John McCain in New Orleans
The Responsible Anti-Bush Message
By Ben Domenech Posted in 2008 | Bobby Jindal | John McCain | Louisiana — Comments (94) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
More than a year ago, a conversation among RS editors ended with this point being made, and solidly: that whoever the nominee was (at that point, Rudy Giuliani seemed likeliest), he would have to steadily and respectfully run against the record of George W. Bush.
The chief debate among the Republican base during the primary season concerned a central disagreement about which part of that Bush record deserves running against. The fiscal conservatives argued that a break from Bush’s fatigue-inducing economic policy is what’s needed. Anti-immigration Republicans pointed to Bush’s stalled border policies and yelled. The libertarians argued – in an odd break from fact-based analysis for otherwise rational people – that Bush’s Christianity-tinged pro-life and pro-marriage domestic policies overreached, and should be rebuked to attain some portion of the solidly Democrat atheist, agnostic, and mainline church demographic. Still other GOPers said the moment demanded only a break of stylistic points – claiming Bush’s policies were in large part correct, but they were sold to the public with about as much grace as the New Coke campaign.
This always seemed a bit too complex to me. In my view, the next candidate needed to run a campaign that respectfully rebuked the President on the two major overarching issues for his unpopularity – two areas that did far more damage to his brand outside the beltway than any steel tariffs or faith-based funding: The mismanagement of the war in Iraq, and the failure to respond to the disaster of Katrina.
Read on.
To the unexpectedly good fortune of the Republican Party, the reemergence of John McCain has provided us with the only other candidate who can conceivably run a campaign that achieves both these aims.
A year ago, Rudy seemed like he could’ve answered both of these demands with his reputation for solid management. But the underlying problem with him, even then, was his questionable choices in his team. The Bernie Kerik problem wasn’t the first time that a loyal Rudy associate – one who likely would’ve been a Cabinet member in his administration – was revealed to be a less than admirable figure. Rudy seemed to value loyalty in much the same way Bush did, and this was not a good sign for a general election where the Mayor himself would have character questions to answer.
The McCain campaign already has staked out turf that reveals their unique capacity for criticizing the Bush administration on the war while still winning the overwhelming majority of people who voted for the man and his post-9/11 policy. McCain wins both pro-war and anti-war Republicans – the latter more a statement of management then purpose. He wins frustrated vets who want the boys to come home, and frustrated vets who want the surge to work. After years of building him up as the noble maverick on issue after issue, the MSM’s calls of “out of touch” and “warmonger” are just too late to be effective – and likely to backfire in their faces should anyone point out that Marine lance corporal Jimmy McCain just got back from Iraq, and should be headed out again soon. The war is not his problem.
Yet until this week, it remained to be seen whether McCain could effectively confront the Bush administration’s inaction in Katrina with a response that demonstrated his recognition of that colossal failure, his ability to grasp the management demands at issue, and his commitment to lead when the next disaster comes.
McCain passed this test. Oh, did he pass it.
Now I don't want to disillusion the business community of Louisiana, but I'm afraid that these same standards of efficiency, commonsense, and honesty are not always observed by government. At both the state and federal level, government has been known to act in an arbitrary, inflexible, and irresponsible manner, indifferent to the wishes of the people it is supposed to serve. Too often, government has its own peculiar way of doing things, following practices that in the private sector would invite financial ruin or worse. Even in this information age, often our federal government still relies on the old bureaucratic model, in which little offices in Washington are assumed to be the centers of knowledge. Regardless of which party controls Congress or the Executive Branch, our federal government is far too process-oriented -- measuring success by rising budgets instead of actual results ... forever declaring new goals but so seldom meeting any of them.
All of this is bad enough in the day-to-day routine of many federal departments and agencies, in the confusion and air of futility that often hangs over their work. But the ineptitude of government can have far graver consequences, as the people of this state know better than anyone, from events still fresh in memory. At a very minimum, we depend on our government to protect us from danger when the danger is greatest. We assume that when the worst happens, it will bring out the best in our government. We trust that police, emergency workers, federal authorities, and elected officials will do their duty and do it well. But that is not what happened here in Louisiana. That is not what you and the world witnessed in the fall of 2005.What happened, instead, was a series of failures that shook of the confidence of Americans in their government as much as any event in recent memory. There were heroic exceptions, as there always are. There were some who performed with courage, speed, and presence of mind in the most difficult of conditions. But as to the overall performance of government during and after the crisis, the verdict is in, and first impressions were correct. With many thousands of lives in the balance, across 90,000 square miles of misery, there was a failure of foresight, a failure of planning, a failure in execution and a failure in follow-up. And the incompetence of leadership didn't end with the rescue efforts. In the conduct of Congress in the year after Katrina and Rita, we saw the same excesses, lack of focus, and short-term thinking that left New Orleans vulnerable in the first place. As one critic observed, while the hurricanes "proved to be the worst and costliest natural disaster in our history, the waste and fraud uncovered ... has been a disaster all in itself." Apparently a lot of Louisianans agreed with this critic, because you elected him governor.
…
One of the worst aspects of Katrina, as a measure of emergency-response by government, is that Americans are renowned for their ingenuity and resourcefulness in a tough spot. Ask the military historians, and they'll tell you that the ability of American men and women in war to react quickly to crisis, to think fast and solve any problem of logistics, has been one of our greatest assets. And yet with the exception of our Coast Guard, our National Guard, reservists, and others, these qualities were hard to find in the response of federal and state agencies to an enormous danger that, as a congressional report put it, was "not only predictable, it was predicted." There were all those school busses lined up in a parking lot, and no one in authority with the sense to use them. Wal-Mart had the ice, water, and generators ready ... Federal Express the planes ... and other companies and groups stood ready to help. But they were leaderless. And some of the most inspiring work was done by churches and charities and volunteers, working around FEMA instead of with it.
McCain went on to detail his views on some of the needed reforms of the moment: a recommitment to veto every earmark; a review of the budgets of every federal program; a one year pause in discretionary spending increases; and an accountability program that demands more transparency and puts every governmental purchase, in plain English, on the internet. He outlined his approach to a comprehensive reform of emergency response plans. And he made a commitment to the people of Louisiana to continue to work with Gov. Jindal in all these areas.
This is standard good government speak, but in McCain’s case, you get the feeling that he actually means it. And that can make all the difference.
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John McCain in New Orleans 94 Comments (0 topical, 94 editorial, 1 hidden) Post a comment »
The criticism of the Bush Administration for its handling of Katrina/Rita was, in my increasingly lonely opinion, democrat-media opportunism.
Before Katrina, the expectation of the Federal role was as a backup to local authorities, rather than as a front-line emergency response agent. Katrina marked a turning point, after which disaster response will be henceforth primarily a Federal responsibility.
I understand the political reality: McCain (even if he were not genetically predisposed to solving problems with governmental action) must take responsibility for every woe that falls to man, especially this one.
But it's one more area in which we've ceded more power to the State to do us good, which power will eventually be used, with the best of intentions or the worst of malice, to do us harm.
--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
Though the post touched briefly on ill-preparedness prior to the disaster, it sticks in my craw that President Bush is taking the major hit instead of local government and the people themselves. And I am not a President Bush fan.
What the hell is going on out here? - Vince Lombardi
...but as a practical matter I recognize that he'll be taking the hit for the team on this one; and probably without too much visible protest from him. Eyes on the prize, and all that.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
President Bush will need to take a lot of hits, whether we like it or not, for Senator McCain to convince the American people that he will not be "Bush's Third Term" or McSame as the Kos Kids have started calling him.
Now also found at The Minority Report
I should not have used a negative in regards to the President to prop up my point. I just hate to see Senator McCain poke the President on this issue, it's bad enough to hear the liberal generalizations on Katrina (it's all Bush's fault). I know, I know, I'm with you, "eyes on the prize and all that".
What the hell is going on out here? - Vince Lombardi
What the Heck? The "Bush is at fault" mythology seems to have taken root even here. What balderdash! As one who owns property in Mobile, Alabama and who has family still in Gulfport/Biloxi, Mississippi and across the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida, I know first hand that the blame must rest squarely on the local DEMOCRAT officials who ignored the pleadings of many to prepare for this VERY DISASTER in New Orleans.
The reason New Orleans suffered was because their local "leaders" failed, not because Bush failed.
Here I was just starting to be able to stomach McCain.
This and the recent "gun show loophole" ad (another effort in mythology) that McCain supported have me, and I bet a lot of other Liberty loving conservatives, feeling quite a bit of heartburn...
Steve in Tennessee
http://sdo1.blogspot.com/
I would agree with you were it not for the massive reorganization of federal agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security, a massive undertaking that cost a truckload of taxpayer dollars, under the pretense that it would empower these agencies to cut through the red tape and respond to situations exactly like Katrina in a more efficient manner. Instead, the exact opposite happened, and Bush does bear some of the blame for overpromising and failing to deliver.
I agree that it is a bad thing that we have ceded more power to the state, as you say. But you'd have to be a blind man not to realize that Bush is the one who instituted that very change.
Nagin and Blanco, and a whole culture of thieves, high-binders and knaves in the NO and LA political scene for 4 generations deserve the huge bulk of the blame.
I'm frankly a tad insulted at Ben's insinuation regarding Bush and Katrina. And I'm not even a Bush guy.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
I think this Katrina issue is a bunch of crap. It was a natural freaking disaster, and all parties involved screwed up...and mistakes happen, period.
I think McCain made a huge mistake by saying "never" ....
Also, I think McCain better watch his step...he's only gaining traction now becasue the other side is acting like a bunch of dopes...he better wise up, or I can see his advantage "poof", gone in a second.
" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised
There is no one, on the face of this earth, who could have made a success out of what transpired with Katrina, working with the likes of Nagin, Blanco, and their entire Louisiana political crowd. They were the cowards and opportunists! They failed their constituents! How many years since and where are they on the reconstruction? They sucked up resources to this day and wasted them on who knows what. No question Bush made some PR mistakes, but it was his military working their butts off for days on end that saved hundreds of lives. Yep, he'll take one for the team on this, but not because of the price; simply because he is a decent man.
Agree that DHS is a mess. And the issues that DHS was intended to correct could have been corrected with some policy and procedure changes, rather than creating a new beauracracy and Cabinet post. It's a department that shouldn't have been created in the first place.
And most folks outside FEMA realized that the organization was being mismanaged from the start right after Katrina. But W caught a lot of flack from the event because it was also the lack of FEMA response that hurt his father.
I heard it on the X......
I remember him being sincerely shocked at the ineffectiveness of FEMA to respond.
Gee, John, a bloated Federal bureaucracy acting like the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight?
He showed himself to be a man of the government. Too long in Washington.
You are right that operationally the Federal responsibilty is as a backstop to the city and state emergency response function, and operationally the Federal response took (IMO) about a day longer than it ideally should have to get things under control. But the Federal response was still head and shoulders above the City and State pathetic performance.
But on the PR level, the Federal Katrina response was a disaster of epic proportions, and that goes to the competence of President Bush and his team. Maybe he really was on top of the situation, but everything he conveyed until about Thursday that week was that he didn't have a clue. Doing the flyover on the way home from his vacation to show how in touch he was, joking around about Trent Lott's porch, and telling "Brownie" what a great job he was doing as all the newscasts showed unmitigated disaster. I'm a solid Bush supporter, but his PR performance during Katrina was about as bad as it gets. And sure the media spin played their part, but they always do. It was on Bush to communicate a real understanding of the situation and convey to the country that he was on top of it, and there's no way around it, he totally failed at that.
that's maybe the biggest all-around failure of this administration - public relations or lack thereof.
Before Katrina, the expectation of the Federal role was as a backup to local authorities, rather than as a front-line emergency response agent. Katrina marked a turning point, after which disaster response will be henceforth primarily a Federal responsibility.
No.
It was 9-11 that marked that turning point.
In case you have forgotten, we went to war against terror. And terrorist attacks have gotten way too big to be handled mainly at the local and state level.
When we're at war, it becomes the responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief to do whatever it takes to protect the American people, regardless of what the local authorities think about it.
If Bush had gotten word of an incipient WMD terrorist attack against an American city, and the local authorities proved indifferent or reluctant to take action, you would have EXPECTED Bush to override them and stop that WMD attack anyway. Not let it happen on the grounds of passing the buck. Right?
As far as I am concerned, Hurricane Katrina was just terrorism on the part of Mother Nature. That's how the Federal Government should have treated it.
...analogy I've heard this week.
Terrorism becomes a federal project for two reasons:
1) Responding requires overseas action.
2) Investigation requires cross-jurisdictional cooperation.
FEMA's only role in a disaster of this nature is coordinating the response across jurisdictional boundaries. That's what it was supposed to do, and that's the only proper thing for it to do.
I expect that next, you'll want the federal government to commission the US Air Force to take out the butterfly that flapped its wings in Manchuria, leading to Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast. Right?
Katrina as international terrorist. Hilarious.
(Unrelated to this topic, please visit my political blog, "Plumb Bob Blog: Squaring the Culture," at http://www.plumbbobblog.com. Thanks.)
Socrates, you still got it.
Had Bush sent in the marines and choppers, the media would have gone nuts screaming that he was usurping local authority.
The good news is without the media-made Katrina debacle, there would be no Governor Jindal and N.O. wouldn't be on the road to becoming a city with a future, not one with only a dreary past of same old same old dead end majority welfare population.
There's a best seller out there for the author who writes the real story of the BDS which disregards the cost in human suffering as long as it can be blamed on Bush.
McCain is a disgrace, but he's our disgrace and we must vote for him. There is no acceptable alternative. The only way the Dems can win is if there is another 3rd party candidate like Perot to siphon off Republican votes. Let's not let that happen again.
The criticism of Bush over Katrina was, in my opinion, way overboard and politically motivated, and I feel very deeply about this issue.
I live in New Orleans and have all of my life. I lived in Lakeview near the 17th Street Canal breach. My one story house got 10 feet of water in it and we lost nearly everything in our house. It is now a vacant lot, but we will rebuild soon. It has always amazed me how Bush gets the lions share of the blame for what happened.
I remember packing to evacuate the Saturday before Katrina. I remember hearing the President warning the people of Louisiana to get out of the path of Katrina. This was before Gov. Blanco had made up her mind whether to evacuate or not. The city had no evacuation plan, or how to deal with the many poor and elderly people in the city. There were no plans for shelters and at the last minute when they opened the Superdome, there no plan for providing provisions. For decades we heard about the possibility of the "big one" hitting the city, and in all of that time, no real plan was developed. Was that Bush's fault? Was it Bush's fault Blanco took so long to make up her mind?
As I said, we got 10 feet of water in our house. Bush in no way was responsible for that. He didn't design or build the levees along those canals. And those levees were new. The levee protection at the 17th Street Canal was upgraded in a major project during the mid to late 1990's. I watched it being built. It just didn't work. It was those breaches along with the Mississippi Gulf Outlet that caused the problems and deaths for New Orleans, and none of that was Bush's fault.
What about the response? Was it really horrible? "Popular Mechanics" magazine did an analysis of the Katrina response and here is what they found:
"In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest—and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.”
“Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations that first day—some just 2 hours after Katrina hit the coast. Hoistless Army helicopters improvised rescues, carefully hovering on rooftops to pick up survivors. On the ground, ‘guardsmen had to chop their way through, moving trees and recreating roadways,’ says Jack Harrison of the National Guard. By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard personnel saved more than 33,000.”
That hardly matches the venom spewed out by John McCain yesterday or what we have heard from the Media. My wife's cousin and her husband were two of the people rescued that first day not long after the levee breached. The response was quick, but the area affected was huge and the job very difficult.
My wife's cousin and her husband were brought to the Superdome. But didn't Bush leave those poor people in the Superdome without any aid because he was slow to respond? No. We have relatives in the military and in the medical community that took part in the rescue. Tons of supplies were being flown into the air base in Belle Chase and the National Guard was ready to get those supplies to the Superdome and the Convention Center. Bush did not hold them up, Governor Blanco did. It was the Governor's office that told them not to go in. They said that they were trying to get people out of the Superdome and that they were afraid that if they started sending supplies to the dome, that more people would be attracted to the dome and that is not what they wanted. I think that was a reasonable decision, but it was the Governor's decision not Bush's, and Bush should not get the blame for it.
The Bush administration did do a poor PR job, which is not surprising given the press secretary at the time. There is a lot of blame to go around, but Bush gets way too much of it.
The libertarians argued – in an odd break from fact-based analysis for otherwise rational people – that Bush’s Christianity-tinged pro-life and pro-marriage domestic policies overreached, and should be rebuked to attain some portion of the solidly Democrat atheist, agnostic, and mainline church demographic.
Speaking as one of those libertarians, I'll just say that it wasn't his policies as much as his politics. The FMA was a cynical ploy to pander to the far right without actually doing anything. The 2004 election, in which amendments to state constitutions to ban gay marriage were put on the ballots solely to get out the pro-Republican vote, were worse because they actually had an effect. And these tactics were short-sighted, to boot -- it has seriously impeded our ability to grow the small government movement into new sectors. You can't tell me that the branding of the Republican base as "evangelical" and likening that noble idea to a dirty word is anything but backlash for the last eight years of cynical strategy. The fact that Rick Santorum got his butt kicked last time around should be proof enough.
However, that said, McCain's reaching out to the Log Cabin Republicans, and his insistence that social issues be handled by the states, rather than on the federal level, is distance enough from Bush on those things to satisfy me. Indeed, that's one of the reasons I'm so excited to vote for him.
Except that Santorum was a Catholic who lost to another Catholic pro-life (Casey claims), pro-marriage Democrat (Casey is opposed to same-sex marriage and has promised to support an amendment that included an allowance for civil unions). In 2006. And IIRC, 2004 was a darn good year for us, despite the odds not being in our favor.
You honestly think that Bush is unpopular because of the FMA? That this social issue - not the war, not Katrina - is what makes him unpopular? A response to judicial overreach that has passed overwhelmingly in all but one state every time it's been on the ballot, and is now the law in the vast majority of states?
You have my 100 % support here. I hope that John McCain finds a place for you in his campaign structure!
People are practical most of the time. A political party should do likewise.
You honestly think that Bush is unpopular because of the FMA? That this social issue - not the war, not Katrina - is what makes him unpopular?
I didn't say that. You are absolutely right that the war and Katrina top the list of reasons for Bush's unpopularity. I am simply saying that the FMA and similar initiatives were a factor, and not an insignificant one. It was a direct slap in the face to federalists and libertarians. And the failure to pass the thing was a direct slap in the face to social conservatives who now feel they were being used. Even if you agreed with the idea, you must admit that, in light of its absolute failure, it was a short-sighted campaign tactic.
What in the heck are you talking about? You just shifted from state ballot issues to the federal marriage amendment in just one comment. In 2004, the FMA wasn't even a major issue on the floor - there was the July vote on cloture, but then it went back to committee for more work. You really think that the failure to pass cloture in 05 and 06 was a surprise to anyone involved?
The important issue was never the federal legislation - it was the state legislation guarding against full faith and credit via Massachusetts. And if absolute failure equals winning ballot issues in every single state - ALL TWENTY-SIX - where they are put to the voters (the only failure being the poorly-written Arizona amendment), well, I think you have an odd definition.
You just shifted from state ballot issues to the federal marriage amendment in just one comment.
No, I was responding directly to your question. You asked if I thought the FMA was seriously a factor in Bush's current unpopularity. And the FMA did fail, spectacularly, by not even passing the cloture motion in the Senate. The only one "shifting" here is you.
You really think that the failure to pass cloture in 05 and 06 was a surprise to anyone involved?
Of course I don't. Are you on crack? That's exactly what made it such a cynical election-year ploy! But the long term effects are obvious: everyone winds up unhappy. The libertarians feel betrayed, the social cons feel cheated (even though they got everything they wanted on the state level) and the electorate has one more reason to distrust Bush. How hard is it to figure out that short-term election tactics have long-term consequences?
If that's how you want to play it, we can.
Do you really think our aim was to amend the Constitution only, and that failing this makes our purpose void? Do you think that every proposed Constitutional amendment is done so to achieve that purpose alone?
In the case of the federal marriage amendment, the point of the entire bipartisan pro-marriage movement - in 03, in 04, in 05, and in 06 - was to highlight an area of law that needed fixing. In the elections of 04, 05, and 06 - in the wake of the actions of the Massachusetts court redefining marriage - the states answered the call. They overwhelmingly passed the ballot initiatives, modeled on the national FMA, which enshrined a traditional view of marriage into law and guarded against a redefinition by state courts. Most of these initiatives passed by overwhelming margins. To this date, not a single state has redefined marriage at the ballot box, and now a majority of states have safeguards against redefinition in the courtroom. And state legislators who have made pushes against traditional marriage in the years since have run square into the popularly passed amendments, and will continue to do so.
You see this as failure. You have an odd definition of such things, as we've established.
Considering that I worked in the Senate during the entirety of the time we're discussing, and on the legislation we're discussing, I think I would know a thing or two about what our expectations were. If you want to rewrite history to serve your political purposes, such is the nature of the internet.
Okay, I see your point, and I apologize for the combative tone. Correct me if I'm wrong: You're saying that the FMA's purpose was more as a P.R. initiative to draw attention to the state legislation, which passed in every state that it was proposed. And from that point of view, you're right, it was very much a success.
But my fundamental point remains that the FMA was never expected or even intended to pass on its own, and as such, it was simply a ploy. You have all but said the same thing yourself. You might be happy with the results, but I'm saying that it's bad politics all around. Libertarians saw this as a betrayal of small government principle, and social conservatives saw the repeated failure to pass the federal amendment as a promise unkept -- both were factors in the 2006 elections, in which libertarians and evangelicals both defected from the Republican party in number, and I don't think you can really argue that it's not a factor in Bush's current unpopularity.
Do you think the Human Life Amendment is a failure?
It certainly meets every standard, by your definition.
It has never become law. It never came close to getting cloture. It has only gotten to the floor once. And not just in the space of three years, but in more than thirty!
And yet those who proposed it considered it one of their proudest achievements, because it fundamentally altered the political discussion about the issue, and changed the legal debate in regards to the life of the unborn, spawning all sorts of imitators at the state level.
At the federal level, marriage proponents had no illusions about their prospects. But there's no question that if you ask Matt Daniels or Maggie Gallagher about it today, they achieved their goal.
You seriously believe Bush just pushed the FMA as a cynical ploy to pander? You seriously believe evangelical George W. Bush doesn't actually believe in it?
Ah yes, the folks trying to pass state amendments against same-sex "marriage" are the ones impeded our ability to promote small government. Not the Log Cabin Republicans you seem to like so much who have been pushing for state recognition of same-sex "marriage" in the first place. "Small government, small government, except when I disagree!"
You're not even a consistent libertarian.
You seriously believe Bush just pushed the FMA as a cynical ploy to pander? You seriously believe evangelical George W. Bush doesn't actually believe in it?
You tell me. Did the FMA fail not only to be passed, but fail the cloture motion to force a vote on the Senate floor? Yes, I'm pretty sure it did. Anybody with half a brain predicted its failure right out of the gate. Bush is not, contrary to popular opinion, a stupid man. If you can believe he was acting out of anything but cynical pandering, well, then you're as naive as he needed you to be, aren't you?
Speaking as one of those libertarians, I'll just say that it wasn't his policies as much as his politics. The FMA was a cynical ploy to pander to the far right without actually doing anything.
Bush has done quite a bit when he could.
He refused to allow Federal funding for the opening of new stem cell lines.
He has refused to allow Federal funding to go to NGOs overseas who promote abortion and birth control, for example. That's one that the social conservatives absolutely love him for.
He has appointed two socially conservative justices to the Supreme Court. That's another one the social conservatives love him for.
That's not just politics. That's POLICIES.
I have only one quibble with your post. Bush did not appoint two socially conservative justices. He appointed two justices who take the Constitution seriously. If those views happen to support socially conservative policies then so much the better. These are exactly the type of justices that should be getting support from libertarians. This should be a point that all members of the conservative coalition agree with and unite behind.
Agreed. I would never have lumped the appointments of Roberts and Alito into the "negative" column for Bush.
When people start saying that it was just the federal govt fault, which McCain did, red flags start coming up. Unless the state asks for the help,(And this is the way it works), the federal govt cannot due anything. That is the great thing about a republic. It was not Bush's fault, as much as New Orleans or LA fault. When they finally asked, Bush answered.
McCain jabbed at "School Bus Nagin", implied the old gov. deserved to get whupped, and passed out some Fed kudos before saying that there was much that could have been done better-- and will be. We know the net result will be more Fed responsibility/power, but that was inevitable, and not John's message.
Were precisely the failures to be expected from Big Government. It's nice to see McCain taking a "better, more efficient government" approach in contrast to the inevitable Dem "throw more money at it" solution.
I also liked his comment that when the CoE rebuilds the levies, they d*** well better stand up to a force 5 hurricane!
Grudging admiration, coming from an original "Oh, no! Not another bash Bush for Katrina!" position.
The Katrina thing? Nope.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Some of it was his fault, but i agree Nagin and Blanco share a lot of the blame.
But you know what? 95% of Americans do blame Bush for this. And he is at least partly responsible. Its a good way for him to distanced himself from bush, especially in the eyes of African Americans.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Since, as we know, Halliburton perfected the hurricane-aiming technology, and well, Karl Rove is responsible for everything evil.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
of victimhood and blame game are spreading across the aisle now
" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
... the effective and efficient work of charities, churches and other non-governmental aid organizations in the rebuilding efforts post-Katrina.
Ther world marvelled at the success of the evacuation and the swift, by any objective standard, rescue efforts in the aftermath.
A damn levee broke for the first time in 300 years. Some people were not going to leave after so much past chicken littles.
That the msm were able to have cameras showing people crying for Bush to bring food doesn't mean mass quantities of food were also immediately deliverable before anyone got hungry.
more later
much more
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Bobby 2012!
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Let's put him in office before we start planning to primary him after his first term, shall we?
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
Given my known history, it's easy to doubt me, but honestly, it was just some over-exuberant Jindal man-crush stuff.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
You know how hypersensitive I am to defeat-McCain stuff these days, heh.
Take care,
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
and in spite of some fairly hearty efforts to be otherwise, I've not been exactly helpful in this area.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
But MAN were we bad in that little soiree. Well, not so much bad, as off the reservation.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
the irony here is that McCain is a senator. That's his biggest weakness. He [i]is[/i] government. One of the reasons he won't fight back against the Democrats and continues to attack his own party.
...it's a long way to November.
Since you said you talked with contributors, I'm wondering who mentioned abortion and gay marriage. I know some of us think that Schiavo and stem-cell research have been issues that have scared off otherwise right-of-center voters, but I don't recall anyone saying that Rs should nominate a pro-choicer to win more votes.
I wouldn't have even brought it up, but since you dismiss the idea that Rs could ever possibly over-reach on social issues, I felt the need to ask.
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Nobody thinks the GOP should nominate a pro-choicer.
But to be bowing to Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk by disallowing Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research that uses embryos that would be discarded anyway, has split the GOP. It puts the GOP on the side of opposing research that could conceivably have cured Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's (which is why Nancy Reagan supports such research). It puts the GOP on the side of opposing medical research in America that might enable Japan and China to eclipse us in biotechnology (where they are pursuing it aggressively without moral qualms).
It's an absolutist position that makes sense only to a fire-and-brimstone Christian fundamentalist, and to no one else.
In the end, Bush tried to thread the needle by disallowing Federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines, and by hoping that adult stem cells could do the whole job. That "compromise" satisfied no one, because it put Bush in the position of making a decision about the direction of future scientific RESEARCH, something he is manifestly unqualified to do. Science should not be the subject of political compromises forced on them by politicians.
Whoever becomes President in 2009 should reverse that policy. Research involving embryos that would have been discarded anyway should be fully funded.
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types of disorders. Embryonic stem cells have successfully treated ZERO! THAT'S RIGHT, ZERO types of disorders. It is morally wrong in an absolute sense to pour money into ineffective science. It is also morally wrong in an absolute sense to continue fighting for it, because it is an affirmitive defense for unobstructed murder of the pre-born.
Tim Schieferecke
unless you happen to be a liberal, then it might make sense. Labs are free to do work on any stem cells they desire. The government just isn't going to foot the bill. Government has no place in funding research anyway, unless it is related to the common defense. Fiscons and libertarians should know that as well as anyone, since they are supposed to be fighting unconstitutional government spending.
What is absolutist about doing only part of what you should do? The federal government should cut off all the rest of the funding, not just that part.
MY science is being censored by ideologues and denialists!
"I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place." - The last recorded words of Adam Smith.
I thought is was just my important telekinesis work that was being blackballed by the petty bureaucrats.
--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
I had an honest question for Ben and you took it there instead.
It does split the party. And for that reason if nothing else, we could tone down the rhetoric around the topic. We already have immigration to make every get all emotional, no need to add to the list.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
I find it ludicrous to argue that the President's unpopularity derives from his actions in support of Roberts and Alito, traditional marriage, and his now completely vindicated stance on federal pork for embryonic stem cell research, yes.
To say that these issues matter more to voters than the war and Katrina is just devoid of fact. To say that the war and Katrina matter less to voters than the president's minor response to the death of Terry Schiavo (if you recall, that was overwhelmingly a Bill Frist operation) is just silly.
I'm missing where I "dismiss the idea that Rs could ever possibly over-reach on social issues." I don't believe I said anything of the kind.
I just wondering if you're arguing with a strawman in your "libertarians stop being rational" aside.
I know some of us have argued that Rs brand has been hurt by the Schiavo and stem cell research debates. And that was entirely aside from whether they were correct or not but how they affect people's view of what a "conservative" or "Republican" is.
I'm not sure who said they matter more than the War or Katrina for President Bush.
I was just asking who you were setting up to refute by saying that some contributors thought abortion and gay marriage had hurt the President. I don't recall anyone saying any such thing.
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The first graf refers to a conversation among RS contributors. The second refers to the argument, as I see it, among the Republican base. Two separate things, and no, I don't think anyone at RS has made that argument.
However, in terms of people who argue routinely that the reason for the president's unpopularity is his positions on stem cells, marriage, and associated socially conservative issues over the war or Katrina, I need to introduce you to some of the DC-area libertarians I still count as friends. This is a frequent topic of argument with them.
that clears it up. Glad to hear it. I was a bit surprised by my interpretation. And I know people who fit your latter description... of course, most of them support Ron Paul. :)
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He continues to alienate the party base in the hopes he will gain the unthinking(those who actually swallow what the MSM puts out) independent vote. I hope it works this round.
However, I will be fighting hard in 2012 to unseat the "little jerk" in the primaries. I don't see him leading us anywhere that I want to go. the only hope I have is that he will limit the growth of government, but when he makes stupid statements about what Bush didn't do, it makes me think he wants more federal control, not less.
The lack of federal response to Katrina is an MSM myth. It was a state issue and the feds needed to wait for the state to direct the effort, as they should do. I don't want to give the feds any more control over calling the shots than they have now. In fact, I want them to have less control.
reluctantly:
At a very minimum, we depend on our government to protect us from danger when the danger is greatest.
No, actually I don't depend on government when the danger is greatest. I depend on friends, relatives, neighbors and churches. Exactly the same groups that responded effectively when the disaster happened. If it's bigger than they, I'm actually depending on God not the government, although occasionally the government may be his agent, to do so.
I don't want a bigger more effective government. Any government big enough to deal with the disaster of Katrina is big enough to do whatever the frell it wants to to me (like the New Orlean police disarming law abiding citizens who were protecting themselves, their property, their neighbors, and their neighbors property from the roving gangs of thugs who hung around after the disaster). I want ad hoc groups of citizens to come together to solve these problems and then break up when the problem has passed. Because anytime that much power is concentrated in one place for an extended period of time, it attracts the wrong sort of people to itself.
I don't like McCain's criticism of Bush on this count because it does point to the wrong person, and the implied solution is only likely to grow the problem. A full 95% of the blame for Katrina goes to Nagin and Blanco who completely and and utterly failed to execute their responsibilities in face of the disaster. If they had done what they were supposed to, the Feds would have been better positioned to do what they were supposed to. Instead, the Feds had to cover for them, which pulled them out of position and in flying by the seat of their pants mode. Government types NEVER work well in fly by the seat of your pants mode. It's antithetical to everything government does.
I don't like McCain's criticism of Bush on this count because it does point to the wrong person, and the implied solution is only likely to grow the problem. A full 95% of the blame for Katrina goes to Nagin and Blanco who completely and and utterly failed to execute their responsibilities in face of the disaster.
Especially in a time of war, the buck stops with the President. It's his job to protect the American people--all the people. If he can't do that much at least, he should do the honorable thing and resign.
We would want the President to protect us from terrorist attacks even if the local mayor screwed up, yes? If the President got word that a suitcase nuke might be planted in a major city, but the mayor there didn't believe it, would you want the President to wash his hands of it and say "Well, if the nuke goes off, it's not my fault?"
So let it be with natural disasters too.
How the heck should he have protected the people ?
" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised
response by the feds in the Katrina situation as opposed to the PERCEIVED response---the article said that it was, in reality, the largest and fastest response to a natural disaster on record. Michael Brown's personal and professional failings notwithstanding, the feds and the military were on-site PDQ, saving lives and bringing in water and food. What were Blanco and Nagin doing in the meantime? Cursing and crying.
Will see if I can find the article mentioned.
responsibility of the Federal government. Cities and states have only secondary responsibility with respect to attacks from foreign powers. Cities and states have primary responsibility for dealing with natural disasters.
The Founders of this country did not envision a Constitution that made the CinC the chief responder to a hurricane.
The President of the US is as responsible for hurricane relief as the Mayor of NYC was responsible for the 9/11 attackes (i.e. NOT responsible)
"FEMA and the federal governmant should serve as a support to local leaders who know the area, needs, and people being impacted. We meed to facilitate cooperation between federal and local governments, not competitiveness and acrimony"
" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised
Natural disasters are constitutionally different than acts of war. The governor retains control during a natural disaster until he declares the level of emergency necessary for the feds to take control. Blanco refused to declare that level for the longest time, insisting she retain control. A terrorist attack with overseas ties is an act of war and a different story, no "mother may I" with the governor needed. Declaring a federal emergency allows federal dollars to flow, which happened, but federal operational control on the ground must be requested by the state. It’s called the Constitution.
Remember the scene with Blanco, Bush and Nagin on Air Force One with Nagin pleading to Blanco to give the feds control? It got so bad the White House was reported to have contemplated invoking a Civil War era statute that allows the President to declare a state is no longer a functioning sovereign in the Republic and invoke martial law. Basically, no longer recognizing the state of Louisiana even exists until a later time. Are you suggesting Bush should have done that? It was the only legal way in which he could have ignored Blanco to do as he pleased. If so, the cries of Nazi, Hitler and fascist would have gone through the roof and Bush would still be the villain of Katrina, but for a different reason.
"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974
Blanco would not let Bush federalize the response because she wanted to retain the power. After Hurricane Betsy in 1965, things happened differently. The governor back then let the feds take over and things went better. Even Edwin Edwards (D), our ex-governor in prison, stated in an interview that had he been governor, he would have immediately let the feds take control because the disaster was entirely too large for the state to handle.
"I am a believer in the good that government can do in the lives of people. I have seen it in my own life. And you will never hear me speak scornfully, as a candidate or as president, about the institutions of government, or about the honor of serving in any position of public responsibility. In all of these reforms, the goal is not to diminish government but to make it better ... not to deride government but to restore its good name. It will be hard work in Washington, but it is a cause worthy of our best efforts. And if we do it well, in the right spirit, then we will finally reclaim the confidence of the people we serve."
For all you people who keep trying to claim that McCain's a small government guy, he lays it out right there. He's not. He doesn't want to shrink goverment at all. He's only concerned about the effectiveness, not the size.
Once again, Obama tries to convince me to vote for McCain every time he speaks, and McCain tries to convince me not to vote for him every time he speaks.
since that I can recall. The Founders understood that ours is the worst in all the world except for all the others and that the government that governs least governs best.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
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"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
How McCain supporters could suggest back in the primaries that Fred and McCain were essentially identical ideologically given statements like that.
be acheived.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Some people think that it's just our youthful vitality that the governor and I have in common.
Pure brilliance.
This blog is a bunch of hogwash.
I sat at my computer and TV for hours and hours every day, and I not only watched..but along with others, typed everything that happened AS it happened.
It would take far too much space to itemize all the ways McCain and the blogger are wrong.
Suffice to say...that the people I watched the Katrina hurricane with will NOT be sending any money McCain's way. He blew with that bit of bloviating yesterday.
Did you know that the day of the Hurricane, McCain was with Pres. Bush?? and Prs. Bush was giving him a birthday cake?? Why didn't McCain tell the Pres. he would rather go with him to Louisiana??
Well..those are questions that will never get asked or answered, I am sure.
Some passing trolls do though.
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Excellent blog although I disagree with the measure of the distancing that John McCain needs to do. RREAD MY OWN commentary on precisely this topixc posted this morning!!
People are practical most of the time. A political party should do likewise.