Katrina vanden Heuvel: Pot Calling the Kettle Black (The Nation)

[marmar]

BLOG | Posted 06/05/2007 @ 5:58pm
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Katrina vanden Heuvel


In the aftermath of the tornado that wiped out the town of Greenburg, KS, Governor Kathleen Sebelius got into a political spat with the Bush White House when she stated that most of the Kansas National Guard heavy equipment needed for relief efforts was in Iraq. Firing back, Tony Snow blamed Sebelius for not properly requesting the equipment. The White House had to back down, however, when it was revealed that Governor Sebelius had in fact been making formal inquiries for several years, even going so far as to confront President Bush directly.

That should have been the end of it.

But through the ever-loyal venue of a Robert Novak column, Bush administration officials are "putting out the word" that Sebelius was two days late returning to the disaster area because she was attending a jazz festival in, of all places, New Orleans. The only problem is that this is once again not true. After monitoring the situation from New Orleans the night of the tornado, she returned the next day on a plane loaned by, irony of ironies, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco.

So was raising the specter of New Orleans and delayed responses yet another example of White House incompetence? Or calculated vindictiveness? Governor Sebelius is on some experts' short list as a potential Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. And historically speaking the man behind the curtain for many of Novak's hit jobs has been Karl Rove.

Expect more of the same if Sebelius gets the nod.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45

[oasis]

1. Ever- faithful Bob Novak again regurgitates the lies of his White House masters. (nt)

[MasonJar]

2. But...but...but...Bush creates reality. Isn't that why bad things keep happening

to the USA? Bush cannot do anything right, even when he creates it.

[Phredicles]

3. The Douchebag Of Liberty strikes again!

But yes, the rightie spin is awfully similaer to that from the wake of Katrina, in which their point was that it was all Nagin's and Blanco's fault for failing to follow proper procedure in requesting federal help. What exactly is this proper procedure, then, that no one seems able to follow it?

[DBoon]

4. minitrue hard at work again

Nation 6.6.07 malreported kansas rectify doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling