A New Strategy

Karen Hughes, our nation's Undersecretary of State tasked with making us look less threatening and evil to the Arab world, appears to have adopted a new strategy in her career-long effort to make George W. Bush look less dumb -- she's decided to be even stupider than he is.
Sidney Blumenthal provides an account in Salon of Ms. Hughes' first trip to the Mideast in her new role. The article is both hilarious and frightening. Read it. Here is an excerpt:

"Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans' lives," she said. When an Egyptian opposition leader inquired why President Bush mentions God in his speeches, she asked him "whether he was aware that previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our Constitution cites 'one nation under God.' He said, 'Well, never mind.'"

The phrase cited by Ms. Hughes never, of course, appears in the U. S. Constitution. Even the second-graders who have to recite it daily know that it was added to the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE in 1954, to distinguish our fair people from the Godless Soviets.
But apparently that bit of history escaped the bovine Ms. Hughes.

The Blame Game

Former FEMA chief Michael Brown's laughable performance before Congress yesterday was the latest move in the Bush administration's attempt to play the "blame game" by pinning its failure to respond appropriately to the Hurrican Katrina emergency on state and local elected officials who just happen to be Democrats.
On Monday came the outrageous news that "Brownie", who resigned in disgrace just two weeks ago, is still on the administration's payroll -- as a consultant to the very organization he shamed. Making this even more shocking was the disclosure that he is being paid to analyze the failures in the response to the hurricane.
Tuesday's performance made it clear that the "analysis" will be a brazen attempt to fix the blame on others, once more shirking responsibility for one of the worst failures of government to protect its citizens in our history.
The Bush administration has shown over the past five years that it considers governance to be nothing more than performance art. Any situation, no matter how serious, can be reduced to a photo op or a sound byte.
Last weekend, in just one egregious example, Bush made a big deal about how he needed to waste fuel and hinder emergency preparedness activities by making a site visit to a command center in Texas, then abruptly cancelled the visit when his handlers learned that the weather in San Antonio was likely to be sunny rather than rainy and windy. Clearly, if he couldn't pose like Anderson Cooper and Geraldo Rivera, he wasn't interested.
This is completely in character for a president who insisted on making a long, moody walk through the darkness in a New Orleans park to deliver a worthless address on recovery, who thought nothing of cancelling chemotherapy for patients at a San Diego hospital so he could get his picture taking (while Katrina was raging in the Gulf of Mexico), who donned his Village People drag to prance across the deck of an aircraft carrier to proclaim victory while lives were being wasted in Iraq.
This former governer of Texas insisted last weekend that one of the reasons he needed to visit the emergency control center the state he formerly governed was to see how state and local officials work together.
George W. Bush has become something less than a laughing stock. He is a disgrace to this nation, a politician who has shown himself to have less character than Richard Nixon, less of a connection to the people than his father, the notoriously out-of-touch George H.W. Bush, less regard for the facts than Ronald Reagan.
And we've got three more years to go.

Still Trying to Dodge the Bullet

Wonkette reports that W. and his spinners continue to try to convince us that anyone believed, or reported, that New Orleans "dodged the bullet" in the hurricane. From a press briefing yesterday:

Q Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?

THE PRESIDENT: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people
said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.

Sheesh. That lie didn't work when Michael Chertoff told it. Why are they still trotting it out?

Another Stunt From the Chimp

When will George W. Bush and his trainers realize that we the people are totally over his brand of photo-op leadership?
The White House has announced that he will address the nation "from Louisiana" Thursday night. Jeezy peezy. Maybe he should sit down at his desk and do some work some time, instead of wasting taxpayer money flying himself, a ton of staff, security detail, cameras, etc., into the flood zone.
At a time when fuel prices are rising in front of our eyes, his decision to waste money on a stunt is deplorable.

The New Most Offensive Katrina Quote

"I believe the devastating hurricane that hit the United States occurred because people in Iraq or Afghanistan -- maybe a mother who had lost her son or a son whose parents were killed or a woman who was raped -- were praying for God and God accepted their prayers." -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

The right will, of course, pounce on this quote as evidence that those of us who have spent time and effort to make sure the Bush administration is held accountable for its inaction and poor judgement are comforting the enemy.
But the left needs to hold its ground and make sure that the truth is understood: That the administration, through five years of poor judgement, bad faith and malfeasance has created a situation in which al-Zarqawi and his ilk have become forces of influence in Iraq.
Bush has made his bed on several continents now. His lies cannot be allowed to be enough to get him out of the trouble he has created.

Unbelievable

The Bush administration is evidently still trying to cut funds for agencies that provide hurricane protection. The only good thing about it is that even Republicans are starting to cry foul.

*****

And the administration has dispatched 195 emergency workers armed with 47 vehicles, three huge field kitchens and portable emergency water treatment equipment sent as aid by our neighbors in Mexico -- to San Antonio, Texas, which has plenty of both. And they can't even tell us why! Seems they're playing their version of the "blame game" -- agencies pointing the finger at each other for an explanation of the decision.

Words That Will Live in Infamy

My personal top 10 vile, asinine, heartless, arrogant, obnoxious comments from the Katrina disaster:

1. "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." -- George W. Bush
2. "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston ... What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them." -- Barbara Bush
3. "I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'" -- Michael Chertoff
4. "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" -- Tom DeLay
5. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." -- George W. Bush
6. "I think all of those remarks are disgusting, to be perfectly frank, because of course President Bush cares about everyone in our country." -- Laura Bush
7. "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did." -- Rep. Richard Baker, R-La.
8. “Michael Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge.” -- Michael Chertoff
9. "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." -- George W. Bush
10. "They're all very thankful where they find themselves right now." -- Dick Cheney

This Makes for Incredible Reading

This timeline is making the rounds of the blogosphere, and rightfully so. It's just a staggering portraint of the incompetence and lack of concern our criminally negligent president showed in the face of disaster.
I hope he enjoyed that baseball game while people were drowning in the Big Easy.

I Wish I Understood...

...why all of my postings have migrated way down to the bottom of the page. I can't see what is causing this but it gets on my nerves...

Dr. Ben Marble, American Hero

He's the young emergency physician who told Vice President Dick to go fuck himself yesterday. For his efforts, he was handcuffed and detained by Cheney's goons for 20 minutes or so. Read all about him at OpEdNews.com.
Here's a brief sample of the excellent article:

So let’s get this straight: A physician with a newborn baby loses most everything he owns in the hurricane, does what most of us WANT to do and “echoes” Cheney’s words he spoke on the Senate floor last year, walks away harmlessly, mission accomplished, and then once the media cameras leave, he is treated like a foreign terrorist as Cheney’s goons waving M-16s handcuff him in front of his destroyed home? Had it not been for the media cameras filming the initial scene, I doubt Cheney’s goons would have just let Marble go after 20 minutes.America, land of the free?

The Media Falls Back Into Line

After a few days in which it seemed that the U.S. media might have developed a spine in its dealings with the Bush administration, things have gone back to normal. Once again they are toeing the administration line and defending the Bush team's criminal incompetence.
Media Matters for America has the best summary I have seen of the inept, dishonest coverage of Nancy Pelosi's recent comments about her meeting with Bush.
Shameful.

Go Fuck Yourself, Mr. Cheney

I just wanted to join in the chorus of praise for the anonymous well-wisher whose greeting to Vice President Dick made it onto CNN this afternoon. Thanks for making sure VP Dick's opportunistic photo op didn't go off as planned. I hope the right-wing thugs who attacked you didn't hurt you.
Here's the clip.

My "Katrina Day" Prayer

So the orangutan-in-chief has declared September 16 a "Katrina Prayer Day" for those who don't have an earthly prayer of getting help from this incompetent, lying, cheating, thieving administration.
Here's my personal prayer: That those dang red-staters have learned their lesson and go for Hillary in '08.

Rules of Republican Governance

In today's news:
1) Don't Let the Legislators Legislate: California's idiot governor Arnold has announced he will veto the gay marriage bill that was passed by both houses of the state legislature. His reasoning: That this issue should be decided in the courts or in the polls. Heaven forbid that the legislature should actually pass a law! This from a man whose political party never tires of complaining about "activist" judges -- we should let the courts decide this issue!?!?!?!?
2) Don't Let the Deliberators Deliberate: The Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to disallow debate on and amendments to the $52 billion hurricane relief bill on its docket for today. Democrats want amendments that include measures to restructure FEMA -- an agency broken thanks to Bush's criminal mismanagement -- but the Repugnicans have ruled out debate without even letting members read the bill.

Haven't We Had Enough of Barbara Bush, Too?

She's just as obnoxious as her son.
At least we know where he inherited his supercilious sense of entitlement.
Here's what the superannuated sorority girl cum battleaxe-in-chief had to say about the Hurricane Katrina victims, as reported in Editor & Publisher and Salon:
"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move toHouston ... What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them."
So compassionate. So motherly.
Heh-heh-heh.

A Perfect Time For Politics

When should politics come to the forefront? When the government is not doing its job, as is the case at the moment, in the response to Hurrican Katrina.
The government's lapses are so apparent that even right-wingers are questioning the wisdom of the policies put in place by their Godhead, George W. Bush.
Still, some of the loonies in and around the administration insist that now is not a time for politics.
Baloney!
Now is time to shine a harsh light on the mismanagement that has been passing for government over the past five years.

New Orleans Got the Blues

Cheney's still vacationing,
Condi's buying shoes,
Rove is playing politics,
New Orleans Got the Blues.

Bush is taking copter rides,
Landrieu is kissing ass,
Hastert says it's all a joke,
The people can't buy gas.

The prez has his priorities:
Cutting brush and aid,
Protecting all the rich folks' kids,
While thousands wash up dead.

A photo op, that's what we need,
That's what'll ease the pain.
Let's prance around in front of press
While hope goes down the drain.

He'll prob'ly wipe away a tear,
Won't stain that costly suit .
He'll pray the zillionaires are safe
While poor folks get the boot.

The National Guard's all been deployed
To far-off desert sands.
Their relatives at home seek help,
They cannot lend their hands.

Another day, no end in sight,
Seems there's no good news.
The preznit's playing guitar while
New Orleans Got the Blues.