I’ve been watching and reading all sorts of criticisms of the federal government’s (and the President’s in particular) handling of the Louisiana and Mississippi crisis. Many of these arguments are bipartisan and quite probably justified. Others, however, strike me as somewhat reaching.
Others are not so charitable. Many commentators (mostly conservative, granted) have struck out at “the Left/Democrats” for ignoring the human suffering in favor of scoring political points against the opposition (using posts like this as ammo). As with September 11th, there are accusations of the “blame game” and politicizing tragedy, except many of the accusations are going in the opposite direction than the terrorist attacks.
So, that got me wondering: what’s really going on here, rhetorically? Is this politicizing tragedy? Is it appropriate, being just a week from the hurricane? Does timing have anything to do with anything? Is there ever a time when such criticism is inappropriate?
These are just a few of the many related questions, but hopefully, you see what I’m asking…
PS: I now see astro’s thread (I don’t know how I missed it), but from his OP, I think I’m asking more/different questions than he is. Feel free to disagree.
In short, bullshit. We live in a society characterized by constant 24/7 political discussion of all matters, in ADDITION to everything else we’re doing. That is, in part, one of our strengths as a democracy.
The complaints I’ve heard about politicizing the tragedy are themselves painfully obvious as politically motivated themselves. It’s pretty much the only conservative talking point left in the face of a pretty embarrassing failure of national security and disaster preparedness.
I swear to God I do not understand how criticism is inappropriate just because the fuck-ups are still ongoing. If I’m a passenger in a car that’s driving off a pier, I’m not going to wait until the car is sucking water before I speak to the driver.
If I think the government has its collective thumb up its collective ass, if I think the government response is emblematic of everything that’s wrong with this administration, if I think their mismanagement is making a bad situation worse, and if I choose to say so, then no one had better tell me that speaking up is appropriate. And if I’m accused of “politicizing the tragedy”, then my response is going to be “HELL YES, I’m politicizing the tragedy”. Yes there’s work to be done, and yes there much more I can do to help directly, but at the same time I can and should do whatever is possible to make sure that politicians who screw up at crunch time either fix it or never hold office again.
When your automated response to everything is “Bush fucked up again”, people tend to get aggravated with the rhetoric. Did Bush personally fuck up? Is he personally responsible for the tactical operations of disasters that are legally under the purview of local authority? Is his role to legally authorize government agencies to act according to long laid out plans that he most likely never even glanced at, much less contributed to? It is my impression that the latter question is true.
I can make the case that he didn’t step up as POTUS and lead where others failed. i am disappointed he didn’t. But for many who always claimed he was never leader material to begin with should be the last to bitch.
Your last sentence is spot on though. There are way too many fuck ups in this disaster for those responsible not to answer for them. And I personally think the Governor and mayor of that city and state should be run out on a rail in the next election. And from what I am hearing about the mayor, he should be kicked out of office ASAP, if not prosecuted.
Don’t blame the critics for the guy’s bad track record.
“Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States”? Fucked up.
Destroy the Taliban after 9/11? Fucked up.
Capturing Osama bin Laden? Fucked up.
Finding Iraq’s scary WMD stockpiles? Fucked up.
“Mission accomplished”? Fucked up.
Securing a post-invasion Iraq from falling into chaos? Fucked up.
It’s not “rhetoric” to say the guy keeps fucking up when he keeps fucking up.
The federal government had a week to prepare for a category five hurricane predicted to hit a city that every engineering estimate said could not survive a category three hurricane. This information came from agencies within the federal government. It was not controversial, or unfamiliar to any agency familiar with disaster preparation or response.
No major federal effort was initiated until after the disaster had occurred. No effort was made to provide support to the states involved in an attempt to initiate evacuation on the scale necessary, prior to the disaster.
The major thrust of the current administration’s efforts to govern has been safety above all other things. Safety is important enough to justify limiting freedom. The ability of the government to prevent disaster, and respond to disaster is important enough to justify creating and reorganizing many agencies within the government. Yet it is in the exact field of the safety of its citizens that the Government has failed.
George Bush is the chief executive, and the responsibility for the failure of the government is his. Noticing that is not unreasonable. To tell if you have been following a good leader, you don’t have to do much other than look around at where he has led you. We are loosing two wars half way around the world, and police officers here at home are carrying around unloaded guns while their city is looted by the desperate survivors of a predicted natural disaster. Does George Bush have actual control over the Government? Is he a leader of real authority? If so, he is responsible for the failure. Noticing that is not inappropriate. It is possible that none of this is George Bush’s fault. If it isn’t, then that fact by itself is the most stinging criticism possible.
I don’t understand why the mayor and governor isn’t getting a good dose of “Blame Bush”. 80 dead in a nursing home near the levee break isn’t good local planning. Did I miss the cots in the Superdome? Did the Astrodome say BYOWaF (bring your own water and food) like was said about the Superdome? I didn’t think Bush could activate National Guard without federalizing them. How many did Blanco activate? Who the fuck didn’t tell the feds that there were 20,000 people at the convention center before the hurricane and communication blackout?!?! I understand that it was the mayors job to control the local law enforcement. Where in the hell was he when his police was forting up in the police station with many AWOL “officers” shooting at gun flashes in the night? Where was the local government when Shepherd Smith was practically begging a Louisiana EMA official to please just tell the thousand of confused victims walking around him at least where to walk to?
I cant see how the lack of preparation was not the catalyst to 90% of the problems in NOLA. Yes the slow response exacerbated the problem. But you can’t blame that solely on Bush either. The mayor was screaming like a fucking victim 4 days later. Where was he those 4 days? How can he be paling around with the president and pulling strings to get 700 hotel guests and employees in front of his constituents if he was too fucking helpless to attempt to direct the police or get on a loudspeaker to impart some kind of leadership?
I’m not proud of my federal government. I think the ball was dropped and Bush picked it up 2 days late and 10.5 billion dollars short. I would not vote for him again. But I would run Blanco and Naygen out of office as soon as I could.
In retrospect this OP turned into more of a rant than I had planned. If it doesn’t turn out to be more of a debate mods, feel free to move it to the pit.
If the government fucks up, it should be criticized. There’s really no question about that. There are types of criticism that are unfair - now, as at any other time, there is some “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” going on - but I don’t see the point of a waiting period.
Advisor: Mr. President it looks like we may be about to lose a major city for the first time since the Civil War. And possibly much of the Gulf Coast will be devastated.
Commander in Chief: What can we do about it?
Advisor: Technically we’re supposed to wait for the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Lousiana to officially request help. Let’s just wait and see.
Commander in Chief: Sounds like a plan. Don’t I have a couple of unrelated speeches to prepare?