POINT THOSE FINGERS!

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Point Those Fingers
September 9, 2005

By PAUL KRUGMAN

To understand the history of the Bush administration's response to disaster, just follow the catchphrases.

First, look at 2001 Congressional testimony by Joseph Allbaugh, President Bush's first pick to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, he said, would emphasize "Responsibility and Accountability" (capital letters and boldface in the original statement). He repeated the phrase several times.

What Mr. Allbaugh seems to have meant was that state and local government officials shouldn't count on FEMA to bail them out if they didn't prepare adequately for disasters. They should accept responsibility for protecting their constituents, and be held accountable if they don't.

But those were rules for the little people. Now that the Bush administration has botched its own response to disaster, we're not supposed to play the "blame game." Scott McClellan used that phrase 15 times over the course of just two White House press briefings.

More here: http://www.radionewsamerica.com/index.php?blog=3&p=8639&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more8639


(above image can be found here: http://www.cafepress.com/koy )

[rodeodance]

1. "But those were rules for the little people."---this says it all!!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. the "blame game"

IT IS NOT A GAME!
IT IS DEADLY SERIOUS. We lost people, many people, unnecessarily there.

The crisis is just unfolding. so far only 6 confirmed deaths from cholera or other infectious diseases. It will get worse. We have only scratched the surface in finding corpses. viable estimates go from 10,000 to 4 times that number! And scottie has the balls to call it a blame game?

What a complete and total ass. He needs to eat those words.

[rodeodance]

3. nominated

[Arkansas Granny]

4. Absolutely right!

Someone needs to take responsibility for the debacle of the response to Katrina and it needs to start at the top. Also, we should all refuse to use their "blame game" terminology. It just plays right into their talking points. We should call it what it really was: Dereliction of Duty.