Because some days are better than others

Unbeknownst to many, Familia Talking Dog spent the previous fortnight in an undisclosed location, a fortnight which comes crashing to an end (for Mr. TD) tomorrow (and for Mrs. TD Tuesday) as the affairs of state draw me back to a most unwelcome Labor Day at… labor. One of the select few aware of the FTD’s undisclosed location, Julia, has one of the most monumental and comprehensive link dumps on any subject I have ever seen, in this case, her link dump on Hurricane Katrina and its horrifying aftermath.
Interestingly, when the Bush Administration took office, its supposed three “worst case” scenarios were (possibly in order), a major hurricane and flood in New Orleans, a major terrorist strike on New York City and a major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, two out of three in under five years… those considering a move to the Bay Area may want to wait three and a half, four years, maybe…
Perhaps our late Chief Justice might have some words of wisdom for the schmuck he appointed as president on that awful day in December, 2000, when remaining doubts about the viability of American democracy were answered “Nyet” (5-4). BTW, while many express plaudits to our late Chief Justice, all I’ll say for him is that he was consistent, and evidently, he was polite. As a jurist, he helped remind the nation of some of the High Court’s greatest achievements, like the earlier courts that gave us Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, and later struck down those (awful) New Deal laws, and that sort of thing… As a practical matter, Mr. Justice Rehnquist will be replaced by an ideological clone, to be named later… not too much later…
Well, the hell with it. The unspoken truth about 9-11 was that our national government was simply incompetent: too incompetent to head it off, too incompetent to deal with it while it was happening, too incompetent to track down and apprehend the perpetrators (believing them to somehow be in Baghdad), too incompetent to capitalize on the political and diplomatic goodwill available in its aftermath, too incompetent even to investigate it years later. And so, it comes as a surprise to… no one whatsoever… that the national government’s handling of Katrina and its aftermath is… too incompetent to manage a major natural disaster (largely of its own making).
Anyone arguably competent (Paul O’Neil, Larry Lindsay, Christy Todd Whitman… Colin Powell and even the affable Tom Ridge comes to mind) has just been shoved out of the government, in favor of those personally loyal to the President, period. The ultimate irony, of course, is that the Harvard MBA President does, indeed, run the nation’s government like a business. An all too typically American business. Brown-nosing the boss, or perhaps having served the boss’s family in some way, and making sure the boss looks good, are all that matters. The customers, the bottom line, the shareholders, the product, the community… well, does worrying about any of those things really get you ahead in modern day America? Or (with some pleasant exceptions) isn’t the way Bush is doing things… those responsible for the worst cock-ups are never held responsible if the boss likes them because they are good brown-nosers… the American way?
Is it a small wonder that the American people will almost certainly not hold the party of small-time but big-money graft, and perpetual incompetence, responsible for the debacles hoist upon them? Well, enough of that… Happy Labor Day, to all. Workers of the World… think about where your bread is buttered… In George W. Bush’s America, the Congress will this week take up the sorely urgent issue of repealing that awful estate tax that those poor multi-millionaires have to pay…
The mind boggles. The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast lack fresh water… let them drink gumbo? Or raw sewage or salt water perhaps? America, she’s a great country.