On Bush's Katrina Response

Of all the things to cite as examples of Bush's failures, this should not even be on the list. If you want to list the ways in which Bush has failed us, start with his first term, where, rather than deliver the school vouchers we voted him in on, he delivered a huge increase in the federal "education" bureaucracy, enlarged and gave more power to an agency that should be eliminated and is not even referred too in the MOST bastardized interpretation of the Consititution.

How about moving on to his failure to do any more than give lipservice to reducing the complexity and fairness of the tax system. Rather than a flat tax, we got a bunch of temporary tax cuts that did nothing to make the tax system less regressive or idiotic.

We could move on to the Iraq war part 2. Rather than use the proper arguments that Iraq had violated the terms of the cease-fire from Gulf War 1, or make the argument that Saddam was evil and had to be removed (like getting Hitler early), he went with a WMD argument and failed to go in with force great enough to secure Iraq's borders, AND failed to secure the WMD before it could be moved to Syria, making us, the Russian, French, and British Intelligence services all look like fools.

I cannot give you a full or complete listing of his failures, as I am sure it would take far too long, but lets jump to his greatest failure of all. Allowing the murder of Terri Schiavo. George and Jeb stood back and failed to protect a citizen in her most helpless state from being murdered. The Bushes have paid lipservice to pro-life issues, but thats all. Those of us that oppose government sponsored execution of both innocent and guilty need to wise up. The Bushes in particular and the Republicans in general care no more about making any true progress on our agenda of life than Democrats do about improving the lives of racial minorities, like the Democrats use of minorites, the Republicans use the issue of life to string us along and secure our votes election after election.

I guess that bring us back to Katrina. Lets go ahead and ignore all the failures before the storm, the Mayor not evacuating everyone from New Orleans in time. Lets ignore the stupidity of the precarious situation New Orleans existed in to begin with (the levee system and all that). Lets ignore individuals own failure to find a way out of the city, failing to take ultimate responsibility for their own lives and the lives in their charge. Lets ignore the complete fulfillment of the various doomsday scenarios written about in the last couple years in which exactly what happened was predicted. Lets further ignore the stupidity of the people living there, knowing their state (and yes the Federal government which has NO responsibility under the Constitution to redirect the Mississippi river for residents of Louisiana) had not done adequate work to strengthen the levees. And lets get straight to the issue. Bush failed, as ALL nanny-states do. He could not stop the weather, he could not swoop in like an eagle and single handedly rescue everyone from their roofs. Yes, George Bush has no super powers. Lets ignore the early responders being shot at. Lets ignore the amazing speed with which gun stores were emptied and thugs were armed. George should have donned his kevlar vest and gone in there and saved everyone.

For goodness sake, if we are going to criticize him, lets do it for the things he can control. Weather, and the failure of many thousands of people to educate themselves and take responsibility for themselves is not one of them.

What I have seen from Bush, since he was elected, is that he has failed his base on pretty much every issue. Even with his choice for supreme court justice, all we get is one that we HOPE will honor the right to life and help put an end to America's Holocaust (over 40 million murdered since Roe). He didn't even have the courage to pick an outspoken, known pro-life nominee. I hope we get a pro-life nominee, but only time will tell. Indeed, reshaping of the court, or at least getting us one seat closer to ending abortion is the only hope I have left for his administration. Both houses of Congress, albeit narrowly, and no closer to our agenda (any progress is arguable). I wonder if this is how liberal socialists felt when Clinton signed "welfare-reform", or engaged in Bush-style (current and father) imperialism in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Haiti, etc...

All I can do is shrug and vow that I will go third party in the future. There are very few Republicans I can support (I *might* like Santorum, but will have to investigate him more), and fewer Democrats. At least Nader has values and beliefs (even if they are mostly opposite of mine) and is worthy of respect for his honesty. Hillary is now showing she will be no better than Kerry or Bill Clinton for the left, running as close to the middle as she can, trying to appeal to everyone and making her useful to no one.