Get the Defibrillator

Bush admits to failure?!? I think my heart stopped:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

He even spins remorse -- "all levels of government" and "didn't fully do its job right" sound like he's trying to dodge as much of the "responsibility" as he can -- but this is still an unprecedented step for an administration that has remained unrepentant on even its most epic failures. Of course, even on 9/11 we didn't lose an entire city, so I guess this proves that even Rove has his limits.

On the other hand, the administration is rapidly running out of scapegoats. Gov. Blanco has been officially declared to have done her job properly by what may be the last genuinely nonpartisan government commission in DC, and Mayor Nagin is proving increasingly difficult to blame. Now Bush can't be held responsible for the actions of a bunch of racist cops in Gretna, aside from doing something about them at the time, but they messed up in so many other ways that I'm willing to chalk that up to the same incompetence they displayed everywhere else. Otherwise, it looks like nearly the whole mess ends up in their laps.

(And I hate being so cynical that I wonder about how much of the 'fewer deaths than expected' news is good, and how much of it is cover-up.)

So Bush actually took responsibility for something. Well, that is to be commended as far as it goes. Now that we've had some truth, let's start talking consequences. Responsibility means you deal with what you did. Maybe it's time to repeal a few of those tax breaks for Bush's super-rich buddies to pay for this mess. Or perhaps the administration should be forced to eat some crow by having someone with brains replace the cronies in FEMA and other emergency organizations. Ideally, Bush should be forced to resign by overwhelming outrage, but we're the reality-based community, so one step at a time. Besides, that would just leave us with Cheniac, which wouldn't improve matters anyway.

They're starting to sink. As Carville would say, time to throw them an anvil.
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(/) Roland X
Luthor/Brainiac amalgam: "I kill you, and then...Armageddon, right on schedule."

Gods Bless Newsweek

We rip the media so often here on the lefty side of the blogosphere (not as bad as the right's paranoid "MSM" fantasies, but still...), so I thought I should give kudos where they are richly deserved:

It takes a hurricane. It takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again. For the moment, at least, Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention. Does this mean a new war on poverty? No, especially with Katrina's gargantuan price tag. But this disaster may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.

It shouldn't have taken a hurricane. America should not need a disaster of Biblical proportions to wake us up from our complacency and sloth. Other than that, Newsweek -- the source of the paragraph quoted above -- nails it on the head. This is their cover story. The text of the cover?

Poverty, Race & Katrina
Lessons of a National Shame

Now that's the so-called "MSM" doing its gorram job.

We can, of course, expect the usual suspects to scream their usual slanders. "Bias!" "Liberals!" "Bush-haters!" To which I can only say the following, courtesy of Fox News:

SMITH: They won't let them walk out of the…convention center. .. they've locked them in there. The government said, "You go here, and you'll get help," or, "You go in that Superdome and you'll get help."

And they didn't get help. They got locked in there. And they watched people being killed around them. And they watched people starving. And they watched elderly people not get any medicine..

And they've set up a checkpoint. And anyone who walks up out of that city now is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Over there, there's hope. Over there, there's electricity. Over there, there is food and water. But you cannot go from there to there. The government will not allow you to do it. It's a fact.

HANNITY: All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier today...

SMITH: That is perspective! That is all the perspective you need!

So anyone want to tell me that Fox News is part of the liberal media? Watching the video, watching Geraldo Rivera in tears as he held up babies gone four, five, six days with little or no water, watching Shepard Smith screaming at Sean Hannity...Smith was right. That's all the perspective you need.
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(/) Roland X
"WAKE UP!" -- Rage Against The Machine

Public Service Announcement For The Bushista Resistance

I've been hoping someone would do one blog/web entry that covers all the major malfeasance of the Resident and his cronies.

http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/636/1/

Mr. Harris does it so the rest of us don't have to. I wish I could smiley this, but the reality is just too...real. Still, kudos to Bob for wading through the virtual muck to give us the rundown on the real stuff along the Gulf Coast. As he puts it:

The lies are numerous, repeated, obvious, and easily documented.

Not to mention shameless, self-serving, vile and inexcusable. I wish I had more hope that America would wake up and realize what an obscene little man is running our country, but I have a little, which is more than I've had for a while now.

It shouldn't have taken losing an entire American city, a situation in which less than ten thousand deaths is a good thing, for us to get here. And the price is too high. But that there is hope at all is a good start.
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(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix, after all. Whattaya know.

The REAL Core of Bush Loyalty: A Paper Tiger

Gakked from Daily Kos, a poll from AP/Ipsos:

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as President?

Strongly Approve 20 (23)
Somewhat Approve 11 (10)
Lean Toward Approval 8 (9)
Lean Toward Disapproval 14 (13)
Somewhat Disapprove 5 (5)
Strongly Disapprove 40 (38)

Total

Approve 39 (42)
Disapprove 59 (55)

Italics theirs. Bold emphasis mine (and other boldface removed). Numbers in parentheses are from the previous poll.

Bush has dropped below 40%. He's officially tanking. The "popular wartime Preznit" BS is long since dead. (Of course, that's what you get for invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor -- I mean, Iraq after 9/11.)

More importantly, however, the strong approval rating is a mere 20%. Just half of the strong disapproval. That, my friends, is the solid, unshakeable core of the willingly deluded who continue to believe Bush anointed by God. That's it. And you can get 20% of Americans to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Hey, Democrats. You can call out the Bush Cultists for being lying, corrupt traitors. Honest. It's safe now.
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(/) Roland X
O.D. (Original Deaniac)

Now IS the Time; Now HAS To Be the Time

So the adults are in charge, huh?

With everything from death to thuggery to sexual harrassment taking place at the hands of the government, give me one good reason not to play the "blame game."

I don't give a damn if Democrats go down too, if they're partly responsible for the horror that is Lake New Orleans. Now, Governor Blanco has unquestionably been slimed in an outright lie by the administration, which claimed she did not declare a state of emergency when it is a matter of record that she did on the 26th. However, criminal negligence is criminal negligence, and one slander does not an innocent make, so I reserve judgement.

Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelming that Bush, the DHS and FEMA failed miserably. While Bush let them eat cake and fiddled, New Orleans drowned and the entire Gulf Coast was swamped.

As the entire sane blogosphere is pointing out, no one is responsible for an act of nature. They are responsible for their preparations for it (and lack thereof), criminal negligence during, and obscene neglect bordering on manslaughter afterwards. Thousands are dead because of these soulless fools. The buck stops now, or the next time will only be worse.

(/) Roland X
Bin Laden must be laughing his evil @$$ off...