[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I didn't seen Aaron Brown last night and I haven't watched much CNN, partially because I have been working about 13-14 hours a day, but mainly because I can only stomach about 5-10 minutes of it. But, I was just wondering what "attack mode" is being initiated? You mentioned earlier that forces were already at work to blame the president for this or at least use this even to paint him in a negative light. How so? I guess the only route would be to say that the reaction time was poor and that not enough precautions were taken. I don't think this will have any legs. It sounds like a poor startegy.

Well, I just saw this editorial in the New York Times:

September 1, 2005

Waiting for a Leader

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.

-----------------

While, sure, leadership means leading, and symbols matter, I think this editorial is pathetic. Hopefully this line of thiming wont go too much further than a crappy editorial like this. Attacking the president for this mess, or even using it as an opportunity to attack, seems pretty freaking weak. I dunno, what can a chimp-made-president do about the biggest flood ever? A great speech, made one day earlier, and saying that climate change is real after all would have saved not one life.

I don't think this administration (as f*cked up and horrible as it is and boy is it ever!) is to blame for inadequate flood protection or the erosion of wetlands. That's just absurd. While there may in fact be a connection between global warming and increased potency of hurricanes (who knows?), there will be plenty of scientists who refute that. While that sort of thing is fine for a mediocre effects-driven summer movie, I don't think it will stand up in this arena.