Observer: * has never been so assailed by such vitriolic criticism

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1562337,00.html

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Bush at bay

From Baghdad to Biloxi, the President has never been so assailed by such vitriolic criticism

Todd Gitlin
Sunday September 4, 2005
The Observer


<snip>
On 6 August 2001, the CIA told Bush: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.' On 6 August 2005, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a Californian soldier killed in Iraq, camped out near his west Texas ranch demanding to meet him to ask why her son had died. Sheehan filled the news vacuum and became, for a while, Everywoman, while Bush was caught off-balance, especially as constitutional talks in Iraq proved unimpressive. The President sounded hapless when he answered a reporter's question as to why he could find time for his bicycle but not Sheehan.


<snip>
All this has been bad enough for Bush. Then the levees broke. A predictable, and oft-predicted, hurricane blew into the Gulf coast. As the waters mounted, refugees waved desperately from the rooftops and Bush uttered feel-good phrases. By Wednesday, major newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune were getting tough on administration cutbacks that had left the city naked. Business Week wrote: 'Engineers have known for years that New Orleans's levees couldn't withstand anything above a category 3 hurricane ... and just this summer, the proposed funding for the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers' district was cut by $71 million for fiscal 2006' In a preemptive rhetorical strike, Bush's press secretary, Scott McLellan, said on Thursday: 'This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics.'

Most visible Democrats have gone quiet. They're fighting to get relief and repair funds from the Republicans, who control the entire US government and are poised to accuse anyone who demonstrates a memory valid for more than 15 minutes of playing politics with tragedy. But the Congressional Black Caucus was angry; it is not lost on them, or on any casual TV viewer, that New Orleans's desperate ones, who couldn't drive out of town, are largely African-American in what is one of the poorest of American cities, however good the times that used to roll in the French quarter.

<snip>

The troops were late getting to the disaster site and restoring order. Sounds familiar? The looters are eerily reminiscent of Baghdad's in 2003, when the Bush administration was famously unready for the 'stuff' that, as Donald Rumsfeld said, 'happens'. Despite evident differences, there is also eerie parallel in the administration's carelessness and cluelessness, a pattern of denial, neglect and abdication of responsibility. This functional indifference obliterates facts with aplomb. Bush told ABC's Diane Sawyer on Thursday: 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.'

<snip>

Recipient Information:
George Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500



"You are the worst president the United States of America has ever had.

The gross incompetence you exhibit in the performance of your sworn duties has cost thousands of American lives this week, and in the most horrible and disgraceful way our people could imagine.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself for the damage you have done to this nation and its citizens. Nothing you will ever do can wipe from your hands the stains of the blood of those who depended upon you to do your sacred duty.

You let them down. You let this nation down. Thousands of your countrymen, and women, and babies have died because of your negligence.

You make me ashamed to be an American."

i hope he got thousands of them just like that.

VERY nicely done!

"President has never been so assailed by such vitriolic criticism . . ."

I'm sure his overbearing momma gave him plenty of vitriolic criticism and abuse as a child. That might be part of his problem.

Fuck it.

I'll feel for him after he's out of office and not destroying the entire planet.

The ones who are totally inhuman are Richard Cheney and his EXXON Mobil friends the terrorists...... :mad:

until he (edit: & his cronies) are in prison for crimes against humanity.

Welcome to the Hague George.
There is a new generation of "nazi hunters" out here who will pursue them to the grave.

He is screwing things up. The other fact is that the right started spewing the harsh criticism long before we did. I say lay it on thick for awhile, not just against Bush, but the whole right!

and not a threat to the rest of the planet

or they will receive no funds.

"In the war of interpretation that has just begun, the administration is trying to coat itself with Teflon. They have started to snipe back at Democratic city and state officials - and looters and plain sluggards. You can hear the sound of social Darwinist cards being played. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said: 'The critical thing was to get people out of before the disaster. Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part.'"