“Grab some black people who look like they might be preachers.” By way of Breaching the Web, this site has gathered all of the staggering quotes on Katrina emanating from the mouths of the GOP. Similarly, Salon has assembled an hour-by-hour recap of the government’s response to the hurricane. Both are well worth a read.
Category: Katrina
All the Tired Horses.
As Dubya’s numbers hit a new low and TIME Magazine starts digging deeper into “Brownie’s” resume, Dubya’s flak at FEMA belatedly gets the hook. Better late than never. By the way, can you guess to whom the White House is doling out the clean-up contracts? Here’s a hint: It starts with an H and ends with an Alliburton.
“Trent Lott’s House”…over and over again.
“We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” Seemingly devoid of the empathy enzyme in any case, many key Republicans — not just Dennis Hastert and Barbara Bush — seem to be having trouble mustering up a way to discuss Katrina that doesn’t reflect their party’s general lack of Christian compassion. When meeting with young New Orleans evacuees at the Astrodome, Boss DeLay “likened their stay to being at camp and asked, ‘Now, tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?’” Meanwhile, Rick Santorum blames Katrina on…the National Weather Service (to help out his donors at Accuweather).
Stacking the Deck.
“With the midterm congressional elections 14 months away, both parties see high stakes in where blame will eventually fall for the government’s lagging response to Katrina. Yesterday, congressional Republicans tried to get a head start, announcing the formation of an investigative commission that they can control. They rejected Democratic appeals to model the panel after the Sept. 11 commission, which was made up of non-lawmakers and was equally balanced between Republicans and Democrats.” Continuing their attempts to shield Dubya (and themselves) from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the congressional GOP set up a dummy commission to get to the bottom of absolutely nothing, just the way they want it.
Dubya and Katrina.
By way of Breaching the Web and Medley, the Hurricane Katrina timeline. Think My Pet Goat extended over several days. Nevertheless, the GOP is rallying around Dubya: “Just 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved.” Update: Out of sight, out of mind? Update 2: The Post‘s Terry Neal has more. Update 3: The government backs down on the media blackout after threat of a lawsuit by CNN.
Shattered FEMA.
“‘It’s such an irony I hate to say it, but we have less capability today than we did on September 11,’ said a veteran FEMA official involved in the hurricane response. ‘We are so much less than what we were in 2000,’ added another senior FEMA official. ‘We’ve lost a lot of what we were able to do then.‘” As Team Dubya scrambles to scapegoat state and local officials, the WP turns an eye to the dismantling of FEMA on Dubya’s watch (as noted previously here.)
Estate of Denial.
“‘The entire fiscal landscape has been transformed in the last week…The entire Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security reform and big spending on pet Republican projects is over. Events do eventually have an impact on Capitol Hill.'” The Congressional GOP confront the realization that they’ll likely be forced to postpone their ill-advised tax cut dreams in light of Katrina. Nevertheless, Catkiller Frist is undeterred, and still plans to attempt a repeal of the estate tax when Congress convenes next week…cause, y’know, the nation’s millionaires are suffering. Update: Frist backs down (for now.) AP and the NYT has more.
Mission Accomplished?
Via Value Judgment.
Homeland Insecurity.
To be honest, I’ve only had one eye on the news the past few days, as I’ve been busy relocating back to NYC. But what I have seen…oh my word. While the world looks on with a mix of horror, sympathy, and schadenfreude, New Orleans has fallen into almost-total anarchy. Other bloggers have been keeping up with the madness much better than I, so I’ll defer to them: As I noted earlier, Looka and Ed Rants are both doing a particularly good job covering the catastrophe, and Breaching the Web and Medley, among others, have ably drawn attention to both the Dubya administration’s culpability for the extent of this crisis and its grotesquely inappropriate and insufficient response. I assumed I couldn’t think any less of Dubya and his cronies after four years, but watching their sneering at desperate people, their mealy-mouthed evasiveness, and, most of all, their sheer, blatant incompetence — while Americans are suffering and dying in their homes — it’s disgusting. They’ve been exposed before all as pathetic, self-absorbed fuck-ups…at the cost of hundreds to thousands of lives and one great American city. Update: Also, by way of Booknotes, Wesley Clark weighs in on Dubya’s failure.
Love and Death in New Orleans.
“It is not comforting to realize that, in the wake of Katrina, bloated bodies are floating on those streets today. But to speak of New Orleans’s resilience is simply to cite its history — a demographic and cultural melting pot of German industry and French and Spanish elitism, of Irish gregariousness and Sicilian emotionalism, of African exuberance and American frontier cussedness that embraces death, too, as a part of life.” By way of Mystery of the Vampire, an eloquent paean to the Crescent City by long-time resident Ken Ringle.