I love the latest Rove Talking Point that we’ll be able to do an “after action report” later, we need to focus on helping the victims. We HAVE been focused on that, way back on last Monday and Tuesday, while Chimpy was focused on golf and guitar. As if calling for the head of Bush & Chertoff on a pike somehow prevents National Guardsmen from filling sandbags and evacuating people. WE CAN DO BOTH.
NEVER FORGET NEW ORLEANS. Never forget 9/11. Never forget no WMD’s. Never forget Bush v. Gore. Never forget 7-hour lines to vote in poor black neighborhoods. Never forget the anthrax mailer. Never forget Osama bin Laden roaming around free. Never forget Terri Schiavo. Never forget “Mission Accomplished” or “Bring ’em on!” or “This country can finance it’s own reconstruction” or “They’ll greet us as liberators” or “It’s a slam-dunk!” or “Six months, tops.” Never forget federal budget surplus turned into the biggest deficit in history. Never forget that in every critical decision, every important juncture in American history, diplomacy, and politics, the Shrub Maladministration has favored a very select few rich mostly-white men at the expense of almost everyone else in the country.
Never forget that they are lying to you. Never forget that they present a few Uncle Tom minority faces (yeah, I said it; screw you, Kindasleezzy, go buy a new pair of shoes, and screw you, Quaintzalez, tell us again how American it is to torture) to install an illusion of inclusiveness, while in reality they are truly (96%+ of all local, state, and federal Republican elected officials) the “white Christian party”. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with being a white Christian, but unless you’re a white Christian with a lot of green, never forget that they’re using you, too, padding their enrich-the-rich agenda with your anti-gay, anti-abortion, school-prayer, Ten-Commandments votes — other issues they pay lip service to while they make their offerings to Mammon.
Never forget the Bankruptcy Bill. Never forget failure to sign Kyoto Protocol or Anti-Land Mine treaties. Never forget “Clear Skies” or “Healthy Forests” initiatives that pollute skies and harm forests. Never forget going AWOL from the National Guard, then stop-lossing the National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never forget impugning the military service of John Kerry, John McCain, and Max Cleland. Never forget race-baiting push polls intimating that John McCain had an illegitimte black baby. Never forget Valerie Plame. Never forget “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” Never forget Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
If you can still support George W. Bush after this disaster, you are The Tin Man. You can’t hide from this one, Chimpy. No scary A-rab Muslim terrorists to frighten the people with. No 9/11 to tug at people’s heartstrings (the heartstrings are ripped by the video from New Orleans, but not the way you’d like.) No bogeyman marriage-seeking homosexuals to pin this one on. No specialists and sergeants from West Virginia to stop people from looking up the chain of command. No way to question someone’s patriotism for doubting you on this one. No smearing of a Joe Wilson, a Paul O’Neill, a Richard Clarke, a Scott Ritter, a Hans Blix, or anyone else to shift the spotlight from you. Oh, you’ll try to pin it on Senator Landrieu or Governor Blanco or Mayor Nagin, and maybe they could’ve done more, but everyone knows that once the disaster occurs, it is the federal government’s job to respond; otherwise, what do we have a federal government for?
You broke it. You own it. To my Republican friends, many of you who are good people who just want limited government, fiscal responsibility, gun rights, traditional values, immigration control, or whatever, tell me that the television news you’ve been watching for the past week represents the America and the government you voted for. Your party controls everything — the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the federal courts, most state governorships and legislatures. Yes, Katrina was a natural disaster and it would have been devastating for a President Kerry or a President Gore, but the aftermath of Katrina is a man-made disaster.
You got the government you voted for. Satisfied?
