The fingers are pointing all over Washington, and the Bush administration somehow expects us to believe that the local governments in Louisiana and Mississippi should have had everything under control so his vacation would not have had to be tragically truncated.
The city of New Orleans was completely under water and this President has the nerve to be critical of local law enforcement and state government officials for not having the resources to handle, on their own, the single worst natural disaster this country has ever faced.
Sure, Mr. President… Perhaps you should not have appointed an incompetent GOP activist named Mike Brown to run FEMA. A person who had absolutely no experience to qualify him to run any government agency, let alone the one charged with saving lives in the face of massive disasters. Maybe you just thought you could give cushy jobs to the good ol’ boys network and coast on through with nothing to prove their disturbing lack of competence.
Perhaps if Condoleeza Rice had not found it more important to go shoe shopping in New York than to go back to Washington where she could get involved with the rescue effort, you might not find so many fingers pointing your way.
Some say the Left is “spinning” this against the Republicans, but I say we’re just calling it as we see it.
A poll taken on September 4, 2005 shows that only 12% of people give the federal response an excellent rating. 16% label it as good, while 25% call it fair and 45% call it poor.
Even among Republicans, there are serious doubts about the federal response to the hurricane. Only 47% of those in President Bush’s party say the federal response has been good or excellent, while Fifty-one percent say it has been fair or poor.
Rasmussen reports that only 45% of American adults now approve of the way Bush is performing in his role as President. A whopping 53% disapprove.
Gallup polling organization placed Bush’s approval at 40 percent, which is an all-time low. American Research Group has his approval as low as 36%.
in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 57% of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s handling of the war in Iraq. 53% said the war was not worth it.
It is becoming more and more clear each day that, in almost every poll, a smaller and smaller minority of Americans are able to support President Bush and the Republican-led Congress. If you ask me, Bush is finally having to answer to his lack of moral fiber and astonishing incompetence.
Thanks to BlogCritics for the statistics.
All Fingers Pointing in The “Right” Direction
All Fingers Pointing in The “Right” Direction
Here’s another finger pointing:
http://ymor.blogspot.com/2005/09/point-that-finger.html
But I’m not the first, or last, to point it:
http://ymor.blogspot.com/2005/09/so-guardian-said-it-before-me.html
- Yishay
My gut instinct when I found out Ms. Rice was in NYC all weekend was the same as the rest of the internet crowd. I brought it up to my roommates last night and their reaction was: “What can the Secretary of State do for the diaster area?” And well I couldn’t think of anything to say. I stammered, “She was formerly national security advisor and a top aide to Pres. Bush, she should be there (in DC).” And they said no not really. I suppose it would be like expceting Warren Christoper to help those in Florida after hurricane Andrew.
So I ask really what was the fuss about Ms. Rice in NYC last weekend?
If I Close My Eyes, Does It Go Away? Can Bush Censor His Shame Away?
Reuters: FEMA accused of censorship:
“It’s impossible for me to imagine how you report a story whose subject is death without allowing the public to see images of the subject of the story,” said Larry Siems of the PEN American Center, an au…
Francesca,
Well, there is a point to be made that the Secretary of State is really only charged with international affairs, but in the same way a company calls an all-staff meeting when faced with major issues, the President should have had all hands on deck to show the country that he, and his team are responding to the disaster. For Rice, among others, to be on vacation sends the message that they really can’t be bothered.
Would Rice being in Washington have made a differnece in the end? Most likely not. However, it would have sent a better message to those suffering in the aftermath of the hurricane.
All Fingers Pointing in The “Right” Direction
Here’s the whole story:…
Francesca,
You are absolutely correct that the Secretary of State is in charge of international affairs.
When disasters strike other countries, our SecState gets on the phone and pledges support, funds, and equipment to help survivors.
Why wasn’t the SecState on the phone asking other countries for help? Surely the Dutch have some experience with this kind of crisis.
Unfortunately for the South, Condi was more interested in some nice new pumps than she was in securing foreign aid.
[...] I’m really interested to notice that for the last few days the search term “Impeach Bush” has been among the top searches on technorati.com. Somehow I doubt it’s a coincidence that “katrina” and “hurricane” are also among the top searches. It looks like the world is finally holding this administration accountable for its failures. Some sites are even posting alphabetical listings of the President’s screw ups. One thing is for sure, however, the President’s approval ratings are falling. [...]
[...] I’d like to remind everyone who believes that Bush is finally taking responsibility for responding poorly to Katrina that both he, and the republicans running congress have repeatedly thwarted attempts to form a bipartisian committe to investigate the National government’s failures surrounding the disaster. They favor instead, a republican-led committie that will undoubtedly stage another massive coverup for this corrupt government. [...]
Among all the things Francesca thinks Condi Rice wasn’t responsible for is the coordination of foreign attempts to rescue their own nationals. As it turns out, there were hundreds of foreign nationals stranded in NOLA, but foreign governments were hamstrung by an unresponsive US State Department.
Of course, that’s probably less embarrassing for the Bush administration than for people to realize how much more quickly the rest of the world tried to move to rescue its citizens than we did.