VMC SURVEY BOARD

[ksuave]

Actually, otc, the criticisms against Bush for what happened with katrina are quite substantive. They are less about his lack of immediate personal response than they are about his policies that left the government in a weakened position to deal with this (totally predicted) disaster. By putting FEMA under homeland security and cutting the budget for levee control while simultaneously cutting taxes and sending so much money to Iraq while leaving the homeland less secure. And to top it off, he appointed an old chum of his who is thoroughly unqualified to be the head of FEMA, one of the more important federal agencies. Even you must admit that there can be national emergencies that the federal governement must take the lead in dealing with, and GWB appointed a man who most recently had been fired from a position as director of a race-horse association to head it, a man with zero disaster control experience, a man who had never even worked within such a complex organization as FEMA, much less had experience being the administrative director of one. If GWB owed this man a favor for having raised a lot money for his campaign, ambassador to Lichtenstein would have been more appropriate than a job in which thousands, potentially even millions of American lives would be at stake. It's indicative of GWB's indifference to most of the responsibilities that come with being President of the United States. It can't all be about supply-side economics, corporate deregulation, and placating the Christian right. It's proof positive that we need someone in charge of the government who has a positive vision of government, not someone who hates it and has vowed to starve it.

And, by the way, you're wrong about "liberals" only being concerned about their own rights. The ACLU is famous for defending the right of free speech even when it is being denied to the American Nazi Party, or to opponents of a woman's right to choose. Yes, when acting within their rights -- which doesn't include shooting doctors or jumping on the cars of women trying to enter abortion clinics -- so-called pro-life proponenets have been defended by the ACLU for free. And "liberals" don't fight to outlaw religion, they fight to maintain the notion of separation of church and state. We don't want the edicts of the C of E shoved down our throats, and we don't want no Evangelical Baptists telling everyone else how they must think either. It's one and the same thing. I understandthe instincts behind your politics, but I still fail to grasp how it can lead you to support one the most patrician, elitist, financially irresponsible and anti-populist adminstrations in our history.

FWIW, I have to go to bed, and I have a busy day tomorrow.

ksuave