The word "catastrophic" gets tossed around so much that it has become a cliche and has pretty much lost it's meaning, but this is a truly catastrophic event. I was one of those who believed (quietly) that the media was over-hyping the potential for death and destruction just to pump up their ratings, and I based this on their over-hyping of the aftermath of the three hurricanes that I lived through last year, storms that were like a little afternoon shower compared to this thing. To be fair, I think even the media didn't really believe it was going to be as bad as they said it was going to be. Well, it was much, much worse, and I was as wrong as wrong could be.
To put it bluntly, I don't know if there really is any practical way that anyone, Republican or Democrat, could have adequately prepared for something as catastrophic as this. For all the things we can do, for all the power we think we have, we're still just puny little things when compared to nature, and nature just loves to remind us of just how little we are when we start to swagger.
This has gone way beyond the finger-pointing and name-calling we love to indulge in, and I think our elected leaders are starting to get this, and are realizing that digging out and putting things right again is going to take huge amounts of time and effort. And as such, right now we cannot afford the petty partisan bickering. All we can do is roll up our sleeves and do the best we can.
I am certainly not so naive that I think this will last forever - we'll be back to the sniping and the name-calling and the blame-laying before we know it. But for now, we're beginning to realize we really do have to work together, even if just for a while, and I am very relieved to see it.
Bump to your "And as such, right now we cannot afford the petty partisan bickering. All we can do is roll up our sleeves and do the best we can."
You can dream on about everyone working together...
Tonight there was a short session of the Senate on c-span 2, about the emergency funding for the Katrina disaster...
Only Sen. Frist and Corcoran from Miss. were there for Reps, and Sen. Reid and Schumer for dems....
All was fine until Sen. Schumer got up and gave a speech talking about how horrible it is and how "we" need to get food to the people, and water, and get them out of there...blah, blah, blah,
and then said that he has had a ton of e-mails complaining about the treatment of the people and the lack of leadership and getting things done..and he goes on and on about the sick and babies.
Then he goes on and on about 9/11 and how he KNOWS what they are going through...
THEN, he says that the time for examining what went wrong, and why things didn't get done will be left for later..(read: congressional hearings into Bush's incompetence, yet again)...
So, I would say there will NOT be people pulling together to "get er done"....because the politicians won't let it.
Did you hear Chuck Schumer tonight on the Senate floor where he stated in days and weeks they will turn to blaming Bush in a full scale assault? he didn't state it in those words, but everyone knew what he meant.
Sorry, we've been down this route. They did this 9-11 and they will be even more blatantly political now. They aren't going to restrain from attacks for the sake of saving lives. Wish they had the conscience to do so, but they don't.