Don't blame dear leader

Yeah, refugees, get off of Dear Leader's back because he failed you.

In a desperate bid to save the President, the right has launched a "don't blame Nero" offensive.

The problem, as I will explain later, is that unless a leader steps up, the rumors of purpose start to fester. Suetonious claimed Nero burned Rome down. The evidence is he did not. But people hated Nero so much they beleived that. Kanye West merely said what people would have believed anyway.. He just said it on TV.

This is Ben Stein's attempt at apologia, which was posted on Kos


Get Off His Back
By Ben Stein
Published 9/2/2005 11:59:59 PM

A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

Yes, which, oddly enough, we pay the federal government to mitigate

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

No, he is not God. But it is his job to mitigate their effects with competent, trained management. Which he did not.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

No, he did not. But he failed to lead when leadership was required

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. ....... To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.

Except for those silly scientists who believe it to be true and demonstrate it with maps and temperature charts and other alchemy

5.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan.

Because 27 percent of New Orleans had no cars. What were they going to do? Walk? Blame the victims

6.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops,

However, the inability of FEMA to get the NG into downtown New Orleans certainly created those conditions. It was FEMA's responsibility to secure New Orleans and it failed.

7.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over............

Belief and fact are not the same. How would Ben Stein know Bush is or is not racist. The problem is that people see dead black babies and Bush with a guitar and they conclude dead black babies don't matter to him.

8.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can.........

So the 82nd ABN combat dropped on New Orleans Intenational Airport, and Special Forces teams were helicoptered into the city to support the police while Special Tactics Teams and pathfinders designated zones to drop supplies in? C-130's blanketed the skies with MRE flights? No? They do that around the world

9.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency.......

Really? So the 256th Brigade Combat Team is just extra soldiers? Half the Guard's gear is in Iraq. But that doesn't matter.

10.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities ..........

I wasn't aware New Orleans Parish ran the 82nd ABN. Once this was a national incident, it became FEMA's job

11.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever..........

So did Berlin, after 15 years.

12.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level.

Yes it is. FEMA is grossly incompetent and has failed America. FEMA, not the locals, not the state, FEMA and DHS. They're supposed to protect Americans. They have not.

posted by Steve @ 2:43:00 PM