Just got back from my first trip to Vermont where I stayed at the Bald Mountain campground for the weekend. There was an ironic moment when the water pressure for the entire campground failed and nobody could use the toilets or shower. Mindful of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I didn’t hear a single complaint (although there was plenty of bottled water to go around).
It’s funny how memory works, but all weekend I’ve had a dialogue from the TV show “Doogie Howser M.D.” stuck in my head. After completing his internship, boy-genius Doogie must decide on a specialty and joins the trauma team, working on the most devastating cases to come through the hospital doors. In one episode, the team is working on a guy who was crushed by a truck and Doogie makes a critical mistake. The head doctor repairs the damage but the man dies anyway, and Doogie is beset with guilt at his mistake. But the head trauma doctor does not cast blame [from rough memory]:
Doogie: “I killed that guy.”Now, after a brief review, I’m seeing the same kind of useless recrimination all over the Internet. For every post on Daily Kos blaming Bush, there’s a mirror post on Free Republic castigating Clinton. GOP Bloggers is pointing fingers at Democratic governor Blanco and mayor Nagin; the Democratic Underground is criticizing, um, Bush. Oh and Condi Rice went to see “Spamalot.”
Doctor: “No you didn’t. A truck did.”
Scrappleface caught the spirit with this faux story: “Fears increased today among hundreds of thousands of refugees from the hurricane-ravaged gulf coast as they faced a Labor Day weekend with little hope of an eloquent speech from President George Bush.” Yes, President Bush gave a flat and uninspiring laundry-list speech. But everything doesn’t have to be done for maximum political impact. Sometimes the government should simply take actions to alleviate the suffering of people. By the same coin, sometimes it’s the hurricane to blame.
We can go through endless cycles of “what-if”s here. The levees were designed to protect against a category 3 hurricane? Shoulda been cat 4-5-6! But there’s plenty of time for that later. Right now the focus should be on the relief effort. And for God’s sake, can we please hold off on the polls? They’re about as useful as Kayne West’s rambling vitriol, helpful to exactly nobody.
In the 2004 Presidential campaign, there was a too-brief moment when both sides put down the swords and stood together as Americans. It was after the Osama bin Laden tape surfaced and both Bush and Kerry announced that the United States would stand firm in the face of terrorism. We need that moment back again.
More to come later after I get caught up.
9 comments:
Live by the empty, symbolic drop-in gesture, die by the empty, symbolic drop-out gesture.
Wednesday, thousands walked the flooded streets wearing all the clothing they owned, while Condoleezza Rice bought $3,000 worth of shoes at the posh Ferragamo boutique.
She's so awesome.
I'm betting that today, somewhere, Cindy Sheehan made a real effort to use the dead body of her son to get a tv camera focused on herself.
"Live by the empty, symbolic drop-in gesture, die by the empty, symbolic drop-out gesture."
Or we could skip the gesture and do a Teddy Kennedy and just walk and let them all die.
Dems and libs are just so awesome.
The liberals and their allies in the MSM started this blame game. Unfortunately it has escalated because their baseless charges must not be left to stand.
Once again, they show us all how little they care about anything but regaining power. Pathetic!
Let he who has never been indecisive in the face of catastrophe cast the first aspersions.
That's not the real issue, though. We are America. We do not allow our cities and our people to suffer the fate of Bangladesh. It does not matter whose fault it is. It is a big humiliation for all of us. I do not want anyone's head on a pike. I want a time machine to takes us back to undo all the wrong calls that were made.
Why is it that Mississippi, which was levelled by Katrina, is in better shape than Louisiana? Could it be that the local political leadership was better?
Bush has a record of unfortunate first instincts, which have been predictably attacked and defended, again and again. This one's different. Unless something extraordinary happens in the next 3 years (conclusive finish to Iraq, assassination, Bush lands the open movie role as 007), he will permanently be remembered as the "hurricane President."
Think of how Bush's image and legacy looked just 10 months ago. His second term is going to make Clinton's and Reagan's look like victory parades.
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