A classic narcissist -- it's all about HIM. Not about the tens of thousands of people he abandoned in squalor in New Orleans because he couldn't fucking be bothered to trouble his beautiful mind in the middle of vacation. But once there starts being POLITICAL fallout for him, George W. Bush is on the job.
I really hope that the media spin around the slow improvement situation doesn't cause people to forget that this president played golf and did political appearances while American citizens were dying in their own homes and in squalid so-called "shelters".
This tragedy has pulled aside the curtain on what Bush's vision of America is, and it's not a pretty one. It's time to stop defending or spinning the Bush agenda as anything other than what it is: a drive to turn this into a third-world banana republic, with a small group of the well-protected wealthy, with everyone else scrambling for the scraps left over after they've gorged themselves unto vomiting. If you haven't read Driftglass' post yet, do it now. Because he's absolutely right. New Orleans is Bush's "ownership society" made flesh....rotting flesh.
Bush butt-lickers Elisabeth Bumiller and Adam Nagorney report in the New York Times this morning:
In a sign of the mounting anxiety at the White House, Mr. Bush made a rare Saturday appearance in the Rose Garden before live television cameras to announce that he was dispatching additional active-duty troops to the Gulf Coast. He struck a more somber tone than he had at times on Friday during a daylong tour of the disaster region, when he had joked at the airport in New Orleans about the fun he had had in his younger days in Houston. His demeanor on Saturday was similar to that of his most somber speeches after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," said Mr. Bush, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
The president was flanked by his high military and emergency command: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
As Mr. Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines, as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Mr. Bush's overseer of communications strategy. Their presence underscored how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis it faces.
"Where our response is not working, we'll make it right," Mr. Bush said, as Mr. Bartlett, with a script in his hand, followed closely.
Mounting anxiety at the White House -- not about the people dying in New Orleans, but about Bush's political fortunes. So what do they do? Go into the fucking Rose Garden and read from a script. Does anyone honestly believe that this president gives a flying fuck about these people? Does anyone honestly believe that he cares about ANYTHING but how he'll be remembered?
I wish I could say that it's too late for him to care, because history will remember him as the worst travesty ever to live in the White House. But alas, I fear that once this Administration gets back on his feet, and Americans aren't faced every day with pictures of corpses lying in the water in the United States of America, and people still waiting on their roofs, people like Anderson Cooper and Shepard Smith will choose their White House access over the truth, and we'll be right back where we started, with Cokie Roberts rewriting history and calling Bush's response "masterful" and "caring."
And by the way, in case you were wondering, Rep. Roy Blunt (Scumbag - Missouri) said yesterday that it would be a mistake to abandon efforts to eliminate the estate tax, because the economy is going to need the boost from tax cuts.
Leave it to the Republicans. When there's a national crisis, and the nation is drowning in debt, use it as an excuse to institute a tax cut that will benefit less than 1% of the population.
Oh, and from the "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead" file? Rehnquist has died. Let's see what kind of wingnut C-Plus Nero puts up for the Court now -- and whether the Democrats can find their balls enough to kick up a fuss.
I'm going back to bed.
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