NEW ORLEANS CATASTROPHE BRINGING OUT THE WORST IN GOP OFFICIALS

Although elected Democrats Inside the Beltway have gone very easy on the Bush Regime for its criminal negligence and sheer incompetence in the aftermath of Katrina, the media-- for a change-- has not. Let me re-quote Bob Schieffer from Sunday's FACE THE NATION: "We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America's history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality. As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don't have a car? No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest." Republicans are trying to defend the indefensible. Over on MSNBC's little-watched show CONNECTED, a GOP strategist, Jack Burkman's defense of the Bush Regime struck observers as kind of heartless and cold: "I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It's terrible. It's tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen."

Republican House Speaker and Tom DeLay puppet, Denny Hastert, fumbled the ball when he made the first foray last week, suggesting New Orleans might be better off bulldozed. Even Bush realized Hastert sounded heartless and out-of-sync with America. (His way of re-focusing was to talk about how he used to come to New Orleans from more strait-laced Texas to get drunk an "have a good time.") Meanwhile, already in trouble with dissatisfied voters back home, several Republican senators whose seats are up next year, have been stepping in shit in regard to New Orleans. The Republican senator with the lowest approval ratings, Rick Santorum, went on television over the weekend (WTAE) and blurted out "You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving." An official might be expected to step back from rabble-rousing (and from his political agenda for a moment when the nation faces this kind of crisis) and acknowledge that even before Katrina, over a quarter of the people of New Orleans lived in poverty. Maybe Senator Santorum's wealthy white supporters in Pennsylvania have no reason to know this-- although the third highest ranking U.S. senator in DC should-- but before Hurricane Katrina hit, over 125,000 people in New Orleans lived below the federal poverty level. 20% of the victims had no cars to evacuate. (According to the Associated Press, “Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10 in nationwide.”) Attacked by the Democrat kicking his ass in early polls, Bob Casey, Santorum later tried withdrawing his TV comments, claiming he didn't mean what he said. This hasn't stopped one of his right-wing colleagues, Arizona's Jon Kyl, from making an ass of himself in an even more egregious manner.
When talk show host Barry Young urged a strong national response to Hurricane Katrina while interviewing Kyl on his Arizona show (KFYI-FM), Kyl stunned non-millionaire listeners by suggesting that the victims are to blame for lacking insurance and living in a city below sea level. Implying that uninsured hurricane victims shouldn’t receive federal relief funds Kyl has shown clearly out-of-step he-- and his party-- are with how Americans want-- DEMAND-- we as a people respond to this catastrophe-- a catastrophe that could have been avoided had government been less incompetent.  Kyl said “the question is if people know year after year after year a natural disaster occurs in a particular place and people continue to build there and want to live there, should they bear the responsibility of buying insurance or should everyone else bear the responsibility?” And yet when it comes to cleaning up after corporate polluters, bailing out crooked bankers or other pillars of Industry, Kyl and the GOP are always in the foreground of lending a hand (and billions of taxpayer dollars). Oh, and of course, if these are white voters in Arizona who are in trouble and needing a helping hand-- Kyle, always the hypocrite, is there for them. In a 2003 press release he wasn't talking about personal responsibility for victims living in a disaster-prone area. Noooo...Kyle was bragging that he bagged federal taxpayer dollars to help victims of an Arizona fire in a tinderboxlike topography. “I’m very pleased that federal disaster assistance will be made available to help Mt. Lemmon area residents recover from this horrific fire,” said Kyl. And in a letter to a couple of Bush cabinet secretaries he wrote: "“It is clear that we have another catastrophe that we can see coming, and now, with the categorical exclusions available to your agencies, we can act to protect the citizens of Arizona and their property from catastrophic losses. I urge both of you to take whatever actions are necessary to exercise immediately the authorities you possess to expedite treatment of the conditions now threatening the integrity of these forest ecosystems.” Different standards which I'm sure Senator Kyle will get someone to make up an excuse for-- if anyone ever questions him about it.