burnburnburn
09/09/05, 04:23 PM
The Bush administration sent out a reminder to all local and state government agencies on Saturday before the storm that it was in charge and would coordinate all efforts related to the hurricane. Yet they diddled and delayed and held off helping 25 percent of that city who were too poor or old or infirmed to get out until the networks shamed this previously shock-and- awe-braggadicio administration into mobilizing. Furthermore they looked the other way while these people were shoved into the Superdome to suffer death, rape and deplorable conditions that we would not want to endure for an hour. Where was FEMA in the Superdome? Where was FEMA at the convention center?
As we all sat in front of our televisions and watched in horror as old people dropped dead and babies became dehydrated, FEMA's director -- Bush's political crony and college buddy (with no experience whatsoever in emergency management, demonstrating Bush's contempt for this agency he has partially gutted) denied even knowing that thirty thousand people were dying there. I am appalled that you are not appalled that Bush slashed FEMA's budget and then put an incompetent, inexperienced crony in charge of the delicate lives of these people. You who also live in hurricane alley.
Everyone on the ground in New Orleans faults this president for waiting too long too take charge of rescue efforts, for not taking anywhere near the leadership role he took after 911 (a leadership role which by-the-way was a convenient preface for his desire to subsequently invade Iraq), for delegating to clueless incompetents efforts to save these people. Even Conservative papers' editorial pages are asking for resignations and explanations. I am angry that in the face of this worst example of leadership in recent history, you ask me to wait until later to point the finger of blame, and even as Republicans and the Fox-White-House-Spin network has started up their revolting spin machine to blame the local authorities neckhigh in water for what happened to the poor of this city. (The "blame anybody but Bush" scenario.)
This is a president who could not get on a plane fast enough to keep the plug from being pulled on the brain-dead Terri Shiavo, who sanctifies the "lives" of embryonic stem cells over victims of a host of diseases which could be conquered with the research he is blocking, yet who remained in California to give a "stay-the-course" speech in hopes of raising his poll numbers, when he was needed on the ground on the Gulf Coast or in the White House to coordinate relief efforts. His behavior, the behavior of vacationing Andy Card and Dick Cheney, the behavior of Broadway-attending Condi Rice et al, is beyond abominable and what is almost as distressing is that there are still people -- I assume including you and some of the people this email is being copied to -- who will never admit that this callous, bloody-handed incompetent who only got into office because corporations and religious extremists knew they could keep him in their pocket continue to toe the party line: Bush never makes a mistake. Ever.
I am appalled, I am sickened, and I'm not going to wait until this is over to say that this man should not be our president anymore. (If we had federal recall like in California he'd be out before Thanksgiving.) I know that everyone who reads this voted for him and I fear that they will continue to stand beside him even as he -- through budget cuts, tax cuts for the rich, prosecution of a war that is killing our children based upon a lie -- demonstrates that he hates every American who isn't white, rich, or a religious conservative. Did you see any of those people in that desperate group in the convention center forced to wait and wait and wait for the kind of federal response, that if this were Florida, Cindy, would have been there overnight? Even Joe Scarborough is angry. Even conservatives David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan are angry. Even Newt Gingrich despairs over this. Even Bill Frist is asking for an investigation.
And I hope to God that you watched Meet the Press this morning and saw the president of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard weeping uncontrollably on camera because he had been told that federal assistance was on the way, yet it didn't arrive until several days later -- too late to help a number of people in his parish. This in a country led by an administration that is capable of conquering and occupying whole countries. (Or was the delayed response caused by the fact that the National Guard, thanks to Bush's war, is operating at diminished capacity?)
The Bush ship is sinking. I have readied your lifeboat. Or you can go down with the man you apparently and inexplicably continue to love and respect. I know that you are among that 36 percent who last week said they still like the job he is doing. Will you be among the 20-something percent who say the same thing next week?
The time for civility is over. The faces of the desperate at the New Orleans convention center has become the tipping point for me. For me and -- guess what? -- for tens of millions of other Americans.
Angry and sick and tired of seeing the country I love flushed down the toilet,
Mark
As we all sat in front of our televisions and watched in horror as old people dropped dead and babies became dehydrated, FEMA's director -- Bush's political crony and college buddy (with no experience whatsoever in emergency management, demonstrating Bush's contempt for this agency he has partially gutted) denied even knowing that thirty thousand people were dying there. I am appalled that you are not appalled that Bush slashed FEMA's budget and then put an incompetent, inexperienced crony in charge of the delicate lives of these people. You who also live in hurricane alley.
Everyone on the ground in New Orleans faults this president for waiting too long too take charge of rescue efforts, for not taking anywhere near the leadership role he took after 911 (a leadership role which by-the-way was a convenient preface for his desire to subsequently invade Iraq), for delegating to clueless incompetents efforts to save these people. Even Conservative papers' editorial pages are asking for resignations and explanations. I am angry that in the face of this worst example of leadership in recent history, you ask me to wait until later to point the finger of blame, and even as Republicans and the Fox-White-House-Spin network has started up their revolting spin machine to blame the local authorities neckhigh in water for what happened to the poor of this city. (The "blame anybody but Bush" scenario.)
This is a president who could not get on a plane fast enough to keep the plug from being pulled on the brain-dead Terri Shiavo, who sanctifies the "lives" of embryonic stem cells over victims of a host of diseases which could be conquered with the research he is blocking, yet who remained in California to give a "stay-the-course" speech in hopes of raising his poll numbers, when he was needed on the ground on the Gulf Coast or in the White House to coordinate relief efforts. His behavior, the behavior of vacationing Andy Card and Dick Cheney, the behavior of Broadway-attending Condi Rice et al, is beyond abominable and what is almost as distressing is that there are still people -- I assume including you and some of the people this email is being copied to -- who will never admit that this callous, bloody-handed incompetent who only got into office because corporations and religious extremists knew they could keep him in their pocket continue to toe the party line: Bush never makes a mistake. Ever.
I am appalled, I am sickened, and I'm not going to wait until this is over to say that this man should not be our president anymore. (If we had federal recall like in California he'd be out before Thanksgiving.) I know that everyone who reads this voted for him and I fear that they will continue to stand beside him even as he -- through budget cuts, tax cuts for the rich, prosecution of a war that is killing our children based upon a lie -- demonstrates that he hates every American who isn't white, rich, or a religious conservative. Did you see any of those people in that desperate group in the convention center forced to wait and wait and wait for the kind of federal response, that if this were Florida, Cindy, would have been there overnight? Even Joe Scarborough is angry. Even conservatives David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan are angry. Even Newt Gingrich despairs over this. Even Bill Frist is asking for an investigation.
And I hope to God that you watched Meet the Press this morning and saw the president of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard weeping uncontrollably on camera because he had been told that federal assistance was on the way, yet it didn't arrive until several days later -- too late to help a number of people in his parish. This in a country led by an administration that is capable of conquering and occupying whole countries. (Or was the delayed response caused by the fact that the National Guard, thanks to Bush's war, is operating at diminished capacity?)
The Bush ship is sinking. I have readied your lifeboat. Or you can go down with the man you apparently and inexplicably continue to love and respect. I know that you are among that 36 percent who last week said they still like the job he is doing. Will you be among the 20-something percent who say the same thing next week?
The time for civility is over. The faces of the desperate at the New Orleans convention center has become the tipping point for me. For me and -- guess what? -- for tens of millions of other Americans.
Angry and sick and tired of seeing the country I love flushed down the toilet,
Mark