"Don't buy gasoline unless you need to." There's the sage advice we need from our leader. Also, this largely preventable disaster in New Orleans is going to make us stronger, somehow, instead of poorer. I hope the lateness, insincerity, and sheer stupidity of Bush's recent speeches will show everyone what he is. He fails to rise to any occasion.
The situation in New Orleans is horrible and a national disgrace. I wish people from civilized countries could not see the images from the internet and TV news, etc. I hear many foreign countries are offering help, and I know some of them are doing it sarcastically, as we richly deserve. Venezuela, for instance, is offering a million dollars, while at the same time calling Bush the "King of Vacationers." France and Germany and Russia have offered assistance. And once again, the Bush administration bears real responsibility, this time for cutting funding for repairs to the levees that many knowledgeable people have been saying for years could fail in a big storm. And reducing the effectiveness of FEMA, with results now in the news.
Don't we hold our president to any standard of excellence? The part of the population that wants to like Bush seems to like him because he is such a regular guy. But shouldn't we be electing a superior person? Our president should be president because he is better than the average person, not because he is like the average person. We forgive Bush for speaking so very badly, because we doubt we could do better ourselves. But in fact, could not most of us do better? His speech reveals the extreme limitations of his mind.
He can't explain why he led the country to invade Iraq, because his real reasons are unworthy (based on vanity, personal vindictiveness, or greed), and he doesn't understand Cheney's. Each lie he tried has been exposed. That action has turned out to be a costly and wasteful mistake, and unsuccessful even in accomplishing the most venal and pragmatic goal of controlling Iraq's oil.
He can't explain why his privatization of Social Security is good for the country, because it isn't, and he doesn't understand any aspect of it.
He can't defend his tax cuts for the very rich and for corporations, because his real reasons are unworthy (based on lack of caring for the common people of the country and on taking care of the people who take care of him).
He can't defend his administration's failure to defend the country from the attacks on 9/11/01, in the face of all the warnings that were not acted on.
Now he can't defend his administration's cutting of funds to complete the repair of New Orleans' levees, in the face of warnings by FEMA of a major storm there this year. except he needed money for tax cuts for corporations and his "war."
If his thoughts are not much clearer than his speech, Bush doesn't understand much of what is going on around him. I believe he is both unintelligent and without integrity. He is a pure free-loader, now repaying all the people, Americans and Saudis, and companies who have bailed him out for his laziness and irresponsibility over the years. And Dick Cheney is telling him how to do it.
Is there any defense for him? What? The people around him? Cheney? Rove? Rice? Rumsfeld? Norquist? Wolfowitz? All of them known liars and worse. And what defense can there be for the party that continues to support him? They would be completely exposed, if Fox News and its ilk were not shielding them.
-- J. H.
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