Hurricane Katrina has diverted our attention from Iraq, and now the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Roberts confirmation hearings will further absorb us. If neither of these things were occupying the stage, we would be scrutinizing the constitutional process in Iraq and following the Cindy Sheehan bus caravan. What effect do you think it will have for Americans to pay so much less attention to Iraq? Certainly, those who are committed to the anti-war movement are frustrated to have built up attention to their cause only to see it torn away. Some of them have tried very hard to link Katrina to the Iraq war.
I'm sure such efforts appeal to those who are already against the war, but I tend to think most Americans would find them obtuse or offensive. The theme has been the woeful, overarching incompetence of the Bush administration. If the administration proceeds to do well with the hurricane disaster, it might make people more likely to assume it must be doing well enough in Iraq too. The anti-war activists will feel tempted to point to all the failings of the hurricane effort to keep the general incompetence theme alive. But I think ordinary people feel very bad about the things that went wrong in the Katrina aftermath and will eagerly consume any new flow of good news. They will get tired of those who harp on the bad, especially when it is conspicuously part of a larger political agenda.
UPDATE: I think this new poll reinforces my beliefs about how ordinary people will feel about things.
September 4, 2005
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Will Ms. Sheehan be hoping to meet with Pres. Bush when the caravan arrives in D.C. September 24th or will she in fact be hoping for just the opposite of what she says she's hoping for? link What does this "anti-war" movement truly hope for? Ordinary people want to know.
if Ms. Sheehan wants to score political points her caravan should go to say, Baton Rouge or Houston, not DC....
If the criticism was less indiscriminate, it might come across as valid, but some people have been screaming for five plus years about every bit of bad (and good) news as an indication of something wrong with Bush. Such as the 200,000 new jobs were created last month..."Well they are all hamburger flipping jobs", etc etc. The cable news and blogosphere feed into that tendency, you can always find someone to come on and bitch, but intelligent people need to be rational and honest. Really.
I'm trying to follow your analogy, Brando. Ordinary people are addicted to good news as alcoholics are addicted to alcohol? How is good news toxic and why can good news not include asking tough questions?
Brando: I seriously think I have a better read on how ordinary people act than you have.
I am always ready to debate Iraq. IN fact Iraq represents what all the liberals on this board are accusing Bush of not doing regarding the hurricane.... PRE-EMPTION.
"...I think NOLA will prompt ordinary people to further question the Elephant on the kitchen table, including Iraq..."
The same people who were questioning Iraq before the flood, willl undoubtedly be questioning it after the flood.
The anti-war crowd is always looking for something... some analysis or excuse to pull out of Iraq and to appease the terrorist. It is history constantly repeating itself.
Now the left is attempting to imply that the Hurricane disaster was Bush's fault. How ridiculous.
The following quote is by far the most moranic analysis I have seen on this board....
"The reason in part being is that criticism is coming from left, right and center. The shame has no political allegiance. In any case, I imagine the next set of polls will be the proof in the pudding."
I can't wait to see those totally commited to the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, those with the guts to fight terrorism, the pro-lifers, the pro free marketeers, the pro-traditional marriage, the whole republican coalition falling apart because the National Guard was 24 hours late in bailing out what is a massive failure by the city of New Orleans and the State government of Louisana.
The left will do their best to try and blame the 10,000 drowning victims that are found at the bottom of streets and houses in New Orleans on Bush and our Military. But, the facts will not lie. Those victims died because they drowned. They drowned with full bellies of food and water. They drowned because they were not evacuated. They drowned because of the incompetence of the city government of New Orleans. They drowned because the city planners had no plan to evacuate them. Those victims were wrteen off long ago.
Altogether, what I've been reading shows everybody in a bad light. With two possible exceptions:
2. The decision in the Sixties to protect against CAT3. The resources to protect against CAT5 were, and still are, IMO out of line with the risk. Like having Tokyo-level earthquake protection for Manhattan, even if it is (and it is) on a fault line. Alas, the planners were expecting evacuation to be ordered and implemented in some reasonable fashion, such as the actual emergency plan (junkyardblog found it on the Web) called for and could have been done Aug28-Aug30.
2. Bush, if in minor key, who practically begged for a mandatory evacuation order Aug28.
But I see the precedent of Hoover, who is still blamed for the depression which was almost inevitable after the actions - and worse, INaction - of the preceding years, nationally and globally. The economy is going to take a walloping, and one way or another every finger will point to whatever national administration is in office.
Of course. I would concede that the federal government bears responsibility. They should have assumed that some municipalities would be incompetent or that some municipalities would not have the funds to carry out an adequate evacuation.
However, it is my opinion that you and others have additional motives other than trying to make the government better in terms of handling disasters. Your motives include weakening Bush so that he will lose politcal support for other things, such as giving up on the war on terror or pulling out of Iraq or that he will nominate a "moderate" for the Court rather than a conservative that the voters who put Bush in office deserve. I could go on.
Yes, myself and others question the motives of you and other critics. And we should. History has shown that a weakened president results in losses in other areas. For example, Watergate resulted in the loss of political support and the surrender of South Vietnam and the murder of millions of our allies.
Knowing this, conservatives need to fight back against the lies and propaganda dished out by you and others about events such as this.
I think people on this board (in our little corner of the world are doing a good job for the moment).
iocaste: You wouldn't happen to have handy a poll of ordinary people's feelings toward those who harp on the bad, especially when it is conspicuously part of a larger political agenda would you?
Maybe it's not going to be a game of "let's blame Bush." In his radio address this weekend, the President tried to lay blame on the state and locals. This is becoming a weary game of "Tag, you're it" ... but of all the guilty parties playing this, it behooves the leader of the free world least.
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