What Bush Did Wrong. This blogger explains it PERFECTLY!

[gollygee]

I can post four paragraphs of it, right? Make sure to follow the link and read the whole thing because it's right on the money.

http://www.thisisnotover.com/archives/2005/09/heres_what_gets.html

People are going around and around about who should have done what at what time to get food and water to the victims of Katrina, and to get the buses there to evacuate people from the city who didn't get out on their own, and to get medical care to the elderly so they wouldn't die, and to get control of the shelter areas so that people wouldn't be beaten, raped, and murdered at the convention center and the Superdome. Let's assume we're not deciding who should have done what at what time.

My problem with Bush -- and here, I do indeed address Bush individually, as a guy -- is that during the time that the crisis was developing, from Monday to Friday, he never seemed to experience any actual sense of urgency as a result of the simple fact that people were, minute by minute and hour by hour, dying.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being prevented from acting by bureaucracy and the sheer magnitude of the situation. Where are the stories of how he was in his office freaking the fuck out because there were tens of thousands of Americans trapped without food and water? Where's the story of how he ripped a strip off of somebody, demanding to know what the holy hell the holdup is getting water and food to those people?

I want to hear about how he was demanding that extraordinary steps be taken. I want to hear about how he sent his lawyers into a room -- he had four days, you know -- and demanded that they come back in an hour with a plan for him to send the Marines into New Orleans with 100 trucks of food and water, posse comitatus or not. I want to hear that he was panicked. Because I was panicked. Everyone I know was panicked. Everyone I know was gnashing their teeth with helpless rage because they couldn't get in a car, drive down there, and drive a load of homeless Louisiana residents back home with them for soup and a goddamn hot bath. I want to hear that he acted at some point out of genuine despondency about the fact that citizens of the country he is supposed to be running were being starved and dehydrated in a hellish, fetid prison. We are dancing around now about whether it is his failure or not his failure. Where is the decency that would tell him that he is the president, and FEMA is part of his administration, and this failure is his to own and apologize for, whether other people also were wrong or not?

[sniffa]

1. what, him worry?

:puke:

[SmokingJacket]

2. EXACTLY! EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He didn't fucking care! That's the bottom line!!

Everyone is allowed to make mistakes, to screw up -- but NOT TO FUCKING NOT CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MADem]

5. Awww, cut the monkey some slack!!!

Eatin' yellowcake with McCain...that's HARD WORK!!!

Strummin' the gee-tar when ya don't know how to play--HARD WORK!!!

Raisin' money for the RNC...hell, gives him a headache!!!

Multitasking has never been the monkey's strong suit. Caring would make his little head explode!

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. Right On! A REAL President would have done exactly that!

nominated

[Sparkman]

4. I miss the days of Bill Clinton, who now looks like a relative GENIUS, sad

[On the Road]

6. If Bush HAD Shown That Kind of Urgency

I could cut him some slack over the inefficiency. What is appalling was his attitude and his obvious lack of concern. It's like he didn't even realize he was president and had to DO something, for Chrissake!

Republicans ridiculed Clinton for saying "I feel your pain." Now we have a president who can smirk, blame, and vacation when his own citizens are dying.

[gollygee]

7. The only real emotion I saw out of him

was irritation that people have any expectations of him at all as our leader.

[sabra]

8. perfect analysis. thanks.

[brainshrub]

9. Damn good analysis. Nominated.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. She really nailed it. .. Bush's Failure as a Human Being!!

[Poiuyt]

11. The problem is that there's no way to quantify his caring

It would be nice if we could say that he cared 215% more for the oil company's profits than he cared for the citizens of the Gulf coast, or something like that.

[spooked911]

12. Let's not forget this was probably the deadliest natural disaster in the

history of the US, and Bush was essentially AWOL.

[gkhouston]

14. hey, that's something he's actually got some experience with. ;-)

but the blogger is right: the most disturbing thing about what happened after Katrina isn't that the government failed the survivors, but that it wasn't even trying. It's one thing to make superhuman efforts and come up short of the mark because the task is so immense. It's quite another to be so incompetent, so disengaged, and so preoccupied with appearances that you don't help and don't allow others to do so, at the cost of human lives and suffering.

[Just Me]

13. All he did was smirk and "perform". It's sick - his complete absence,...

,...of humanity. He is sick, dysfunctional, dangerous.

[Pacifist Patriot]

15. I maintain he is a medicated sociopath.

He used to self-medicate, now I think someone else is controlling his blood chemistry.

[Poiuyt]

16. No sense of urgency

That pretty much sums it up. Unlike Florida in 2004 with an election right around the corner.