Cam Kerry: Katrina: Keeping Americans Safe

Katrina: Keeping Americans Safe

Hurricane Katrina blew away the foundation of George Bush’s political survival just as brutally as it scattered rooftops along the Gulf Shores.

What has sustained George Bush has been the perception that he would keep Americans safe at home. Whatever else voters thought about him, large numbers shared this perception.
This was the levee Karl Rove and the Republicans built to keep out doubts about Iraq, anemic jobs numbers, and other rising waters. How many times have we heard them repeat “9/11,” “war on terrorism,” and “protecting us from terrorists”?

It was the bedrock of his reelection campaign. Reinforced by the apocalyptic visions of the Republican Convention coming to life in Beslan massacre in Russia, the Osama Bin Laden election broadcast and, yes, some missteps on our side, it was this perception that enabled George Bush to become the first incumbent president re-elected with approval ratings at 50 percent or less. As pollster Celinda Lake analyzed the 2004 election, “security has become a prism through which voters, especially women, view a number of issues and choices.”

Now he and his administration have failed pathetically to keep Americans safe at home. No backdrops, spin, or lists of supplies can camouflage the failure to protect thousands of people in obvious danger or to carry out the most basic governmental function of all – to preserve public order. Remember “Ashley’s Story,” the advertisement about Bush comforting the 16-year-old whose mother died on 9/11? Telling us “He's the most powerful man in the world and all he wants to do is make sure I'm safe, that I'm okay,” rings hollow today.

<snip> more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cam-kerry/katrina-keeping-american_b_6852.html

I think this is the Democratic response will see reverberating over the coming months.

The bill on the entire Bush-Republican agenda is finally coming due. New Orleans just paid their share, when will the rest of us pony up?

"When the 17th Street Canal levee gave way, it flooded New Orleans with a brew as foul as the runoff from toxic waste lagoons and the rot of decomposing bodies -- the flaccid underbelly of George Bush’s politics."