It's not just us liberals and Bush haters criticizing The George and his security clown-brigade for their abject bungling of the Katrina disaster.
And we're up to here with being lectured by Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, John Carlson and Rush Limbaugh for playing politics in a crisis because we're calling it for what it is.
We say the administration has done too little, too late, and arrogantly. And if you believe half of what the Prez has been telling us about terrorist dangers--it's down right frightening.
(Where are you and your security moms now, Michelle Malkin? Can you still sleep at night? We'll tell you where Michelle is--she's "investigating" Air America, which is kind of like watching the pancakes so they don't scorch as the house burns down. We gotta be honest, Michelle--our love for you is all abiding and unconditional--but how can you still make excuses for this agrammatical fuck-up and his top down, cronyistic, scandal-ridden attempts at governing, war-mongering, and crisis management? Even if everything you insinuate about Al Franken and AAR were true, it wouldn't rise to the toenails of the crass disingenuousness and deadly ineptitude of the administration. How can you play politics at a time like this?)
Michelle may be sticking her pretty little head in the sand, but Republicans--many returning to Congress from the purple plains of heartland outrage--are speaking up and out:
''Almost every Republican I have spoken with is disappointed in Bush's performance. He is a strong president...but he has never really focused on the importance of good execution. I think that is true in many parts of his presidency. I do think people think he could have showed stronger leadership." --William Kristol, conservative columnist with close White House ties. ''
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"If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"--former House Speaker, Republican rainmaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich
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"The president, finally making it to the Gulf Coast after five days . . . getting a briefing that frankly he could have gotten back at the White House. A lot of that seemed like a political opportunity for the cameras and the Republican governors." --Daryn Kagan, Rush Limbaugh's squeeze and CNN anchor
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"If our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning and that was intent on causing as much death and destruction as possible? --Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Committee
This is not just about Bush's recent behavior--these are problems endemic to his regime. KIRO's Dave Ross, (m-f, 3-6p) interviewed King County director of the Office of Emergency Management, Eric Holdeman last week whose Washington Post piece, Destroying FEMA appeared days before anyone knew the immensity of the problems caused by FEMA's hesitation and bungling.
[This disaster] is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.
Holdeman assembled an obituary for FEMA which was "once considered the preeminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present."
A Cabinet-level agency, Bush started dismantling it in January 2001 and folded it into the Department of Homeland Security after the 9-11 attacks.
This year, according to Holdeman, the agency received a death blow even though it was already on life support. It was announced it will officially lose the disaster preparedness function that it's always had--FEMA employees were directed to not become involved in these functions, since a new directorate (not yet established) will have that mission.
Those duties are supposed to trickle down onto underfunded state and local emergency management who are unclear how they fit into the national plans.
Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.
To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.
These are not criticisms based on politics. We're hearing from Republicans, none of them mavericks, who wrote many of these policies, and created the institutions being torn down or neglected to death.They know that they and their party will pay the price for the sins of their President.
We're hearing the pleas of a consummate emergency management professional worried for America.
The rotten fruits of this anti-policy has dropped to the ground--and we're reaping its deadly bounty. Why is it when Bush screws up, people die? And why do people have to die before we wake up?
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