This is just the lamest pitting ever, **Contrapuntal. **
Seriously, I thought it was finally Blake.
I think I have made it abundantly plain that I don’t care for ANY Bush administration you’d care to name, or hiseponymous sire, his interfering idiot of a brother, and quite recently his mama. Since I’m not a unthreatening black millionaire orconservative hatchet-man, the feeling is most likely quite mutual. So your lament that
No way.
Not ever.
Not gonna happen.
There is nothing to be done.
Pretty much sums my feelings regarding Bush and any effort he might laughably make towards reconciling with the masses of black America, if he were so inclined (which he ain’t) and I wouldn’t put it past the masses of black America to agree with me. Bush a uniter? My divisive ass.
But to understand my utter antipathy towards Bushco is to know that he’s not alone in my shit list. With regard to Katrina and the flooding, I have nothing but contempt for much of what’s happened to a disaster management plan that failed at every level of government for the people it was designed to protect, from Mayor Nagin on up, for the past three or four generations of corrupt politicians.
BUT – the Bushes take care of their own. Fucking Haliburton got the contract bid to begin reconstruction of New Orleans.
One of the reasons for Bush’s foot-dragging is that he knows he has absolutely nothing to gain from this debacle. Politically, these aren’t his people, he doesn’t want to put in a show of leadership in front of them or talk to them personally and appear in New Orleans and tour the devestated city areas himself. He has to account for resources abroad in an increasingly unpopular war and defend appointing officials who have no experience dealing with
This would never have happened in Florida. One, because the people are used to evacuating en masse and two, his ass would have bent over backwards to take care of them.
Maybe I was being just a tad hyperbolic in the ‘Ten hours. TOPS.’ assessment, as there were damages to roadsides I logistically hadn’t considered. But there damn sure as shit should have been more done in the first 24 hours that the feds could have done, that the city and state might not have.
A true show of united leadership could have easily amounted to letting the New Orleans people know that help was on the way. I can’t remember if I said this to you guys on the SDMB or my friends over the phone, but I was flabbergasted that the President didn’t do something as dramatic or simple as a letterdrop over the city to calm fears, give the folks there a timetable (we know Bush hates timetables) and step up to the more odious shooters and looters.
Not that this particularly lackluster president has much to do with my feelings regarding the status of race relations in America in general-- there’s plenty of stereotypical behavior, bigotry, prejudice and discrimination to go around. I just wish the Bushes would make a weensy more effort to be more subtle with their sublime indifference to the plight of (poor) black America.