crisis was the Rosetta stone

Engineered by longtime Bush crony Kenneth Lay in a CIA like operation of phony corporate shells, California was bled white, billions were ripped off and secreted in off shore accounts while the people suffered, and federal regulators and other so called leaders DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but count their left over campaign contributions and capital gains.

JebFRAUD had the Florida State Pension Fund buy over $200,000,000.00 worth of Enron stock a few days before its collapse to further enrich the criminal conspiracy as it walked offshore leaving tens of thousands of ruined lives in its wake.

911 was a criminal conspiracy of treasonous murderers who still serve inside the Bush administration.

Anyone remember the Savings and Loan crisis? Iran Contra? These people are above the law.