"My brain hurts!" (the Gumbies on Monty Python)
We've long suspected that the average IQ of the average member of the Bush government appointee is much lower than the national average. If there was any doubt about this, it was washed away by the government's response to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
There were a number of painful, deadly boners committed by our government this week. The real "award winners" in this area are, of course, George Bush himself, his FEMA appointee (and former horse organization firee) Michael Brown and his Homeland Security Secrety (and former judge) Michael Chertoff.
The biggest problem is that we have a federal government completely lacking in any imagination at the top. Parts of the government, "privitized" or just gutted by the Republicans just aren't functioning very well. The Republicans have trained millions of Americans to throw tantrums whenever the phrase "raising taxes" is mentioned. Sorry, folks, if we hadn't been giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, and if we had a government that had a clue about the importance of maintaining infrastructure, the levee may not have broken in New Orleans. Even if it had, the National Guard might have been better prepared to handle the mess that followed.
George Bush said, on national TV this week that we could not have forseen the collapse of the levee. Michael Chertoff said that the "Katrina scenario did not exist." Michael Brown couldn't figure out that people were collecting at the Convention Center when we'd been watching them do that for two days on TV.
The notion that the government could not have forseen this calamity is patent bullshit. Scientists have been warning of this very thing for years - but we have a government that does not listen to scientists. Those of us who bother to read magazines like National Geographic read about this very possibility less than a year ago.
Their brains just hurt to much, they were too bogged down by their own lust for power that these "pro-life" Republicans have killed off hudreds if not thousands of American citizens in New Orleans. It'll be shown that most people in New Orleans did not die during the storm, but in the total collapse of the infrastructure following the storm. People died from drowning, asthma attacks, poor sanitation, heart conditions, murder, accidental killings from overwrought Nation Guard troops (there's a particularly tragic rumor about a man being shot to death by a National Guard when he tried to get their help to prevent a rape). It was a failure on local, state and federal levels, but, in theory, the federal government is supposed to be capable of assisting localities in major emergencies like this one.
Special notice, of course, must be given to the members of his government who viewed staying on vacation as being more important than dealing with a major regional crisis. So we should never forget that George Bush stayed in Texas (when he wasn't out going to political fundraisers) until two days after Katrina levelled the Gulf Coast, and that both Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stayed out of Washington until at least Friday.
This is not the way the government of a civilized society should be reacting. I want a civilized, rational American government again. I wish "incompetence" was an impeachable offense, because we have more than enough evidence of that now!
