McCain Gets Another Free Ride from the Press

Katrina-style:

Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared that “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.’’

Mr. McCain, who was on the fourth day of a tour of America’s “forgotten places” to try to prove that he is a kinder, gentler Republican, ticked off a long list of mistakes: “There was unqualified people in charge, there was a total misreading of the dimensions of the disaster, there was a failure of communications.’’

Lest we forget exactly what McCain was doing when Katrina hit.

Gonna be a long election.

1, 2, 3, 4

What are we fighting for?

Like the other Gulf Coast states battered by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was required by Congress to spend half of its billions in federal grant money to help low-income citizens trying to recover from the storm.

Dorothy J. McClendon says she fears that no aid will reach her neighborhood in Gulfport, Miss.

But so far, the state has spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses. The money has gone to compensate many middle- and upper-income homeowners, to aid utility companies whose equipment was damaged and to prop up the state’s insurance system.

Just $167 million, or about 10 percent of the federal money, has been spent on programs dedicated to helping the poor, mostly through a smaller grant program for lower-income homeowners.

Fuck the poor!

2 Years Gone

Still a wreck.

Bush's self-proclaimed mission was to keep the American people safe. He couldn't even succeed at that.

Department of Lessons Not Learned

Apparently the White House's Department of Lessons Learned - yes, it really exists and is funded on your dime - is not doing its job well. Shocking.

Becaue the 2006 hurricane season was mild, the new pumps were never put to the
test.
The Corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment, Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., are still struggling to get the 34 pumps, designed and built under a $26.6 million contract, working properly.
The pumps have been plagued by excessive vibration, overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets.
"You want to build confidence, but you have to tell it like it is," said Gwen Bierria, 65, who is rebuilding her home with her husband next to the London Avenue canal, one of two canals that were breached during Katrina and flooded vast sections of the city.

I lied. It is not shocking at all. It is conservatism at work - let people fend for themselves against problems that non-rich and white cannot solve alone. Bush once said he was a fan of John Locke. Assuming he read Locke - oops, laughed so hard I almost choked on a Cheetoe (tm) - it was probably because of Locke's vigorous defense of private property - also non-rich and white people to Bush - but he seems to have forgotten about Locke's vision of a social contract, where citizens give up some rights in return for others. I am not sure how this translates into a conservative worldview, but in a progressive one it means I am more than willing to pay higher taxes to make sure that a disaster like Katrina - I am not referring to the hurricane - never happens again.

The rejoinder to Locke's contract was that if violated it was permissible to break it. We are far past that point with this Republican administration. Conservatives and Republicans love to run around shrieking about the rule of law... as long as it does not apply to them. When that happens they are always curiously mum. It is time we upheld our convictions about our end of the contract. Impeach.