Pure poetry! Pass it ON!
>Subject: Baltimore Sun editorial: Bush must go
> >To: undisclosed-recipients:;
> >
> >
> >After Katrina fiasco, time for Bush to go
> >By Gordon Adams, Baltimore Sun
> >Originally published September 8, 2005
> >WASHINGTON - The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of
> >incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that should lead to
> >serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in
> >office.
> >
> >When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a
> >year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the
> >Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad
> >daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
> >swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.
> >
> >When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is repeatedly cut
> >by an administration that seems determined to undermine the public
> >responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that
> >the infrastructure could not survive a major storm, it seems clear someone
> >is playing politics with the public trust.
> >
> >When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in
> >northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the
> >government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the
> >assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the
> >administration to leave town.
> >
> >When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two
> >days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are
> >starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.
> >
> >When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at
> >the New Orleans convention center - where people died and were starving -
> >and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they
> >should be fired, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael
> >Brown in New Orleans last week.
> >
> >When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the
> >levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National
> >Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing
> >precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane
> >Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.
> >
> >When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of
> >people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both
> >money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to
> >commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given
> >his walking papers.
> >
> >When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the
> >poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of
> >housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity
> >that should banish him from office.
> >
> >When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame
> >response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local
> >officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays
> >the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself
> >accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq,
> >Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their
> >own misjudgments.
> >
> >We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and
> >narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist
> >crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials
> >who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of
> >government with expensive baloney.
> >
> >They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of
> >bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every
> >way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with
> >Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was
> >"small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from
> >this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer
> >profiteering behind it.
> >
> >It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital
> >Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their
> >strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and
> >mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.
> >
> >Author:
> >Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at the Elliott School of
> >International Affairs at George Washington University, was senior White
> >House budget official for national security in the Clinton administration.
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