Sept 11,2001 - 4 years later - has Dubya learned anything?

The BBQ Pit
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Yes, I’m starting another Dubya-Bashing thread - and rightly so!!!
To me it is scary that it is now exactly 4 years since the WTC / Pentagon attacks, and the President’s reaction to another national emergency / tragedy is that of a totally clueless, braindead, “deer in the headlights” buffoon. Unlike Sept 11, 2001, you could see this one coming - literally. There’s not much anyone can do to stop a hurricane but damn it, couldn’t our Chief Executive take charge and prepare for the areas that would be hit?

The scary thing is that our government, headed by our Chief Executive, has had *four fucking years * to be ready for something like this yet what did we get? Confusion, chaos and crime. And after the worst attack on American soil, didn’t the dipshit President realize that appointing someone to lead an EMERGENCY response agency would require that person to know what the Hell they were doing?

Dubya can’t even lead properly (or speak for that matter). As I mentioned in another thread, what did Dubya say or do four years ago that helped raise the American morale? “Bring it on” ??? or referring to Osama Bin Laden - “You can run but you can’t hide.” ? Wow and wasn’t Bin Laden’s comeuppance shortly forthcoming? Truly “inspiring”. Well at least Dubya doesn’t think about him anymore. :rolleyes:
Four years later, what other stirring messages does Dubya have for us? Saying “Brownie” is doing a great job ??? or even scarier:

And before any SDMB conservatives start thinking about blaming this on the Democrats, liberals, bleeding hearts, whatever - think about this.
The Supreme Court consists of SEVEN Republican appointees. (Yes Rehnquist is dead but I thought I’d mention him because he was appointed by Nixon - a Republican. AND if Roberts gets “the nod” then the Republican appointees reamin at seven.)
Both houses of Congress have had Republican majorities since the late 1990’s.
And Our Chief Executator (a Republican) has been President since January 20, 2001.
Well there you have the Republican’s turn at government.

Just one more thing. Possibly my favorite President, Theodore Roosevelt, (a Republican by the way) said a rather applicable quote for how Dubya has behaved. TR said “in any situation the best thing to do is the *right *thing. The second best thing is the wrong thing - and the worst thing to do is to do nothing”.

Sadly, when the statistics in New Orleans are tallied, Dubya might have the dubious distinction of being the American President that had 2 disasters (1 of violence, 1 of nature) that were the worst in our nation’s history.

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He learned how to waste millions of dollars to form a totally worthless, useless governmental agency. And to bury a formerly useful agency in it.

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I hate Bush as much as the next guy (unless the next guy is Reeder,) but I think you’re overstating things a bit.

Yes, the response was a catastrophic fuck up, and it is in large part the fault of the federal government – but there were also failures at the municipal and state level, and it’s silly to ignore them altogether.

The Supreme Court and Congress have very little to do with this. Sweet FA as far as the Supremes are concerned, and Congress actually fought for double the funding that Bush’s budget allowed for the SELA project to bolster the levees. Still a cut, overall, but they at least fought for a compromise. No blame there, right?

You’d probably find it more effective to focus your anger toward the responsible parties (ie; the Bush White House, FEMA, and the local officials of whatever political party) instead of towards Republicans in general.

Otherwise, people might dismiss you as a partisan ranter – and those sorts of charges could stick to other people who make similar (and more valid) charges.

Which would be a bummer, man.

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I’m inclined to agree, Larry Mudd, except I imagine that the state and local officials (gov, mayor, etc.) ran for office playing on a variety of skills, experiences, and priorities. I sincerely doubt, however, that their main singular selling point was “I will respond best to LA/NO if disaster were to strike.”

But that is what Bush said a year ago. That has been the keystone to his presidency and the basis for the fear-mongering and mud-slinging of all his opponents: They don’t have what it takes to keep America safe. They won’t do what’s necessary to respond. I do.

Completely inarticulate about social policies, and inept at explaining himself out of his economic (decidedly non-conservative) two-facedness, his primary selling point was Homeland Defense. I know plenty of people who were not happy with his defecit-spending or ultraconservative social policies, but they were willing to let it slide because they believed National Security (and the War on Terror) was still the greatest challenge facing the nation, and Bush was virtually a one-trick pony championing his own strengths.

And now we have Katrina. This was supposed to play to his strengths. This was an opportunity to show what he’s accomplished in four years. This was his time to demonstrably prove in a truly tangible way that 9/11 did change everything, and here’s the Proof.

And it’s been a complete failure on many levels.

So yes, Blanco & Nigen & co. all need to burden some of the blame. But we, as a nation, were sold a bill of goods on Bush based on One Towering Truth. And that truth (which was trumpeted by every GOP candidate across this country) has proven to be a lie. The Republicans as a party need to accept responsibility. They never had a problem blaming Congress when Reagan was president, and blaming Clinton when they ran the House and Senate. Well, they’ve got both now, and have for a while, and now we can see that they aren’t any better for this country than the people they so casually smear.

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Bush and his cronies haven’t learned a damn thing in the past 6-7 (?) years. What we are seeing is incompetence and cronyism at its worst.

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and arrogance! our greatest strenghts are incompetence, cronyism, arrogance. and dogmatism.

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I’m confused. Was the 2000 election the violent disaster and the 2004 election the natural disaster or was it the other way around?

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I posted this in another thread in Great Debates, but it was pretty much ignored. So I’ll post it here.

For all of you people who are trying to give Bush all the “blame” for creating the Department of Homeland Security and bogging it down into beauracracy, I have some more people you can blame:
Blame Lieberman too
Blame the Democrats too

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Does it matter? Once again, more people are dead because of governmental and bureaucratic stupidity, incompetence and corruption.

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Short answer;

No

Long answer:

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(Props to John Stewart)

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Ah, the Animal House defense: “You fucked up. You trusted [Bush].” :wally

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The Republicans established the Department of Homeland Security, the Republicans savagely slandered anyone who dared suggest that it wasn’t a perfect idea, the Republicans set the levels of fundings, the Republicans decided how that funding would be distributed, the Republicans put an incompetent moron whose only strength was being a crony of their own fundraiser into the chief spot of FEMA, the Republicans put who knows how many other incompetent morons into other important positions in the department. So whose fault when FEMA and the DHS couldn’t provide an adequate response to this catastrophe?

The Democrats, of course.

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I’ll come in again.

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And a Fanatical devotion to George Bush!

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Our five greatest strenghts are incompetence, cronyism, arrogance, dogmatism, a fanatical devotion to George Bush and ruthless inefficiency!!!

No wait let me rephrase that. Amongst our weaponry are such elements as incompetence, cronynism, arrogance …

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Well, now that this thread has turned into a Monty Python sketch, maybe we should wait until a new thread starts up about Bush’s ineptitude OR maybe even a thread about something NOBODY would ever suspect.

Larry Mudd - No I really didn’t intend this thread to be a partisan rant against the Republicans in general.
It’s more about the lack of change in our nation’s response (particularly our Chief Executive) toward handling an emergency when we’ve had 4 years to be prepared for a tragedy such as this.

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No…read the cites. Bush was against creating a new govt beauracracy with the DHS, but Lieberman and other Democrats insisted. So Bush cooperated. Now Bush is getting ALL the blame?

Sorry, chumley…can’t have it both ways (not in the real world, anyway).

You have no idea what you are talking about.

From the cites I posted, which you obviously didn’t (or couldn’t) read:

Bolding mine

Get it? I’m not trying to blame the Democrats for all of the problems. That would be just as foolish as blaming Bush for all the problems. Just trying to fight a little ignorance and bring some people back to reality.

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Psycho Pirate
Since you went to a lot of trouble for that posting, I figured someone should acknowledge it. Yes, you are right, I can see the blame does not rest squarely with the Republicans.

Still, (and without pointing any fingers), I hope that if we have another national tragedy, we will be much better prepared.
Somehow, even with this “lesson”, I’m not so certain the USA will be ready.

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Well, look, of course it’s the Dems’ fault for bucking the grand tradition of FEMA-staffing so faithfully adhered to by the Republicans. I mean, look how Clinton had the nerve to appoint a whole management team at FEMA that was qualified and competent. Why, that just raises people’s expectations to completely unreasonable heights! As Marvelous Mike Brown’s predecessor so aptly put it:

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Sure, he’s learned that when you set up a “freedom walk” to commemorate 9/11, and celebrate our freedoms, you have to be very careful about who you let take part:
Register for the Freedom Walk

Tight Constraints on Pentagon’s Freedom Walk

The Freedom Walk Website