Mo Dowd: United States of Shame

[paineinthearse]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html?th&emc=th&oref=login

September 3, 2005
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD

Stuff happens. And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens. America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer. Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses. Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs. Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports. Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "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." Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

more........

[MichiganVote]

1. George Bush=the ultimate "Who Me?" administration

[rfranklin]

2. Aren't you proud Maureen? You helped get Bush into...

the White House with your biased attacks on Al Gore. You are as responsible as anyone for those dead people in New Orleans. You share the blame! May you burn in Hell!

[camby]

4. Speaking of Al Gore,

I saw last night what a "real" president would be doing - I was channel surfing through the news networks, and there I saw him, in T-shirt and sweaty, he was talking with some guardsmen. No fanfare, no photo-ops, just rolling up his sleeves and lending a hand. Now THAT is the difference between a man who has dedicated his life to public service and a smirking jackass of a politician.

[livetohike]

3. Thanks for posting this

All columnists should be revealing that sham of a President for what he really is.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

5. Mo hits a home run. Will heads roll in the White House? Of course not.

If there is an ounce of decency in the Republican Party they will memorize every single word in this article, meet tomorrow morning and take steps to remove every single mushwit (new word, love it) out of the people's White House. This is particularly telling in Dowd's article...

(snip)

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

I'm guessing the metalsmithes are gearing up their equipment for another round of Medals of Freedom to be handed out like favors at a child's birthday party.

Rice (that's just playing catch up, she missed in the first round), Chertoff, Brown, Cheney (if Condi gets one...), probably the wives, Lynn and Laura (in prep of getting their asses on the ballot somewhere, somehow), all Republican elected officials in the Gulf Coast region, and maybe the twins because everyone is being so nasty to them about their lack of jobs or service. Then finally, of course, Bush will have to award one for himself. Every mother in the world knows you have to have a party favor for the birthday child even when they are getting scads of pretty wrapped presents.