I’m kind of struck dumb. It’s a natural reaction to watching the city of New Orleans become an open sewer while our leaders fish, play guitar, and shop for shoes. But it’s an occupational hazard for a blogger.
I first got really involved in politics the day Bill Bradley announced he was going to run for President. God, how I wish he had won New Hampshire (so close) and gone on to stomp Al Bore into the ground. At the time, I was working for a research lab making all kinds of cool integrated circuits. My co-workers were mostly engineers and manufacturing grunts. They didn’t understand my obsession with finding an alternative to a godawful showdown between Al ‘I hoed it! I’ve dug in it! I’ve sprayed it! I’ve chopped it! I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it!’ Gore and the idiot ‘cowboy’ from Texas.
When the first three planes crashed on 9/11, I was in a interdepartmental meeting. By the time I returned to my desk there was a crowd of people milling about wanting to know what the hell I thought about what was unfolding.
I’d been telling them Bush was an incompetent idiot for 16 months. They wanted to know if he was up to the job of dealing with the crisis. I told them, “He’s our President. We have to trust that he will know what to do.” I tried to comfort them by telling them that Powell and Cheney were experienced veterans of the Gulf War. But in my heart I was thinking, “Why do we have to have oilmen in power at a time like this?”
Four years later an even bigger tragedy has befallen our country. But this time I know better than to tell anyone that we have to trust our President. This time I have no constructive advice. All I can muster is a cry to overthrow this administration. The enemy is within.
And I hope that it is becoming clear that the call to overthrow this administration is not based solely in politics. Republicans have a political philosophy and, normally, if they win elections they have a right to implement their philosophy to the degree they are able. No, the call to throw these crooks out of office is based on something more fundamental. They cannot and will not keep us safe.
The record is clear. I don’t need to make a laundry list. And, yet, I am still stunned at the level of their incompetence in reaction to Hurricane Katrina. I should have been prepared for this. I should have seem it coming. But, I can barely muster the energy to say ‘I told you so’. I don’t even have the gumption to document their lies. I’m left nearly speechless. They must resign. If they won’t resign, we must work for their impeachment. There is no point in debating this point anymore.
We cannot spend the next three years trusting this administration to take care of matters of state and security. Only a total moron would think that is an acceptable reaction to Katrina.
