FEMA did not set a self-directed course towards disaster. A career professional who made it a model agency was replaced with a political crony who rendered it a useless mess. Now conservatives are crying out that Katrina has proved the public sector inefficient, and we should give the same leader who weakened FEMA the opportunity to award private contracts for future disaster-relief. We should trade political patronage for crony capitalism.
Bush's decisions transformed a remarkably efficient government agency into a fatally incompetent one, so conservatives want to let him do it a second time. It's completely insane. This isn't a private vs. public debate -- contrast Clinton's FEMA with Bush's version to see that. But the right would much prefer that it was. Democrats should make sure voters understand that Bush took a superb organization and destroyed it by handing control to a politically-connected incompetent. Republicans who demand we let him do it a second time in a less reversible manner should be laughed out of the room.
The Naval Medical Center in San Diego's Balboa Park was shut down to accommodate a visit by President George W. Bush Aug. 30, RAW STORY has learned, forcing patients to cancel chemotherapy treatments and hundreds of scheduled patient visits.
"I'm sorry ma'am, the President is coming for a photo op so we can't give you chemotherapy today."
And then he cancelled his photo op. So all these people were inconvenienced for nothing!
In other news, Barbara Bush says Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans.
In fact, Bush thinks he was extraordinary with Katrina, while his wife thinks it's Hurricane Corrina.
Delusional family.
3 comments:
I still think one of the most horrifying things to come out of all this was the FEMA policy to only evacuate non-profit hospitals. Like, all those folks were victims, and all are in need of help - they should not be penalized and left to suffer just because of their choice of hospital. The whole agency of FEMA has become one hot mess, and it's sad that it's only become most apparent now that something terrible has happened.
Are you serious? What kind of a bizarre policy is that? The more I read and hear, the less I want to know, because this is all terribly tragic.
When those conservatives piss you off too much, read fuckthesouth.com.
Post a Comment