LIHOP, Willful Neglect, or Just Pure Incompetence and Cronyism?

[ClevelandSportsCurse]

Poll question: LIHOP, Willful Neglect, or Just Pure Incompetence and Cronyism?

Rate the Bush performance regarding Hurricane Katrina relief and the subsequent human disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

If it is for sure that the black people will be permanently dispersed (given the shuttling of them to far away places) so that corporations will move in and create a corporate Disneyland, then it has to be LIHOP. But given that MS and AL were also delayed in their relief too, I tend to think it is either willful neglect or pure incompetence.

[applegrove]

1. Willfull incompetence & cronyism! Add that!

[ClevelandSportsCurse]

7. Hmm...upon further thought...

It's definitely possible that they would have no clue, but not care to get one either.

But I will leave the original poll intact to err on the side of making DUers think carefully and thoroughly before voting. :D

[ananda]

2. I can't rate one

It could be all of them.

Sue

[ClevelandSportsCurse]

5. Sorry, I had to leave off All of the Above

I had to make it a little challenging :evilgrin:

[patrice]

3. Those bastards were "doing their back-room" deals

to insure the professional credit and the contracts went to the right people.

[Bucky]

4. You left off MIHOP. Pat Robertson is a supporter of his, after all.

[LandOLincoln]

6. All of the above. n/t

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

8. I'm trying not to be cynical, but I've got to call this

incompetence on the government's part. Also, am I cruel for not wanting to hear anymore about Trent Lott's f'king house? I sympathize, but LOtt can rebuild his house. Many people lost a lot more.

[applegrove]

9. I think you should put more options than three. And welcome to the DU.

But three options is not specific enough.

[Emit]

10. I can't help but think that they delayed purposefully

in order to make it look like they were really needed so they could come in like knights in shining armour or to make the Dems in NO look bad.

If you had asked this poll yesterday, I would say just blatant ineptness. It seems different to me today, though.

The news from last night to today has confirmed my thoughts on that. Yesterday and before, we saw unprecedented pleas from Geraldo, Cooper and Smith about the chaos. Today, it's a different tune, with new shiny, pretty, clean, female reporters staged with hot sweaty survivors asking "Isn't this great-you're being rescued!" Even Geraldo must've been told to tone it down---I thought he was gonna cream his pants today when he was describing in senseless detail about the wonderful Shinook helicopters--"Look. Look. There it goes!" (Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to see the people getting the f- out of there!) But it wasn't about the people, as much as it was a stage for the rescue.

Maybe I'm being too cynical, or reading far too much into this, but really, could they be that inept? There is something innately wrong with the way this was handled---the reality we saw on live TV vs. the spin in the studio vs. the FEMA website press releases and all the passing the buck and blaming the Dem government of NOLA---total Orwellian disconnect.

Also, today, I read a post (or two) here about CNN showing photos of African-Americans in NO, asking if race and class were factors in the botched relief efforts, with the voice-over from the reporter in NY said the following......"If they had voted...or voted differently, for stronger leaders..."

Then Bush says response time is not acceptable and now NYT has an article saying Mike Brown of FEMA didn't know until yesterday that there were people in the convention center. They're going to spin that. They're not going to hold themselves responsible, or investigate themselves. No way.

The day before yesterday, on one of the MSM channels, I heard a talking head comparing this event to 9/11 and Rudy Guiliani. He said something like, "First of all you had a man..." He said that! I was in another room, and ran to see who it was, but didn't catch it. Wish I had.

Nope. Something more than ineptness is going on here. They're going to turn this around, place the blame on the Dems and people of color and women. They're going to say, "The grownups are here!" And if people rise up against them, they have the power of Martial Law, so what do they care? They have the WMD.

They wanted the appearance of chaos in order to provide a reason for their prescribed totalitarianism: Controlled chaos so that they can be perceived as the answer to the chaos. It's one of the Machiavellian tactics: Clandestinely create the problem and then solve the problem heroically so the masses will follow.

Okay. I'm punchy. Tired. Worried about my relatives in NOLA. Off to have a beer. bye.