Anger Anthology, Volume 2

Additional updates

From Dennis Kucinich:This is what nuked New Orleans

The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction.
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From Michael Moore via Smirking Chimp: NOLA ain't Kennebunkport

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
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From That One Blog: President wishes nation would get off his back

What the hell do you people want from me? Jesus Christ, I cut my vacation short two days folks, OK? That’s TWO days of ranch maintenance down the drain.

Look, I’m not sure who you thought you were reelecting here. I am NOT Bill Clinton! Mr. Run-To-A-Disaster-To-Reassure-A-Nation would have landed in some gulf state before the winds died down and had all the press and the nation's resources focused on the area. I don’t grandstand like that. My ways our more subtle, like when I tried to lighten the national mood with my goofy guitar solo yesterday! If people weren’t so distracted by rising flood waters and the destruction of their cities, or even if they had electricity, I’m sure they would have had time to appreciate my efforts. Did I mention I came back TWO days early? ***

From commenter RT at Just a Bump in the Beltway: No way out for the media this time

One more word about the media: this disaster finally left them no way out.

This is W's third major fuckup, as in "costing thousands of lives" fuckup. (Not to be confused with Bush's fuck-you's, such as tax cuts for the rich, the bankruptcy bill, this year's Medicaid cuts, and the like.) The second one was the Iraq war, of course. The first one was 9/11: having seen the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." PDB, and having done nothing, that was his fuckup too.

The media gave him a free ride after 9/11: we were all supposed to unite behind the Only President We Had, and the time to ask pointed questions was always later and never now. At any rate, with a bit of help from the media, it was easy for George to dodge the responsibility.

And the media gave him a free ride on Iraq, though I'm still not sure why. The responsibility was plainly Bush's, but it was easier to hide the actual carnage, since it was all happening elsewhere, and the coffins and amputees were brought home in the dead of night.

This time, though, the carnage is right here, right now, where everyone can see it. And the responsibility for the response (calling it 'anemic' is an insult to anemia) plainly stops with George, and flows from his vision of government.

There's no running or hiding this time. The media can either (a) criticize Bush openly, or (b) lose all credibility.