2005-10-5 03:53:00
Susan writes:One of my "on the shelf" ideas is the claim by JJ that George Bush is a good guy overall. I have always had my doubts, but continue to have an open, hopeful state of mind. It is easy to see he is not a typical politician. My big recent concern was the result of having one of the "good ol' boys" running FEMA and seeing what a mistake that was (yes I agree there were lots of local screw-ups that added to the overall mess).
"Good ol' boys" is a fairly nebulous negative that may not be a negative. Every leader picks associates from those he knows well and usually goes outside that circle when no one he knows well is available.
I would also do this to a degree because I would much rather deal with the devil I know than one I do not.
To find an executive that does not have a network that can be labeled as "good ol' boys" is almost impossible.
What one needs to look at is the job performance of the "good ol' boys." I personally think Bush has assembled the most intelligent assembly of leaders I have seen in my lifetime.
As far as the Katrina response goes one might ask this? Why has the media came down so hard on Bush when his response was one day ahead of Clinton's response to Hurricane Andrew which was two categories stronger than Katrina? It is now established that Katrina was a category three and Andrew was a category five.
Was Clinton raked over the coals for slow response?
Another question is why did assistance seem to be so much more sluggish in Louisiana than in the neighboring states of Arkansas and Mississippi which were also hit by the same hurricane?
Why was the response in Louisiana so much more bungled than was the case in the recent hurricanes in Florida and later Texas as well as Hurricane Andrew?
The answer is simple. There is a chain of command for dealing with disasters and it is appropriately organized from the bottom up. In New Orleans, the mayor had prime responsibility. If there was something he could not handle then he could call on the governor. If there are needs the governor could not handle then he or she can call on the federal government.
In all past calamities, such as this, the federal government gives advice and assistance before and after the event but sits back and waits for legal calls for assistance before acting or encroaching on local government. If they were to override local government and move in, even if to just help save lives, they would be doing an illegal act of violating states rights.
In the case of Louisiana the call for federal help did not come. Two days before Katrina hit Bush personally called governor Kathleen Blanco and suggested she turn some authority to the feds but she refused. The reason she refused is that she is a Democrat and hates Bush. Instead of going to a Republican Government she called ex Clinton advisors (who were powerless) to ask for help. Even after the hurricane hit she still refused offers of help from Bush for a full day.
Bush has been criticized for not deploying the national, guard, but the National Guard in Louisiana was under the jurisdiction of the governor, not the President.
Mayor Ray Nagin's response was deplorable. There were hundreds of school and city buses that could have used to evacuate the poor and what did he do? He pounded on his desk on national television demanding Bush send him more luxurious Greyhound busses instead.
Getting hundreds of Greyhound busses there instantly was impossible but Nagin could have deployed the less luxurious city busses.
Later he said he did not act because he did not have government-approved drivers. Who the hell cares about drivers being approved when lives are at stake? There were thousands of good drivers that did not have the appropriate paperwork who could have been deployed and could have driven busses.
The media has convicted Bush and FEMA director Michael Brown for slow response. Is there any truth in this?
Bush was hard at work several days before the hurricane hit doing all he could to coordinate federal and local government but getting little or no cooperation from local leaders who despised him. All he could do then was turn things over to Homeland security and FEMA.
So was FEMA director Michael Brown a total screw up?
Probably no more than others Feds in pervious disasters. Mistakes just stand out more in this case because of the magnitude of the disaster and the magnitude of local bungling.
We've heard many stories in the media praising the efficiency of the Coast Guard and the many lives they saved, but what you did not hear was that it was Brown who skillfully deployed and positioned them days before the storm began.
Perhaps Brown could have acted more forcefully after Katrina hit, but critics do not realize how difficult it is to cut through layers of bureaucracy to get anything done.
The bottom line is this. These type of problems have not occurred in other major disasters because local government did their job and did not refuse to cooperate due to extreme political bias.
Susan:
I read an article this morning in the Washington Post that is highly disturbing to me about T. DeLay and his Washington style politics that are being adopted by the Democratic party as well. It is a disturbing admission of just how deeply our representatives are being controlled by their parties and we in effect are losing our say on the Federal level as the real power becomes more and more centralized. I don't think this is really any new "news" but is disturbing because it is so out in the open, thumbing their nose IMO at the process of checks and balances in this country.
First you must realize that the Washington Post is a paper started by Democrats and continued by Democrats and rarely has anything good to say about any Republican unless he criticizes his own party.
About the only significant paper with a Republican leaning is the Washington Times, which is insignificant compared to the hundreds of papers leaning toward the Democrats.
Ronnie Earl has spent the past two years with a film crew making a movie that is supposed to end with the indictment of Tom DeLay. To make the movie end as planned he charged DeLay with the trumped up charge of Conspiracy. Two weeks earlier he told the press DeLay was not under investigation.
After making his indictment, Earl discovered that the laws DeLay was supposed to have broken were not even on the books in 2002 as stated in the charge. He then had to go back to the drawing board and create a new charge of money laundering. He is hoping this will stick so his movie will be successful.
Is DeLay guilty of anything then? He moves money around the same way most Democrats do who could also be charged if some Republican was mean spirited enough to do so. DeLay has had a team of lawyers and accounts scrutinize every transaction to make sure they are legal so the chances of a conviction is slim.
Some think the Democrats are not after a conviction, but just want to create the image of corruption around every possible Republican. Therefore, they will blindly throw out any charge possible.
I can't find anything that DeLay has done wrong legally. He has been very zealous about promoting his cause and takes every possible legal action to accomplish this, but so do numerous Democrats. What else is new?
The reason DeLay is so demonized is that the press is about 100 to one against him for political reasons.
Susan:
While I don't agree with everything Sullivan says, I am concerned about the socialist policies of Bush. He seems to be a strange mix of socialism and conservatism. I keep thinking that history will sort him out better than we are able to right now.
I have this same criticism of Bush. He warned us before he was elected that he was a "compassionate conservative" and this meant that he believes in funding some social programs. This was obvious even before he became president.
The one thing he does attempt that I like is that he tries to make social spending more efficient. His enemies fight tooth and nail to prevent any move toward responsible spending once money is allocated. They seem to want wasteful spending to continue.
Even with this effort I am strongly against all the social entitlement spending Bush has promoted.
The funny thing is this. Even though Bush is the biggest spender in history one of the most consistent criticisms from the Democrats is that he does not spend enough. It makes me wonder how much we would be spending if Kerry were in office.
Susan:
I admire some of the things he does and shake my head at others. While JJ does not seem to think we have lost any important freedoms, I am concerned over lots of things Bush has done and is proposing: such as making the military in charge more during disasters.
And why is he considering doing this? Because of the incessant criticism for him not acting in New Orleans. The same ones criticizing him for not acting also wanted him to use unallocated federal power, be like Hitler, move in and take over. Critics can't have it both ways. They can't fault him for honoring states rights, on one hand, and jumping on him for seeking to bypass them on the other.
Either we honor states rights or we don't. Even the evil genius Bush can't do both.
Susan:
I do not like Homeland Security. I do not like the Patriot Act. But I am all for freeing people in Iraq from a dictator.
If you are a U.S. citizen the chances of being affected by this is less than one in a million. The chances of being negatively impacted by a traffic cop is many times greater.
There is one thing that bothers me though. The Patriot Act was passed with an expiration date. I think this is good, but now there is talk about making it permanent. I think this is a mistake as a future unscrupulous leader could misuse it.
Susan:
I believe the WMD were moved.
It is obvious they were moved because we know he had them at one time and they just didn't disappear into the either's.
During the war our satellites took photos of trucks moving materials across the border to Syria. That is probably where most of them wound up.
Susan:
I believe we are missing the boat by not funding more alternative energy programs.
Several years ago Bush did allocate several billion toward hydrogen fuel research, but he could have done much more. If he put a lot of focus on energy independence at this time he could go down in history as a great president because of this alone, but such a vision is not in his consciousness.
Susan:
I would think that focus is more important than Mars or the Moon.
I think that going back to the Moon and to Mars is also very important. For one thing we could mine Helium Three on the Moon which could give us clean energy for many generations.
Every dollar invested in the first moon landing returned more money than spent because of the innovations that were discovered.
Susan:
So Bush is an enigma to me. I see him as a strong, decisive leader who follows the dictates of his own conscience, but he spends money like no other and that just seems irresponsible. Time will tell.
I have the same opinion, but it is not an enigma to me. Handling the war on terror with decisiveness far outweighs any other issue because if we had a couple more 911's or worse, such as a nuclear bomb on our soil, the destructive power would be many times worse than zealous social spending.
If Bush is successful in Iraq and creates a domino effect for Democracy in the Middle East this could have a positive effect beyond the imagination when compared to what would otherwise occur. Some stability is essential the to insure the effective return of Christ.
This is why the Christ planted the idea in his mind - to create a democracy in Iraq. Because of incessant attacks there has been times that Bush has doubted his answer and has wondered if he just imagined an answer from God. But the event has been strong enough in his memory to give him the determination to go forward at the risk of his presidency and place in history. Pray for him that he maintains the fortitude to honor his divine impression.
Divine impressions of this magnitude are rare in a leader. Kennedy had one to go to the moon. Churchill had one years before the war to defeat Hitler. Lincoln had one to save the union and free the slaves.
One might ask. How about others like Reagan to defeat the Soviets or FDR to win the war. These two already had the goals in their minds at the time of power. Reagan did not need a revelation to motivate him to defeat the soviets for that was a goal derived through his own belief system.
Many world leaders receive impressions from the Hierarchy from time to time, but they are so subtle that it seems like their own thinking.
Bush came to the presidency with no plans of going to war, but in the middle of a prayer after 911 he received a powerful divine impression that led him in a direction he had not planned. Even so, there is no guarantee he will be successful for the Dark Brotherhood will do everything in their power to prevent a democracy from being established in Iraq with the hope of thwarting the plans of Christ.
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. Robert Orben
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