I heard it again on the Sunday TV news shows today. After some discussion of the complete failure of the federal government to even marginally deal with the disaster of Katrina, someone made the statement “But if critics start bringing in all their hobby horses like Global Warming and attack the administration the public will simply decide that this is just politics as usual and turn off.”
Bush did not promise much when he was first made President, and he has delivered a lot less to most of us who aren’t wealthy enough to collect his tax cuts and who are not connected enough to collect graft from politicians feeding the lobbyists in Tom DeLay’s K-Street Project. Bush brought in the philosophy of extremely limited government, and as we can see now, has not provided even that.
Katrina is simply the latest of a long line of massive government failures which began with the deficits created by the inappropriate tax cuts. The Bush supporters claim that the problem was the recession and the anti-terrorist actions required by 9/11, but good government is at least partially prepared for surprises. Bush has offered us a government in which he eliminates all preparations for surprise, then claims that he can’t be blamed for the nasty results of the surprises. Then instead of responsibly planning for the financing of what government he runs, he refuses to try to balance the budget and instead builds the deficit to unprecedented levels.
True, Bush is not responsible for the recession, 9/11, or Katrina. What he is responsible for is dismantling a government that should have been able to adequately capable of dealing with those surprises.
Bush promised us limited government, probably because not attempting to deal with the larger social problems and unexpected risks matches his personal laziness and lack of desire to apply his energies to any job at all. Instead of limited government he has brought us incompetent government which cannot meet the needs of America in the modern world.
It is not “Playing Politics” to list the long litany of failures committed by this totally Republican-dominated federal government and demand that Bush and the Congress be held accountable for their corruption and failures.
I am demanding competent government. That’s what I’m paying for, not so Bush’s incompetent friends can find employment in patronage jobs in which they fight to see who can do less of the job then Bush does. I want Bush and the Republicans held responsible for their incompetence, graft and failed philosophy of “limited government” which is little more than their whine that things are too complicated for them to understand in today’s modern society.
They need to get out and leave government to the competent grown-ups.
I think you and I are on very much the same page (see the diary one down from yours).
Is it too much to ask that people not confuse words and actions? Saying “strong leader” a thousand times is nice and all, but actually doing something right would be good every now and then.
Competence is not too much to demand in government.
It’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. The Conservatives – including those in our own party – are telling us that airing their dirty laundry would be bad for us.
Why, exactly, should we trust such advice from our enemies?
Because the Democratic party in Louisiana is just as bad as the Republicans.
Example: “Edwin Washington Edwards served as governor of Louisiana for four terms (1972 – 1980, 1984 – 1988 and 1992 – 1996), more terms than any other Louisiana governor. A colorful, powerful figure in Louisiana politics, Edwards was long dogged by charges of corruption. In 2001 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on racketeering charges.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_W._Edwards
1992 Louisiana bumper sticker: “Elect the Crook.”
Trying to pin the blame on Republicans when the local Democrats are just as corrupt is “playing politics.”
Needed: An alternative party.
Look. Louisiana is a strange culture. It is not American. As an example, it is the only state that uses Napoleonic law as civil law rather than the Engish-derived common law.
But to me the surprise was that they do not believe in “systems” of government. No matter what the rules say, they don’t believe you get anything from government unless you know someone in government. They don’t believe anyone does anything because the rules say they should. They believe that every member of government to the lowest clerk acts only because they can do a favor for a friend or get something as a bribe in return.
As a Texan I consider this corruption. I lived in New Orleans for several years. They consider it to be normal government. I had other reasons for leaving, but this was a side benefit. One thing I did notice was that a persons who spent more than three years in New Orleans could not be blasted loose with dynamite. I left at two and a half years, and still miss it. Government is not everything. But you can’t trust a New Orleans cop any more than you can a Mexican cop.
It should be expected that any politician in Louisiana will represent the culture they come from. If you don’t live there, don’t fight it. If you do live there, fight it and live with it. But don’t diss it.
New Orleans is great, and I’d go back in a heartbeat now that I no longer have children in public schools. (It is a shitty place to raise children if you aren’t rich.)