Insensate Bastards

Out of touch? Unprepared? Unconcerned? The Bush administration?

Via ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES:

'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.'

- George Bush to Diane Sawyers on ABC's Good Morning America.

Wrong, George... Anybody could have seen it. But maybe not a fool who proudly boasts that he doesn't read newspapers :

At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Speaking of newspapers, here's yesterday's New York Times editorial titled "Waiting for a Leader":

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

... nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

Jack Cafferty on CNN:

I gotta tell you something, we got five or six hundred letters before the show actually went on the air, and no one - no one - is saying the government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamatous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I'm 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it's fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it's handled this thing.

Also from CNN:

There are thousands of people just laying in the street. They have nowhere to go. These are mothers. We saw mothers. We talked to mothers holding babies. Some of these babies are 3, 4, 5, months old living in these horrible conditions. Putrid food on the ground. Sewage, their feet sitting in sewage. We saw feces on the ground. These people are being forced to live like animals. When you look at some of these mothers your heart just breaks. We're not talking about a few families or a few hundred families. Thousands of people are gathered around the convention.

I want to warn you. Some of these images that you will see they're very very graphic. But people need see this....

But they don't need to see graphic images from the Iraq War. And a New York judge is playing Pontius Pilate over the release of new photos from Abu Ghraib:

How can I ignore the expert opinion of General Myers, who is concerned with the safety of his troops?" the judge asked. "I can't substitute my opinion for the opinion of General Myers."

He said troops in Iraq "face danger every day and don't deserve to have that danger enlarged."

Also in New York:

Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

To top it all off, FEMA is directing donations to Pat Robertson.

UPDATE: Bush has already relegated large parts of Afghanistan and Iraq to tribal warlords. Now it looks like the same thing is happening around New Orleans:

The effort to rescue as many as 200,000 people left stranded and hungry in the sinking city of New Orleans ran the risk of catastrophic breakdown last night, as under-prepared and under-resourced federal authorities faced the hostility of heavily armed residents seemingly bent on shooting their way out of town if necessary.

Authorities suspended the airlift of tens of thousands of people clustered in and around the Superdome stadium after a report of gunfire directed at a Chinook military helicopter - a major blow to the rescue effort. Fires raged in the immediate vicinity, making it too dangerous to activate either air or ground transport, a spokesman for a local ambulance service said.

Medical relief workers said they were afraid to offer their services because of the threatening presence of gunmen amid the stench and human misery of the Superdome, which has been without running water, electricity or basic food or medical supplies for two days. Gunmen simply took over working vehicles, looting those supplied with ice, fresh water, food or medicine...

There are also reports of rapes.

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell — it's every man for himself.'"

...

Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.


"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!"