P. J. O’Rourke (a libertarian-leaning person himself) has a nice line to the effect of “Republicans say government can’t do anything right…Then they get elected and prove it.” That certainly applies in the case of FEMA, which has performed well when staffed with professionals and poorly when used to reward political cronies, as under both President Bush’s.
The numbers are in the study for you to judge for yourself.
FEMA was also used by Clinton for political purposes. The agency, regardless of who is President, will be used to dole out dollars to “disaster areas” with an eye towards helping the party in power. Money will also be wasted by FEMA on a variety of useless things, as it was under Clinton and is under Bush.
Can you supply us with any Clintonian boondoggles that come within anything remotely on the same order of magnitude as demonstrated by this busload of Bozos?
I won’t claim that Clinton’s FEMA mismanagement rivals Bush’s, but then again Clinton never had an event of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina to deal with.
However, Clinton declared an “emergency” an average of one a week, more than any other President (I’m getting this from James Bovard’s Feeling Your Pain, written before the Bush presidency, so I’m not sure if that comparison still stands).
During the Northridge earthquake in California, FEMA sent out 47,000 checks to people in California with no determination made whether or not the people actually suffered any damage.
The GAO reported that FEMA had unreliable data on its Disaster Relief Fund.
FEMA began covering “disasters” of routine snowfall in the Northeast that should be the responsibility of local cities, states, and counties to deal with (after all, if you live in Vermont your town should probably budget for snow removal).
That’s a few. Again, nothing of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, but Clinton certainly used and abused FEMA to the extent he could.
Everything you’re citing speaks of overzealousness to relieve/prevent disasters, even at the expense of a little sloppy accounting. Not abuse. I bet any Orleanians reading the above post are just eating their hearts out.
Trusting numbers from the Heritage Foundation is as unwise as trusting facts from Fox News.
Not to play “The other guy did it too!”, but I wonder if you have any outrage left for the rampant FEMA fraud that occurred in Florida’s fall 2004 period:
Probe sought into questionable aid to Miami-Dade ‘hurricane victims’
“Three Florida members of Congress on Monday called for investigations into how the federal government awards disaster aid and why at least 9,800 Miami-Dade applicants have received more than $21 million in Hurricane Frances assistance even though the storm inflicted little damage in the county.”
Miami-Dade cleans up on FEMA aid
“Government aid for Hurricane Frances bought Miami-Dade County residents rooms full of furniture, new wardrobes and thousands of appliances, including microwaves, refrigerators and sewing machines, even though the brunt of the storm missed the county.”
State records show Bush re-election concerns played part in FEMA aid
Miami-Dade told officials that losses were minor but FEMA aid flowed anyway
Complaints of FEMA aid fraud stymied by ‘runaround’
Lots more here. Or is FEMA fraud okay when an election is on the line?
Then it should be easy for your to refute them, right? (Of course this wouldn’t be half as funny if it weren’t coming from the guy who cites lefty blogs and opinion pieces as fact almost exclusively.)
Earlier in this thread, some people maintained that it was foolish for the Dems to run agaisnt Bush because 1) Bush ain’t running and 2) Repub candidates can and will distance themselves from Bush whenever they want to.
Wrong. Simply wrong. Republican leaders can EASILY be tied to the Bush admin., because they’ve been voting in LOCKSTEP for almost everything Bush has proposed. All you have to do to tie Bush around ANY Pubbie candidate like an albatross around his neck is to go to the Congressional Record, and then say, “MY opponent has been one of Bush’s most devoted followers, voting in favor of Bush admin. proposals a stunning 97 percent (or whatever the approproate figure is) of the time! He has been Bush’s lapdog! Now he’s LYING about being Bush’s lapdog! But unlike my opponent, the facts don’t lie!”
Easy as pie. I could write the speech/press release in my sleep.
Yeah, John, everyone knows the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is a hotbed of unreliable left-wing agiprop. :rolleyes:
Then show me how they are wrong.
Have you even read what I posted here? Nowhere do I defend FEMA during Bush’s tenure. You do realize, don’t you, that a person can dislike the Democrats and not be a rampant Bush partisan, right? It’s not an either/or proposition. Just because I say Clinton misused FEMA does not mean I approve of what Bush did. Disliking Clinton’s activities does not mean an automatic approval of Bush’s.
Hell, I don’t even defend Bush that much. I say that he made an effort at entitlement reform and that should be applauded, but other than that I don’t think any of my comments here can be construed as pro-Bush. The whole point of this discussion is that Bush and the GOP suck when it comes to spending but that, in my mind, the Democrats are worse. If you want to convince me to vote Democrat, don’t tell me over and over again that Bush sucks. That’s irrelevant to me and other disaffected GOp voters. Tell us why the Democrats deserve our vote other than “they aren’t Bush.” Sorry, but you can’t convince us to vote Democrat if the only platform you have is that you hate the President.
As has been stated before, not everyone hates Bush. Even those of us who don’t like much of what he has done are usually turned off by the virulent anti-Bush rhetoric coming from most liberals these days. You want to know why more Republicans who are unhappy with Bush don’t want to vote Democrat? Look in the mirror. Radical conspiracy theories and irrational hatred of the President cause plenty of people to reject the Democrats entirely.
You want to attract disaffected Republicans? Dump the conspiracy theories, quit whining that Bush stole the election(s), quit calling Bush stupid or evil, and present a plan to help our nation that appeals to moderates and conservatives. Until then, you will keep losing.
How do describe such things as we’ve seen in moderate and temperate terms? What would you have us call being misled into a war that has killed thousands of innocent people, and shows no sign of slowing down? “Oopsy”? “Just a big ol’ gosh-darn mistake that could have happened to anybody”?
Please.
If you are determined to find a rationalization, you will find it, as will many others who simply don’t want to accept the facts. We have to play for the rational voter, and hope to Og there’s enough of us.
There’s very little rational about calling Bush evil, a murderer, stupid, or a variety of other things that the MoveOn crowd likes to throw around. If you want to win over rational voters, you first need to concede that policy differences aren’t a matter of good vs. evil. They are a matter of who has the best plan to achieve a common goal. You can’t go around painting Bush as a monter who is intent on destroying America. You have to acknowledge that Bush, for all his faults, is doing what he is doing because he thinks it will make America better. Then you go about showing why what he’s doing isn’t accomplishing that goal. Simply caricaturing him as an evil idiot savant under the control of Karl Rove may make you feel all warm and tingly, but it will do little to attract the “rational voter” you purport to be playing for.
This sentiment is also a severe handicap to the Democrats’ efforts to win over those of us who are unhappy with Bush. This smug condescension that liberal voters are more enlighterened and smarter than conservative voters turns off quite a few people who you otherwise may be able to reach. By assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be irrational or stupid, you turn politics into a game of intelligence. “If you were just smart enough you’d agree with me.” Sorry, that’s not what politics is about. There are smart people on both sides of the aisle and rational, intelligent people can disagree on the issues. By taking this tone you both prevent an intelligent discussion of issues as well as dismiss any type of middle ground between the parties.
Well, for starters we might crack down on those outrageous MoveOn statements equating opposing Bush as being pro-terrorism. Feel real guilty about that, Renob. Yeah, those guys just aren’t very nice, not like Rove or Boehner. The very souls of civility and compromise. Hugh Betcha.
Gimme a fucking break!
And those thousands upon thousands of dead Iraqis. How do I politely address people who are up to their elbows in the blood of innocents? “Gee whiz, maybe that wasn’t the best idea.”? Raise my pinkie finger while I sip my tea, politely remark that perhaps we, the people, were not quite as fully informed as we might have been?
If an unjust and unnecessary war isn’t enough to piss you off, what, pray, will it take?
Et tu, quoque?
Methinks you don’t understand the difference between “rallying the base” and “converting the other side”. We’re discussing the latter here.
Renob: Well put.
Why would there be any difference, so long as we’re telling the truth? And what, may I ask, makes any of us (with all due awe, including you) expert in precisely what best convinces the “undecided” voter?
Does the Republican Party hire highly-paid consultants on swaying the muddled masses? What approaches do they take on this all important issue of civililty and moderation? Swift-boating, accusations of cowardly lack of patriotism…will you offer this to me as a model for my emulation?
Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!
If the price of civility and decorum is that these men escape accountability for thier actions, that price is too high. I see no reason to believe that you are correct in your presumption that stern rebuke offends and estranges the “undecided moderates”. Why should it? If the truth be harsh, I should speak less than truth?
Bush is evil and stupid. No, but Bush is evil or stupid.
Nothing. So what? We’re not paid professional consultants advising Dem strategists. We’re Dopers enjoying our daily intellectual circle-jerk. We often have thread topics on which few of us are expert. Nothing wrong with that. The non-experts get some of their ignorance erased and the experts occasionally, very occasionally, might get their assumptions punctured by a little common sense.
Do you hear me defending Rove or Boehner? No. The GOP strategy of paiting its opponents as unpatriotic is also reprehensible. However, this thread is not about how the GOP can win over voters, it’s how the Democrats can win voters.
War is part of foreign policy. It’s a way to achieve the foreign policy of a country. All war sucks. However, unless you are going to become a pacifist and swear off the use of all war to settle international disputes, then I hardly see the point of this type of invective. We can discuss whether the war was a good idea or whether or foreign policy goals are a good idea, but talking about the “blood of innocents” smacks of melodrama. All wars shed the blood of innocents.
The OP asked about drawing anti-Bush Republicans. As a Republican who is pretty displeased with the Bush Administration, I’d say that my insight is being sought here.
So you are condemning these tactics when used by the GOP but then engaging in them yourself when attacking the GOP? Interesting defense. If it is wrong for the GOP to do it (and I’d say it is), it is equally as wrong for its opponents to do it.
And this thought is precisely what is rotten about our politics. Bush is neither evil nor stupid. Or, he’s no more evil or stupid than anyone else. Bush has certain policy goals that he thinks will make America better. You may disagree with these goals, but that doesn’t make him evil or stupid. It simply means he sees the way to fix America in a different light than you do. You are no better morally than Bush nor are any of his critics.
We’d all be better off without the name calling. How about actually discussing the issues? If Democrats dispensed with the name calling and actually started outlining the problems with the President’s proposals, then perhaps we’d get somewhere. Instead, we have people calling Bush evil and/or stupid. Or we have Harry Reid, who reacts to efforts to reduce entitlement spending by calling Bush anti-poor. This rhetoric serves no one. And, yes, the GOP does it, too. And they are wrong to do it. However, perhaps if the Democrats started taking the high road and talking about policy they could win over some of us who are tired of the current GOP leadership but don’t want to cast our lot with the party of Michael Moore or MoveOn.org.
The voters are not being asked to choose between Bush and the Deomcrats. They are being asked to choose between Republican Congresscritter “X” and Democratic Congresscritter “Y”. And while the Iraq war is certainly a big issue, it isn’t the only issue.
BTW, the Pubbies are gaining in the latest polls. Bush’s approval rating is up, and people are starting to be about 50/50 on whether they will vote Republican or Democrat for Congress.
Well, thank you, Mr. Sunshine.