WPCNR NEWS COMMENTARY. By John F. Bailey. September 7, 2005: I was watching Mr. Bush a few moments ago with his cabinet gang of very nervous people behind him. He said…”We’re the problem solvers.”
Please, I want to repeat that. “We’re the problem-solvers.”
I thought I was watching The Daily Show. Which is what this Monty Python government is.
I am so glad. So solve them, already. Let’s have a timetable. If you have a plan for recovering from a disaster, let’s have it.
Where is the plan that FEMA has for recovering a major city? Could anyone please tell me? After all you had to consider an earthquake or a WMD hit, right?
Has any network nitwit asked them, well surely you must have scenario-ed a destroyed city as part of your FEMA plan. What is it? Is everything falling into place? What will you do first?
They do not know ladies and gentlemen. Most of what is being done now is out of the goodness of communities hearts which are doing the job these ridiculously overpaid FEMA FUMBLERS are supposed to be doing!
No one has pinned down whether these creative plans are the result of FEMA or American ingenuity and feeling which is great.
I am sure the Bush administration is going to be quick to claim credit for these. That would be just like them. Look how good we’re doing about relocating, putting kids in school, getting people to help. I can hear it now.
It’s not them. It is you Mr. and Ms. and Mrs. America. You students from Duke who went down and told the true story of what it was like down there.
The Bush Administration and Sean and Rush are too busy whining about it not being their fault, and saying who knew?
The President said “There is some misunderstanding between what the federal, State and local governments should do.”
Is anybody listening to this — what this jackass is saying. Has Mr. Bush ever read the Presidential Oath? He spent all day last Wednesday listening to his lawyers, according to Newsweek instead of saying the hell with the legality, we have to help these people.
Incisive! Daring.
“There is some misunderstanding between what the federal, state and local governments should do.”
Hey, Mr. Bush. It’s o.k. to help, you’re the President.
It took our peerless leader — what — 9 days to figure that out? You know he must have consulted one of his conservative think tanks.
Or maybe Rush or Sean told him. Perhaps Rush and Sean are the two dumbest people on radio today. Dumber than dirt, crueller than dirt. Hatefully superior.
Perhaps Rush and Sean should go down to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama in their $2,000 suits and mingle a little. Smell the roses. Do their shows on location. At least Geraldo is down there. The sad thing is their listeners think these two men are for them. They are for themselves. Sean was described by Randi Rhodes today as “Bush’s whore.”
I love what Rush said today. I mean people think this radio personality is so smart. Here’s what this man said today, it is another Rush classic:
There’s no difference between the Katrina disaster and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. He’s right actually.
In Galveston of 1900 there were no phones. In New Orleans of 2005, there were no phones.
There were no helicopters in Galveston. In New Orleans there were not too many to speak of either.
They shot looters in Galveston on sight, Rush said. They ordered persons to shoot looters in New Orleans, but only found five or 6 to shoot. They sent in the Guard to shoot looters and bring order but they could not find too many, The Los Angeles Times reported that today.
There was no relief in Galveston. There was no relief in New Orleans.
It took days for the news to get back to Washington about how bad it was in Galveston. It took 5 days for the news to get back to Washingon about the Gulf Coast. Thank God for television.
There was no television and radio in Galveston. There was no television or radio in New Orleans.
But I am being sophist here.
Back to the reassuring words of our peerless leader.
Mr. Bush said he was going to investigate his own administration. That’s really going to be a grilling! Reminiscent of Claude Rains telling his Casablanca police to round up the usual suspects.
And then Tom DeLay, saying how the FEMA people were working 24 hours a day without sleep, and that it was strictly a local authorities problem. Nervous, Tommy?
Mr. Brown and Mr. Chertoff don’t look too tired, do they? Neither does Mr. Bush. He does not look too tired, either. All those power suits and no power to get things done.
It’s too late.
Every Republican in congress and the senate up for election in 2006 should be doomed if any Americans had brains in their heads. No Republican or Democrat in office now can ever say to a voter we care about you.
What intrigues me is the people that write me and say this is the usual liberal trash.
It has nothing to do with being liberal, republican or democrat. It is a matter of being a decent human being who does the right thing when you are in position to do it — when you have “the con” as they say in the Navy. You can’t pull a Captain Queeg every time you get in a jam.
I allege Mr. Bush is not a decent human being. I ask, what would Jesus do?
I lump all those people who claim they represent the American people in that category, too.
It has taken a week before any elected yo-yo has spoken up about what has happened here.
Other than the Louisiana Republican Congressman and the tentative plaintive pitiful Mary Landreau and that includes Hillary Clinton, AND her husband Bill. We still have not heard Chuck Schumer’s take. Maybe Chuckie Cheese is on vacation, too.
However Hillary the Hopeful today called for rolling FEMA out of the DHS and into the cabinet. How gutsy. How timely. How creative. How sensitive.
And hey, how about Greta the Griller collaring Hillary yesterday and not asking her flat out, how would you have handled this situation Mrs. Clinton if you were President? Do you think the President should have overrode the Governor and sent in the troops? You have to ask that question. How about asking Bill the same thing, Grets? Smoke the hypocrits who have simply being laying low.
It took Hillary and Bill a week to figure that out? A week to figure we have to have an investigation? Get out of here! This was a no-brainer, but then the Clintons have shown a lack of brains before, a lack of a sense of timing, and appropriateness of time and place.
Those qualities alone, based on the Bush supporters out there who love the guy, these qualities dutifully qualify Hillary for President, judged on the swift decision-making in the White House. She will fit right in.
Now, our congress in Washington is starting to finger point as they see which way the wind is blowing. Finally, a tad of outrage.
When you consider that The Department of Homeland Security did not even run up an Orange Alert 9 days ago, you can see how much they were paying attention. In fact, as far as I can see, the only thing the Department of Homeland Security has done, other than hold a lot of good, chummy, security conferences and comaraderie is create the Orange Yellow, Amber heightened state of awareness system and improve airport security, which of course is being taken away by cuts to the FAA Air Traffic Control System. Can anyone think of anything else, other than the airport search lines? I’m serious?
And what has FEMA been doing? Look, it was crummy under James Witt, too. Remember the signs on rooftops in North Carolina during Hurricane Hugo? How about the Mississippi floods? Not too many boats then either. Witt is the genius who told this reporter personally that he did not know the toxic level of a radiation cloud from Indian Point. This is the expertise level of these bureaucrats and congress people. They are good getalong people. They each protect the backside of the other.
You think they know a lot. But, the sad fact is they do not. They are incompetents for the most part who have risen to their positions because they appear likable and appear to care, and do the bidding of their highest contributors, not you. Appear is the key word.
They don’t care. I cannot emphasize that enough.
Mr. Bush does not. Mr. Cheney does not. Mr. Lott does not (gutless statement by him tonight about not biting the hand that’s trying to help you — is that a veiled threat?). Ms. Rice does not. Mr. Brown does not. Mr. Chertoff does not. The list goes on and on.
Some more photo-ops for Mr. Rove to put in his “To Do List,” it is the least WPCNR can do to help the damage control program put into effect by The Bush Team, and if ever there was an approriate name, it is The Bush Team. Bush League!
Today’s Top 13 Photo Ops from the Karl Rove To Do List:
1. Have President pose with the King of Saudi Arabia announcing a cut in the Barrel Price of Oil, perhaps a $1. That was actually happening today (a quick call by Daddy to his pals in Saudi Arabia perhaps?)
2. Pose members of his cabinet in blue jeans tomorrow. (When are we going to realize a sharp suit, a white shirt, and close haircut, and a big belly do not do not do not mean competance?)
3. Show Mr. Bush with a chain saw clearing wreckage in Missouri.
4. Show Mrs. Bush, helping to give hepatitis shots, perhaps to a grinning young African-American.
5. Show President Bush in a classroom with displaced Louisiana kids going to school.
6. Have Mr. Bush attend an NFL Opener in Texas with Louisiana evacuees ( I think that has great potential), announcing an NFL Build, House and Teach Contest.
7. Arrange for Mr. Chertoff or Mr. Brown to resign. Or both — or perhaps a reassignment to head the investigation of themselves while simultaneously bringing in Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki to oversee the rebuilding effort. (They are still arguing over rebuilding the Trade Center.)
8. Show Mr. Bush and members of congress with three giant $40 Billion Check made out to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Mayor Delfino finds this very effective in getting a point across.
9. Next create a contingency of Republican Leaders labeled the “Republican Rescuers” who personally tour the areas. ( A former Executive Officer of White Plains found the personal tour very effective.)
10. Show President Bush at the switch that throws on the electricity to one New Orleans building.
11. When Dick Cheney arrives Thursday (9 days after the levee break), have Dick treated at one of the medical centers treating the folks needing medical care.
12. Have the FCC Chairman make the first call when the first phones go back on in the city.
13. Have Mr. Gonzalez, the Attorney General, sitting down with the Governors of all 50 states to thrash out “American Rapid Response” — the new three color code of awareness of need system that states can run up on state flag poles: Green for Send Aid Now. Yellow for Send a Little Aid, and Red for we’re O.K. But there will be varying shades of flags: Lime for send troops and food, but no water, etc.
That way lawyers and Homeland Security people will not mistake the need.
How am I doing, Mr. Rove? Just doing my part in Damage Control Response!
