OPERATION CLUSTERF*CK
"S'ils n'ont pas du pain, q'ils mangeant du brioche!"
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"...but the Bush Administration, instead of grappling with the problem,
resisted attempts to remedy it; as recently as this summer, the White House
was fighting - unsuccessfully - an effort to spend $1 billion to rebuild coastlands
and wetlands. Similarly, rather than supporting efforts to buttress the levees that
are supposed to shield the city, the administration consistently worked to cut funding
that could have helped build up those defenses."
Washington Post Editorial, September 5, 2005
Before Katrina, the Republican theory received its most apposite formulation by a prominent lobbyist and close advisor to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, who said about government that he wanted to "drown it in the bathtub." In relation to the waters that surround it, New Orleans has been described as a bathtub, and it has served as the bathtub for Norquist's wish. ( Sidney Blumenthal )
"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 arenas here, you know, were underprivileged anyway. So this is working very well for them."
Barbara Bush
The papers say that Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist put off a vote on extending the estate-tax cut. But the WP mentions far down that Republicans suggested they'll "proceed with a package of $70 billion in tax cuts." The Post also says that for the moment House Republicans are still sticking by their proposal to cut funding for Louisiana flood control. "We are committed to living within our budget," said the Appropriations Committee spokesman.Slate Magazine
The headline was: "Direct hit in New Orleans could mean a modern Atlantis," and the first paragraph of the story read: "More than 1.2 million people in metropolitan New Orleans were warned to get out Tuesday as [the] 140-mph hurricane churned toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to submerge this below-sea-level city in what could be the most disastrous storm to hit in nearly 40 years." That was USA Today and the only catch was -- the piece had been written on September 14, 2004 as Hurricane Ivan seemed to be barreling toward New Orleans.History News Network
Last week's national humiliation comes at the end of a string of confidence-shaking institutional failures that have cumulatively changed the nation's psyche. Over the past few years, we have seen intelligence failures in the inability to prevent Sept. 11 and find W.M.D.'s in Iraq. We have seen incompetent postwar planning. We have seen the collapse of Enron and corruption scandals on Wall Street. We have seen scandals at our leading magazines and newspapers, steroids in baseball, the horror of Abu Ghraib. Public confidence has been shaken too by the steady rain of suicide bombings, the grisly horror of Beslan and the world's inability to do anything about rising oil prices. Each institutional failure and sign of helplessness is another blow to national morale. ... Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence.New York Times