Thursday, September 08, 2005
Dizzy
Last night my husband tells me, "I heard it was the Mayor's fault. Of New Orleans."
"What?"
"I mean initially, because he didn't get the buses out or something. Or he didn't declare a state of emergency in time."
Now, I hasten to add that my husband is no fan of the current administration and that:
1. He is a self-described liberal; and
2. For most of my adult life I've described myself as a "beatnik libertarian," if I've described myself as political at all. I've only started describing myself as a liberal for the past few months the way someone beset by schoolyard bullies will turn around and say, "Yeah, I'm a faggit ... what's it to ya?"
My point is, that the Bushies and their supporters know that they came off badly last week, they're in deep doo-doo, so they're trying to control the spin, and even liberals will begin buying into the "Liberals think the hurricane was Bush's fault" meme.
Somebody sent me a timeline from MoveOn, but let's face it, it's MoveOn. That's like saying, "I hear there's Communists under the bed." "Where did you hear that?" "The John Birch Society."
But here is another timeline, this one from Josh Marshall, and linked to by that Communist, Andrew Sullivan. And it shows that on Sunday, August 28:
"Two days? Not two hours?" My husband was thus elucidated.
There are some memes that I just toss aside as irrelevant. The "Condi buying shoes while Rome burned" meme is one of them. I know it's got a great ring to it symbolically: The Secretary of State as Marie Antoinette in Jimmy Choos. But the home front ain't the Secretary of State's gig. Her job is to wear kinky boots and look tough in front of foreign heads of state.
But the facts? Those I do not want screwed around with, and these guys protecting the Boy King have been making us dizzy for the past four years. So I'll just employ a trick I learned as a kid in ballet class: When you're dizzy, focus on a spot on the wall. A spot called January 2009.
"What?"
"I mean initially, because he didn't get the buses out or something. Or he didn't declare a state of emergency in time."
Now, I hasten to add that my husband is no fan of the current administration and that:
1. He is a self-described liberal; and
2. For most of my adult life I've described myself as a "beatnik libertarian," if I've described myself as political at all. I've only started describing myself as a liberal for the past few months the way someone beset by schoolyard bullies will turn around and say, "Yeah, I'm a faggit ... what's it to ya?"
My point is, that the Bushies and their supporters know that they came off badly last week, they're in deep doo-doo, so they're trying to control the spin, and even liberals will begin buying into the "Liberals think the hurricane was Bush's fault" meme.
Somebody sent me a timeline from MoveOn, but let's face it, it's MoveOn. That's like saying, "I hear there's Communists under the bed." "Where did you hear that?" "The John Birch Society."
But here is another timeline, this one from Josh Marshall, and linked to by that Communist, Andrew Sullivan. And it shows that on Sunday, August 28:
The hurricane made landfall on Monday morning. Meanwhile, later on Monday:10 AM: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin orders mandatory evacuations of the city.
FEMA director Michael Brown waits 5 hrs after Katrina has hit to ask his boss, Michael Chertoff, for 1000 Homeland Security employees to be sent to the region and gave them two days to arrive
"Two days? Not two hours?" My husband was thus elucidated.
There are some memes that I just toss aside as irrelevant. The "Condi buying shoes while Rome burned" meme is one of them. I know it's got a great ring to it symbolically: The Secretary of State as Marie Antoinette in Jimmy Choos. But the home front ain't the Secretary of State's gig. Her job is to wear kinky boots and look tough in front of foreign heads of state.
But the facts? Those I do not want screwed around with, and these guys protecting the Boy King have been making us dizzy for the past four years. So I'll just employ a trick I learned as a kid in ballet class: When you're dizzy, focus on a spot on the wall. A spot called January 2009.
