Reality finally bites Bush (Major SP Times Barf Alert)

St. Petersburg Times ^ | 09/11/05 | Robin (ACLU) Blumner

[shortstop]

Reality has finally caught up to George W. Bush.

The bubble in which the president has been governing has finally burst, or, more aptly, has gotten so waterlogged it is too heavy to drag around.

Cindy couldn't do it, but Katrina did. Bush has been shoved awake from his long national daydream to find that, to his surprise, the country cannot be governed effectively by giving high-ranking officials cutesy nicknames and engaging in determined wishful thinking.

Welcome to the real world, Mr. President. Any ideas on what to do now?

I'm looking forward to seeing this investigation Bush intends to personally launch. But why go through the motions? Just put out the report now blaming every failure on Louisiana's Democrats.

Early on, Bush decided that his administration would adopt a "perception equals reality" approach to governance and stick to that playbook regardless of what America's lying eyes saw: a "Healthy Forests" initiative that opened federal forests to aggressive logging, a "Clear Skies" proposal that allowed more mercury emissions and air pollution from coal plants. It was an easy magician's trick, since only those pointy-headed poindexters would appreciate the implications.

But pictures of people - Americans - trapped atop flooded houses with bloated bodies floating by, while our secretary of state buys overpriced shoes on Fifth Avenue and the president stumps at a golf resort, can't be dissembled.

Remember how Bush's crew sneered at the process of understanding reality through the serious examination of known facts? How passe that all was, they said.

In 2004, journalist Ron Suskind recalled in the New York Times Magazine a conversation he had with a senior adviser to Bush in 2002. Suskind was pointedly told that guys like him were in "the reality-based community," which, the aide defined, as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," the aide continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality "judiciously, as you will' we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

Here are some of the "realities" of Team Bush that I've been judiciously studying:

* You can go to war without raising the revenues necessary to pay for it.

* You can win a war without drafting the troops needed for battle.

* You can put political cronies in charge of key government agencies, and they will be competent.

* You can help average Americans by giving tax breaks to the richest.

* You can keep up with "the people" by allowing only those who are already on board to be part of the conversation.

* And you can protect America best by sending its National Guard to fight in Mesopotamia.

I would say these "realities" have come crashing down, proving that gravity is a reality-based law of nature.

Katrina was a perfect storm for Bush. It was a natural disaster, which meant Bush couldn't don his flight suit and shake his fists at the "instruments of evil" who seek to destroy us. His flat-footedness - similar to his confused visage after the 9/11 attacks - could not be later be wiped from the public's mind by a pervasive fear that gripped the country. And his tendency to misdirect the public with untruths didn't work, because television images of people desperately awaiting help are more convincing than Bush's declaring that FEMA director Michael "Brownie" Brown is doing "a heck of a job."

So good, that he's now off the job.

At the same time, the horror laid bare Bush's willingness to starve our domestic needs and divert manpower and materiel to pursuing the man who "tried to kill my dad." The storm set in stark relief Bush's lack of interest in the consequences of global warming. (A 2004 study by an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that as the world's oceans and gulfs become superheated, more powerful hurricanes result.) And it demonstrated his unwillingness to make government spending a priority (slashing requests by the Army Corps of Engineers for funds to reinforce the levees around New Orleans). There is tax money to give back, after all.

Here is the Bush agenda come home to roost - on a roof. And it's caved in. Can't get much more real than that.

[shortstop]

So many lies and half truths by the former ACLU employee, Blumner, I don't know where to begin. If this was Clinton, she'd be talking about Clinton's great Urban Renewal plan for New Orleans.

Blumner's email address is: blumner@sptimes.com

[Redcloak]

Yup... I'm afraid that they're right. It's all Bush's fault. He should have know what a pair of idiots Nagin and Blanco are.

[publana]

They've realized who is truly to blame and are doing damage control to make the truth appear as just another one of Bush's cover-ups. These people are dispicable.

[Dallas59]

What a fatalist! I need to send the writer some razor blades, Drano and some rope.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>And you can protect America best by sending its National Guard to fight in Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia?! LOL

As with all radical liberals, Robin Blumner is smoking bulls**t.

[siunevada]

I think all the 'logic' of the Left is beginning to have an effect on me. I'm seriously considering not voting for George Bush in 2008.

[clintonh8r]

She's a "moderate" by Times standards....

[Fenris6]

Can we just nuke the Blue Cities now? Its self-defense.

[claudiustg]

Nice try Blumner! The Republicans will gain yet more seats in local, state, and national government, but nice try. We still get 2 conservative justices as well, so put that out of your mind.

[atomicpossum]

The bubble in which the president has been governing has finally burst, or, more aptly, has gotten so waterlogged it is too heavy to drag around.

In other words, "we think after 5 years of inflammatory rhetoric, name calling, wild accusations and insanity, that we've got something to stick." Of course, they felt the same way about Plamegate.

[Williams]

I think my favorite aspect of all this is that there was no major breakdown in the federal effort. This is a non-story. But I say it again and again on here, the republicans allowed this to became a "reality" in the minds of a considerable percentage of Americans. They should have been embarrassing the democrats over this but instead they ran for cover as usual. And they are not doing the country a service with that timidity.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

Robyn Blumner

That is all I needed to read to know whatever was in this article was absolute S##T.

[rj45mis]

I'm not sure I needed to read any more of the sewage being spewed by the displaced liberal elite, but I emailed this clown anyway. God help us. These people will not stop until there is a civil war in this country and they are soundly defeated. Free speech has to be tempered with civility, of which the left are sorely lacking.

[Zacs Mom]

The true face of the cRATS is being revealed

City Of New Orleans
Mayors Office of Communications
1300 Perdido Street, Suite 2E04
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
504-658-4940

C. Ray Nagin, MAYOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 27, 2005

Mayor Nagin Urges Citizens to Prepare For Hurricane Katrina

(New Orleans, LA) In response to the potential threat of Hurricane Katrina, Mayor C. Ray Nagin is urging all citizens to begin preparations now for the coming storm. Mayor Nagin will hold the next press briefing at 5 p.m. today in the Mayor’s Press Room, second floor of City Hall.

“Although the track could change, forecasters believe Hurricane Katrina will affect New Orleans,” said Mayor Nagin. “We may call for a voluntary evacuation later this afternoon or tomorrow morning to coincide with the instatement of contraflow. This will give people more options to leave the area. However, citizens need to begin preparing now so they will be ready to leave when necessary. Do everything to prepare for a regular hurricane, but treat this one differently because it is headed our way. This is not a test.”

The Mayor also recommended that residents of Algiers, the Lower Ninth Ward and low-lying areas begin evacuating now."

Notice in the above image of 'evacuees' lined up to enter the Superdome how many of these people seem to have brought the supplies they were told they would need.

[cwb]

What's up with the St. Petersburg Times? Yesterday, I read some rant where the reporter was comparing the wonderful job Jeb Bush did in Florida to that of how President Bush performed in Louisiana. Apparently, she forgot Louisiana also had a governor.

[publana]

I can't access the article.

[nothingnew]

God help us. These people will not stop until there is a civil war in this country and they are soundly defeated.

I have updated my FMCDH (From My Cold Dead Hands) sign-off with the addition of (BITS).....Blood In The Streets, which I foresee coming soon, due to the enormous increase of the Marxist progressive movement being shoved down the throat of this failing REPUBLIC through the Judicial tyranny of fiat law, the passing of unconstitutional laws by the Legislative and Executive branches of our government and the enormous tax burden placed upon the average American to support unconstitutional programs put forth by Marxist ideology.

I do not advocate revolution. I only think of what I foresee.

FMCDH(BITS)

[JoJo Gunn]

But pictures of people - Americans - trapped atop flooded houses with bloated bodies floating by, while our secretary of state buys overpriced shoes on Fifth Avenue and the president stumps at a golf resort, can't be dissembled.

"Hey, New Orleans is a party town. Get over it." (Democrap mayor Ray Nagin, on sending the police to Las Vegas).

[Richard Axtell]

This is at least the fourth time this "story" has been written. re-written, revised, updated, and reapplied in a vain attempt by middling MSM operatives to somehow affect the coup de grace against Bush.

The "AWOL documents" story was a fraud, and Dan Rather paid for it with his reputation.

The Plame-Rove "outing" story was such a non story, we have forgotten it totally. It was based on a fraudulent attempt to discredit Bush's policies in Iraq, and was resurrected out of desperation, as the left tried its best to rescue something they could use from Wilson's false gambit.

Cindy Sheehan came as a surprise to the left, they immediately seized upon her and her "cause" only to find out that Cindy had more in common with Cynthia McKenny than the "Mother Sheehan" character they tried to fabricate. To build a "peace movement" around Cindy Sheehan's vicious and clumsy antisemitic insanity would have been suicide for any movement that sought mainstream support, instead of fringe marginalization.

And now, the latest example of the Democrat-MSM-Leftist's opportunistic politics of fraud and hatred is upon us. And the same result is to be expected. The facts simply cannot support the allegations.

On the contrary, all the information I have seen, save the anecdotal testimony of vicious ant-Bush partisans, has condemned the corrupt and ineffectual trio of Nagin-Blanco-Landrieu. Any real investigation will reinforce the obvious; city and state officials totally botched their attempt to initiate a disaster plan, and the Federal government was neither prepared to nor required to step in and totally replace the function of local law enforcement as the failure happened.

The federal goverment started to put resources in place and push the evacuation on Friday before the hurricane, but state and city officials (Blanco and Nagin) resisted the efforts for political reasons. Nagin called for the manditory evacuation 2 days late, made no attempt to implement a long in place disaster plan, and has foolishly lied to try and cover it up, and discourage scrutiny of his actions, or inaction.

We now see the pictures of the flooded buses, 550+ of them, and today we hear the most juvenile, silly, transparent, and unbelievable excuses as to why they were not used to evacuate the remaining populace from the Superdome, Convention Center, and other locations.

It just doesn't get any worse than the guilty, lying at the top of the lungs, trying to deflect the inevitable retribution that they deserve. I only hope that writers who write this kind of bilge, suffer even a sliver of that retribution, as they certainly deserve it.

[Wuli]

Do these people think the people of Florida, who voted in majorities for Bush, twice, can buy this Dim inspired tirade against Bush, via attacks on Fema?

How many Hurricanes have there been while Brown has been head of Fema?; including home many in Florida? And what was and has been the perception of Fema's response to those Hurricanes? The people in St. Petersburg know what their state and Fema has done when it comes to hurricanes and they can see for themselves the defining difference - state and local leadership, not Fema.

If I was a conspiratorialist, I would think that the Lousiana Governor's obstructionism and negligence together with the Dim's and the Media's ignoring of it is all intentional, begining as early as the Friday before Katrina hit, when the Lousiana Governor refused Bush' suggestion for a mandatory evacuation then, and as she later refused efforts to get a fed in overal command of a coordinated disaster response.

A set up. Make it as difficult as possible for Fema to know what is needed and exactly where it is needed, by controlling access yourself, and then blame Fema for not being psychics enough to know what you don't know, what you will not field people to go find out, and what you will not send in the state National Guard to go find out either.

I think the LA GOP should be having a press conference to demand a state investigation and impeachment of their Governor. They will have the mayor of NO and the governor sitting there pointing fingers at each other in front of the cameras. What will she say with the media watching when a LA GOP state senator asks:

"After Fema and the Red Cross worked to get food, water, blankets and personal hygiene kits pre-positioned to take into New Orleans as early as Tuesday, enough for thousdands, and as the mayor stood there in front of the TV cameras asking where the help was, why did you refuse to let Fema and the Red Cross get those supplies into New Orleans? "And, before you answer Governor, in a similar vein, after Fema had worked to get a mobile hospital unit ready and waiting in Mississippi to go to New Orleans, with 100 medical personnel, as early as 24 hours after Katrina hit, why did you refuse to let them take that unit to New Orleans?

The nation needs to see her wiggling out of questions like that on TV, and not getting away with her bland statements that we all hoped Fema's response would have been sooner. Sooner when? When she sat on her hands and tied the hands of her own National Guard?