BUSH SHOPS WHILE NEW ORLEANS DROPS

The only reason we have a Federal Government is to protect the citizenry. Otherwise, there would be no point in having a government at all.

The aforementioned government has focused for years on three likely catastrophes: a terrorist attack in New York City or Washington, D.C., a major earthquake in San Francisco and a powerful hurricane making a direct hit on New Orleans with the accompanying disastrous flood. With that premise as a backdrop, it is inconceivable that Bush had no plan for getting people out of New Orleans just as he has no plan for getting our troops out of Iraq. It is one thing for the local and state authorities to issue a mandatory evacuation order. But if you have no means of evacuation, then you depend on your elected government in Washington to have some ideas on how to get you out of "harm's way."

The military should have been in there before the storm struck with whatever heavy machinery was necessary in order to evacuate those people too old, too weak and too poor to reach safety on their own. Remember, this was one of the three main events the government was anticipating for years.

And where was Bush this time? No, not in the school house, but rather flying out to San Diego to buy a guitar. The poor, black people in New Orleans simply did not matter to him or any of his cronies. All the after-the-fact flying into the region hit by the hurricane is nothing more than political maneuvering for damage control. Anyone not blinded by right-wing ideology can see through that charade. Finally, the Bush people, who talk about nothing but terrorism, have obviously been asleep at the switch when it comes to Mother Nature, the greatest terrorist of them all. And don't look now, W., but She has avian flu waiting in the wings.

Instead of spending most of the year trying to privatize Social Security (which is just round one in the Conservative's long-term goal of eliminating all entitlement programs), George Bush should have had his priorities on straight. A vaccine to protect Americans and the rest of the world from the possibility of a deadly avian flu pandemic would be far more worthy of a leader than trying to undue the safety net for people near the end of their lives.

President Bush has been a great embarrassment to this country, and his administration has done incredible damage both here and abroad in such a brief period of time. It is hard to believe that we have another three years to endure this ongoing fiasco.

10/07/2005