Monthly Archives: September 2005

Courtesy of Media Matters, Fox News tries to spin the devastating timeline that illustrates the total imcompetence of the Bush Administration by leaving off some key facts. Too bad the internet exists and we can find accurate timelines ourselves…

The September 12 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes included a deceptive on-screen Hurricane Katrina timeline that purported to cover developments in the storm and emergency response from August 24-30. Echoing a Bush administration official who falsely told The Washington Post that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) failed to declare a state of emergency, Fox’s timeline omitted Blanco’s August 26 declaration of a state of emergency while including similar declarations by the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama. Similarly, the timeline echoed Bush administration claims that the levee breaks were unexpected: The timeline indicated that, on August 30, three New Orleans levees broke and “water poured into [the] city” but did not mention that two levees that broke on the morning of August 29, triggering catastrophic flooding.

Seriously, can’t we sue Fox News for this kind of shit? If Dan Rather can get fired for publishing a forged memo, can’t this fake bullshit from Fox be taken to court?

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republicans across the nation are scrambling to defend President George W. Bush after he ate a baby during a visit to the White House kitchen early last evening.
Eye witnesses report that the president left the White House residence at around 8:05 p.m. eastern time wearing what appeared to be a crudely stitched “woman suit made from actual women”.

Wow. I’m not the only one that’s horrified by the reactions of the people around them to the hurricane. For those of you scolding me for getting upset at my friend’s racist emails… Read this L. A. Weekly piece by Tim Wise talking about the people sitting at a table near him in a restaurant.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal — and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word — moralistically scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them — all of them, without distinction, it seemed — for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big-screen TVs.
I heard you ask, amid the din of your colleagues’ “Amens,” why it was that instead of pitching in to help their fellow Americans, the people of New Orleans instead — again, all of them, in your mind — chose to steal and shoot at relief helicopters.
I watched you wipe salsa from the corners of your mouth, as you nodded agreement to the statement of one of your friends, her hair neatly coifed after using Malie Shampoo, her makeup flawless, her jewelry sparkling. When you asked, rhetorically, why it was that people were so much more decent amid the tragedy of 9/11, as compared to the aftermath of Katrina, she had offered her response, but only after apologizing for what she admitted was going to sound harsh.
“Well,” Buffy explained. “It’s probably because in New Orleans, it seems to be mostly poor people, and, you know, they just don’t have the same regard.”
…
Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.
…
Your God — the one to whom you prayed today, and likely do before every meal, because this gesture proves what a good Christian you are — is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying fuck about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps 10,000 or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.
Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mothers’ arms, and letting old people die in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street? But no, it isn’t God who’s the asshole here, Skip (or Brad, or Braxton, or whatever your name is).

This is one of my favorite articles ever.

The Newsweek article:

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less “situational awareness,” as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn’t read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.
But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street.

From Houston Chronicle blog:

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it’s like to be living in shelter.
While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.
The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”
They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

Just half an hour before I read this, Stephanie and I were talking about what it must be like for the kids caught in the hurricane. One of my most vivid memories from childhood is when I was five years old and our house was hit by a tornado. I remember my parents scrambling us down in the basement to hide under the workbench, and the look of fear on my Dad’s face, which to me was far more terrifying than the storm itself, because I thought (and sometime still do) my Dad was invincible. If he was scared, I knew something was really wrong.
I imagine all the kids in New Orleans have had that kind of shock and fear go through them, and for most it was far worse than what I remember. We had someplace to stay while my parents rebuilt our house; we went to live with my grandmother for the summer. But I also still remember all the things I had that blew away or were destroyed in the tornado; my pink piggy bank, my sonny & cher poster, lots of my clothes that had to be replace because they had broken glass in them.
It’s kind of silly to remember that stuff, but it had a lot to do with my feelings of place and security being gone.

According to CNN:

Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of the former vice president’s son.
Gore… refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew on September 3 and 4.
Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore’s son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.
“The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute — food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and … corpses outside”