| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
10 Sep 2005 08:19:24 AM |
| Object: |
With Katrina, the obscene Republican "agenda" comes crashing down |
From NEWSWEEK, 9/9/05:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9271481/site/newsweek
If there’s an upside to Katrina, it’s that the Republican agenda of
tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government
programs is over.
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
It feels like we’re back in a political campaign with the White House
shifting blame to local and state Democratic officials for the
shamefully slow response to hurricane Katrina’s devastation.
You can fault all levels of government, but the federal government is
the last line of defense, and it was clear by the day after the storm
struck that this was a regional disaster with national implications
for the country’s economic and social well-being.
President Bush has worked so hard to not repeat the mistakes of his
father, especially the senior Bush’s lackadaisical response to
Florida's Hurricane Andrew, which helped cost him re-election.
Former president Bush was never able to reconnect with the American
people despite such heroically comic efforts as reading aloud a
talking point his handlers had given him:
"Message--I care."
Such are the pitfalls of the Oedipal relationship that the seeds of
the son’s downfall may have arrived in the same blast of wind and
rain.
President Bush’s disapproval rating now stands at 52 percent, and two
in three Americans give him a thumbs down on handling hurricane
relief, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the
Press.
The national survey also finds Americans are "depressed, angry and
very worried about the economic consequences of the disaster."
With gas prices spiraling and an unnecessary war draining billions
from the Treasury, Bush’s inadequacies are glaringly obvious, from
incompetence to insensitivity.
The credibility gap that emerged on Iraq has widened to a chasm with
the hurricane aftermath.
The media has turned a corner as well, with reporters on the scene in
New Orleans liberated to say the emperor has no clothes.
At the heart of the problem is Bush’s disdain for government.
His first director of FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management
Administration) was his Texas buddy Joseph Allbaugh, who described the
then-cabinet level agency as "an oversized entitlement program."
Allbaugh, with Bush’s blessing, proceeded to downsize FEMA, and when
he left he tapped for his successor his college roommate, Michael
Brown, FEMA’s general counsel and former head of the International
Arabian Horse Association, a man with questionable credentials for
disaster management.
Bush’s remark, "You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie," will live on
in the annals of Bushisms--especially after Brown was removed from
Katrina operations and sent back to Washington on Friday.
For believers in the grand unified theory of conspiracy, Allbaugh now
lobbies FEMA on behalf of Halliburton, the administration’s gravy
train of choice.
If there’s an upside to Katrina, it’s that the Republican agenda of
tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government
programs is over.
It may be too much to predict an upsurge of progressive government,
but the environment and issues of poverty, race and class are back on
the nation’s radar screen.
The proper role for government will be debated as we move toward the
next presidential election.
"Nobody is for smaller government when you’re in the middle of a
hurricane or a flood," says former Louisiana senator John Breaux.
An e-mail I received from a NEWSWEEK reader says if somebody had tried
to withdraw a feeding tube from a brain-damaged woman at the
Superdome, Bush would have sent in the Marines, a poke at the
president’s hasty return to Washington during the Terri Schiavo
episode compared with his halting response to Katrina.
Even some Republicans agree with Hillary Clinton that FEMA should be
restored to stand-alone status as a government agency rather than
being wedged into the giant bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland
Security.
The merger has never been a happy one, with agency officials still
squabbling over wearing jackets emblazoned with FEMA or DHS.
President Clinton rebuilt FEMA during his presidency, and Jamie Lee
Witt, the Arkansan who led the agency, won praise from Republicans as
well as Democrats for his cool and caring competence.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has brought in Witt to help her with
the recovery and reconstruction, a move that underscores the partisan
animosity that has taken hold in the wake of the bungled relief
efforts.
Bill Clinton understands the impact of a disaster.
His inability to cope with an influx of Cuban refugees in 1980
contributed to his defeat as governor.
He recovered and came back to win again.
Clinton, who toured the Houston Astrodome with former president Bush,
must have been aghast when Barbara Bush mused how many of the people
being housed "were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very
well for them."
We’ve gone from compassionate conservatism to Marie Antoinette.
As much as the Bushes disparaged Clinton over the years, they want him
nearby as a human shield to show they’re capable of reaching out
beyond the narrow confines of class and partisan politics.
The irony of a Republican president now looking to the credibility of
the last Democrat in the White House to maintain his standing reveals
the extent to which Bush has fallen politically.
_____________________________________________________________
All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Georgie
together again.
Harry
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| User: "Joshua Heard" |
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| Title: Re: With Katrina, the obscene Republican "agenda" comes crashing down |
10 Sep 2005 01:03:54 PM |
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How can Bush be "slashing" programs when he is running up a big deficit?
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| User: "Rich Travsky" |
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| Title: Re: With Katrina, the obscene Republican "agenda" comes crashing down |
15 Sep 2005 04:11:55 PM |
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Joshua Heard wrote:
How can Bush be "slashing" programs when he is running up a big deficit?
I guess they do a lot of drugs... oxycontin is popular in con-servative
circles.
RT
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| User: "CJT" |
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| Title: Re: With Katrina, the obscene Republican "agenda" comes crashingdown |
11 Sep 2005 11:01:46 PM |
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Joshua Heard wrote:
How can Bush be "slashing" programs when he is running up a big deficit?
He's no longer collecting a fair share of taxes from the wealthy, for
one thing.
--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
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