Obama's Katrina

A lot happened this month, but alas I could not be bothered to find the time to write about it.  Personally though I think the last couple of months can be summed in in one single dick-move by Congressional Republicans and Eric Cantor. 

We've watched for months (the last two years, actually) while they prioritized budget austerity in the face of crushing economic woes, knowing that this could only prolong America's misery and that most of the ignorant fools (the Right) would just blame Obama'.

Because, you know: FUCK WORKING PEOPLE.

(And DOUBLE-FUCK the unemployed!)

And in truth, some of the blame DOES lie with Obama for his refusal to take the gloves off and call out their anti-American, routing for failure bullshit for what it is.  (As I have just done.)  We've seen what he's capable of.  We saw this at the correspondent's dinner, and we saw it on immigration reform with his "alligator filled moat" comment.  We KNOW he can do it.  And that makes it all that much sadder than he doesn't employ this razor wit more often. 

And now they go beyond trying to keep the economy shitty.  In an effort to pull down Obama, they're going to do their damnedest to turn Joplin's Tornadoes into a Katrina-like disaster.  It won't work - or at least it shouldn't - mainly because the crisis following Katrina was MUCH WORSE.  And any failings on the parts of Mayor Nagan-D and Governor  Blanco-D only made for a greater opportunity for FEMA Direct Brown-R and President Bush-R to show some REAL LEADERSHIP. 

And they failed, miserably, EPICALLY, to do this.

But do you know what I DON'T remember?  I don't remember Congressional Democrats accusing Bush of overreaching his authority during Katrina, or off being irresponsible with the budget when it came to spending too much on relief efforts, or dicking around with obstructionist tactics to prevent him from acting while people's houses, businesses and lives were destroyed.  But who knows? 

I mean... That could have just been a failure of that good old, Liberal Media to tell the story, right?

Because they sure have failed to make sure people have the right ideas about THIS story.

The Oil Rig

I want to re-post here a comment that I left on Media Matters today regarding the media's meme that this will be Obama's "Katrina." (The line in italics comes from  DellDolly's post RE Bush's handloing of Katrina:

But they didn't do all that they should have done until after the damage was done.


You're being generous. They didn't do ANYTHING AT ALL until a few days AFTER the damage was done. And even THEN they didn't do all they should have, let alone could have.

Katrina served as the trigger for the public's loss of faith in Bush. It was the point at which it was no longer sacrilidge to openly quetsion the Iraq War, and it was at that point that the image of Bush as our fearless, stoic, post-9/11 leader begans to crumble. And as it also kicked of the ridiculously high gas prices that started the ball rolling on the recession (which came early in Michigan, where I live) it also led to the dismantling of the myth that these clown could run the economy any better as well.

This will undoubtedly NOT be Obama's finest hour, especially coming a week or so after expandging offshore drilling! But the response thus far and the continued support that will undoubtedly come, has put and will continue to put Bush's Katrina responce to shame. This WILL have a net positive effect on Obama's approval rating in a regionof the country that is otherwose, arguably the most hostile. Could he win LA, MS or AL against a drill-baby-drill Republican in 2012? It's possible. We'll see...

But in the meantime, I dare the Republicans to try and block ANY of the aid and services he sends to the region.

This is not Obama's "Katirna." It's closer (not quite there, but closer) to Obama's "9/11." 

Now, she did go on to point out that I was exageratting in saying that he did NOTHING, and I AM, but not by a whole lot.

I bring this up, becuase there will likely be a lot of discussion in the near future regarding chanegs in energy and environmental policy.  That's the silver lining in all of this: that there may finally be some serious political will on the part of the public to, at a minimum, impose some serious and stringent (and long overdue) regulations on the oil industry.  Now... I'm not celebrating this disater: Make no mistake, it IS a disaster.  And it's sad that it typically takes a disaster to change public opinion.  It's equally sad that our commitment to that change tends to fade over time.  But if this causes Obama to back track some of that expanded drilling? AND get serious about alternative energy?  Maybe for the next few months this short-term disaster will repriortize our thinking so that our short-sighted greed won't continue to trump our long-term interests so easily.