One Year Ago Today

by digby

I am officially an idiot. (Not news to many of you, I’m sure.) I really believed that the duelling pageants would benefit the Democrats. I felt that the newer Katrina story, replete with horror stories of people still unable to go home, piles of rubble remaining on the streets, and journalists who saw themselves as the heroic center of the story last year would lead to a surfeit of Katrina stories that would rend the heart and remind everyone that Bush failed in his most basic mission — stepping in to help its citizens in a time of such great crisis that the normal functions of everyday life are disrupted. I was wrong.

After a series of perfunctory stories and a couple of plodding Bush speeches, the official anniversary is over.

Yet, it was exactly one year ago today that this was unfolding:

“Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, ‘How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!’”

While Condi was shoe shopping, we were all seeing this on our television screens:

President Bush appeared on Good Morning America that morning and made his famous statement “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” The Washington Post also reported Bush’s stern warning:

He also warned Gulf Coast residents, including those searching for water and food, not to break into businesses or commit other crimes during the crisis.

“There ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this,” Bush said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“If people need water and food, we’re going to do everything we can to get them water and food,” Bush added. “It’s very important for the citizens in all affected areas to take personal responsibility and assume a kind of a civic sense of responsibility so that the situation doesn’t get out of hand, so people don’t exploit the vulnerable.”

The president of the United States “warned” people not to break into businesses for food and water. Can you imagine such a thing?

This kind of talk was rampant that day, and it resulted in delaying aid as relief workers and rescuers refused to enter the allegedly lawless city. It was later verified that this was almost all nonsense, which anyone could have guessed considering that there were cameras all over New Orleans and none of them were capturing any of this alleged violence. The only thing we saw was some casual looting in tennis shoe stores and Wal-Mart. But that didn’t stop the media from breathlessly reporting it as if it were true. And the rightwing ate it up.

Here was what Peggy Noonan was vomiting up that day:

As for the tragic piggism that is taking place on the streets of New Orleans, it is not unbelievable but it is unforgivable, and I hope the looters are shot. A hurricane cannot rob a great city of its spirit, but a vicious citizenry can. A bad time with Mother Nature can leave you digging out for a long time, but a bad turn in human behavior frays and tears all the ties that truly bind human being–trust, confidence, mutual regard, belief in the essential goodness of one’s fellow citizens.

[…]

We had a bad time in the 1960s, and in the New York blackout in the ’70s, and in the Los Angeles riots in the ’90s. But the whole story of our last national crisis, 9/11, was courage–among the passersby, among the firemen, among those who walked down there stairs slowly to help a less able colleague, among those who fought their way past the flames in the Pentagon to get people out. And it gave us quite a sense of who we are as a people. It gave us a lot of renewed pride.

If New Orleans damages that sense, it’s going to be painful to face. It’s going to be damaging to the national spirit. More damaging even than a hurricane, even than the worst in decades

I was getting a little bit crispy by the time I read that and so I replied:

Yes, nothing must be allowed to blemish the steely-eyed rocket man’s moment of pulsating, wet-making glory.

Here are a couple of people you won’t have to waste a bullet on, you fucking privileged asshole:

Mu first post that morning, was this:

I don’t know if all of you have seen the footage today from the convention center in New Orleans, but it is shocking. There are dead bodies lying all over the place. People are waiting for help and the only people who’ve come in there are news crews and Harry Connick Jr. (And fuck you Michele Malkin.) It’s a living hell.

The MSNNC reporter just said that he counted 82 buses lined up outside the city waiting to go in to evacuate people from the convention center but they won’t go because they’ve been told it isn’t safe.

On 9/11 we had cops and firefighters running into collapsing buildings to rescue people. Today, days after the crisis hit, I’m watching people with little babies desperate for food and water and nobody is coming in to help them.

What in the hell is going on?

Perhaps this comment by Homeland Security chief Chertoff explains the Bush administration’s slow motion response:

“The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster,” he said on NBC’s Today program. “Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part.”

For Christ’s sake the tourists couldn’t get out either. All the rental cars were booked and the airport was closed. Lucky for them, most of them were staying in high rise hotels and they rode out the storm. And now they have someplace to go — home. The locals who didn’t have cars aren’t quite so lucky, are they?

I think Chertoff’s comment says everything we need to know about how this government viewed this catastrophe. “We told ’em to get out; if they refused (or couldn’t) they brought this on themselves.” That’s the Republican philosophy in a nutshell. “You’re on your own, losers.”

I think Americans expect more of their government than that. That comment should be hung around the necks of these poor planning, corruption spreading, deficit spending, budget slashing, warwmongering, tax cutting assholes like a dead Louisiana pelican.

I’m even more angry about this than I was a year ago. Let’s hope most Americans are too and we tell these fearmongering bastards just what we think of them this November. This can’t ever be allowed to happen again.

* The second picture above is different from the one I originally posted of a man holding a baby standing next to the body of a dead man. I had linked to the yahoo site and I can’t locate it now.