"Barbara Bush: Things Working Out ‘Very Well’ for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans
By E&P Staff
Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET updated 8:00 PM
NEW YORK
H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in
Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the
poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated,
The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this
evening on National Public Radio’s "Marketplace"
program.
She was part of a group in Houston today at the
Astrodome that included her husband and former
President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son,
the current president, to head fundraising efforts for
the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack
Obama were also present.
In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of
evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost
everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to
Houston."
Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of
scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is
so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.""
I guess "noblesse oblige" wasn’t a principle taught at her finishing school. This just takes a few seconds.
Pat Lang
Or basic humanity.
The good news is they’ve located Cheney. He and Lynn are buying a luxury home on the Chesapeake Bay for $2.9. Aren’t you happy for them?
I am glad you posted this. I have been unsurprised but surprised by this since I heard it last night on NPR. Nobody commented on it, it just ran.
It is really quite hard to envision what she must think either the victims have gone through, their living conditions, their feelings for her to be able to describe ending up in Houston on a cot in a football stadium, after days in a soggy level of hades, as turning out well.
Also, over at Josh Marshall’s site, evidently George “I can’t think of any mistakes” Bush will personally head the investigation into what went wrong. I think we can be certain of one that “investigation’s” conclusions.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Some,
Read “Bush on the Couch?”
pl
So, how does a right winger defend this?
Colonel,
what a sad sad state of affairs. the price of bush’s ‘incompetence’ fills several grave yards:
911 — over 3,000 dead
Iraq war — 1900 and counting
Afghanistan war — 250 and counting
hurricane Katrina — dmort expects around 40,000, plus one has to factor in those who could die or have died since being rescued – 5,000 – 10,000
total American body count for bush’s incompetence 55,150 and counting.
Colonel,
the above body count figures: the 40,000 estimate does “not include the number of disinterred remains that have been displaced from … mausoleums”.
hfiend, I think this is a neo-con problem. Faith based vs. Reality based. It’s not as simple as Reps vs. Dems.
We’re seeing again: spin, denial and blaming the dissenters/critics. There’s a culture of loyalty that overrules any culture of accountability, TS
Colonel,
in additon to bush team ’embarrassment’, we have to ask the 64 dollar question — why is the ‘bush team’ blocking much needed international aid that is waiting to assist:
–Russian rescue crews on four cargo planes with helicopters on board sit idle at an airport near Moscow waiting for green light,
–Cuba has 1500 doctors with 26 tons of medical supplies and Bush is refusing them entry to U.S.,
–Venezuelan disaster rescue teams waiting for a “go,”
–Dominican Republic crews with hurricane recovery experience wait and wait and wait.
it’s the same scene at airports around the world.
in addition to those the ‘bush team’ is blocking, one has to factor in those nation whom are being ‘stalled’ by the ‘bush team’s inaction:
nations around the world which had on sept. 3’rd aircraft sitting on their runways, and medical and disaster recovery crews on standby.:
–Russia
–Canada,
–France,
–Germany
–Cuba,
–Mexico,
–China,
–and dozens of other nations
critical resources such as:
–search and rescue
–helicopters,
–ships,
–cargo aircraft,
–divers,
–urban search and rescue teams,
–medicine
–food
the above is sitting waiting for the ‘green light’ from the ‘bush team’.
fiend
Earlier today, Jack Burkman, described as a Republican strategist, said on MSNBC that Blanco and BARBOUR sgould resign becausu they are “incompetents.” pl
Let’s recall another ugly utterance by this odious Queen Mother, delivered 2 days before her child launched the invasion of Iraq.
[01]09:43:53 DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS
(OC) You do watch [TV]?
[01]09:43:54 FORMER FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH, UNITED STATES
I watch none. He sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don’t take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we’re talking about the news. And he’s not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that. And watch him suffer.
– ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003
The Bush family has always lived in a bubble. Note how the president truly believe that capitalism and market forces is giving government contracts to cronies or financing ballparks for the deserving children of the rich. The guy think he could compete in an entrepenurial system. So do his supporters though most of them have economic advantages based on their position in the system, protectd niches.
Barbara Bush went around a bunch of lost people who were probably truly moved by the reception in Houston which looked good compared to what they’d been through and if nothing else would be polite to a woman of her status.
So it was a wonderful “social success.” In the limited contact she had everyone was just gushing.
I really don’t think of the Bushes as “bad people,” though they can give a new reading to the “banality of evil.” But in the background the rabid “Republican Guards” are just about arguing we should have left those people to die, they are so useless and unlike “us.”
This is of course a warm up for the Iraqi vets who criticize the war, suffer from PTSD or some other disabiliting condition or otherwise “whine.”
Angela,
Interesting line about the possible future treatment of Iraq War veterans.
Sounds familiar. pl
Angela,
In usual circumstances I wouldn’t regard members of the Bush family as necessarily “bad people” either. I’d think of them as typical delusional, self-absorbed pseudo-aristocrats lacking the capacity to regard the rest of humanity as their equals.
But, when a family such as this seeks out and attains power in society, when they position themselves as figures of authority the public is supposed to trust, they have an obligation to educate themselves and perform competently in order to not violate that “public trust”.
This family, I have to say, has in fact violated that public trust on virtually all fronts, and as such their incompetence and negligence should be viewed in a criminal context.
Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of
scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is
so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
Mrs Bush does not have a clue ——about the people of my state—some perhaps will want to relocate however——-Ann Rice says it best —
By ANNE RICE
Published: September 4, 2005—NYTimes.com-New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.
snip
Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn’t want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn’t want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn’t want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn’t want to leave a place that was theirs.
SBJ:
When I talk about the banality of evil I mean exactly that “Evil” with a capital E.
It is often the look warm and those who blinker themselves who smugly set in motion or allow the worse atrocities. And they do so without paying any cost.
People don’t get this because they are not “bad,” they are “nice.” It is “heart of darkness” and none of us want to imagine the horrors linked to our civilization.
What I wish people to understand is my sense that Bush is not devilishly planning these things or that he “cares less than most people,” most people don’t care that much, not that he is intrinsically evil, I’m really tired of the mirror images of Limpbowel rhetoric and this pompous superior rhetoric about some fundamentally flaw that makes these people less human than us.
Bush is a monster because he has immense power and refuses to analyze or take responsibility for the consequences of his actions.
But “morally” he is less of a monster than all those “nice” people who find excuses for communism. It takes a little looking to see the evil we are capable of, we are more mixed, we struggle more, but with regimes like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the Kims it is laid out so graphically.
And unlike some of his followers Bush does not express the Orwellian philophies, his personal position is more moderate, though he blandly blinds himself to the slime of his side. He isn’t evil in that sense.
One example of Bush’s evil he was a failure over and over so he forgives and encourages people who were failures. He lets try lots of time and finally gives them freedom medals because he empathisizes. Tat’s a nice thing, it’s a “good” thing except it get lot’s of people killed. If he was a Machiavelian the direction of FEMA would have been fired leat week instead of congratulated. But that would be mean.
Bush doesn’t understand the concept of dead people or consequences. The banality of evil.
Colonel, I have not read that one. I will pick up a copy.
Carol, thanks for clipping that Anne Rice letter, I too found it quite powerful.
Angela, the thing I find so utterly infuriating is that when, in the face of one’s own failures and the consequences that follow, someone like Bush acts like “what are you so mad about, I’m trying.” It reminds me of talking to a wall.
I guess I really should pick up that book.
By the way, does George even know how to run an investigation? Or will Karl do it for him? Oh, there think I answered my own question.
I understand now the distinction you are making between perceiving “bad” and perceiving “evil.
While I believe Bush the younger is the most destructive chief executive the country has ever had, and while I believe he poses, by virtue of his position, the greatest threat to the world of anyone on the planet, my definition of, my sense of, evil doesn’t include him personally. Petty and petulant, clinically dysfunctional across a broad spectrum, delusional, mean-spirited, imbecillic, intransigent; yes to all of that. But, for me, “evil” requires malevolence that goes beyond the typical petulant, “get even” behavior of emotionally dysfunctional adolescents.
As for Evil, I reserve that description for this Bush’s puppetmasters; Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen, Feith, and yes, Mommy too. I see Bush as the front man for these true demons, these unabashed malevolent monsters, these architects who’ve devised the evil agenda being propagated in Bush’s name, (and who, in the person of mother Bush, has so damaged his psychological autonomy in such a way as to make him easy prey for the manipulations of these others). Bush himself, as disgusting a creature as he’s become, I see as a victim of these cleverer and more diabolical minds, in much the same way as I might see someone in a cult who’s ignorance has been weaponized.
I guess my fundamental point is that while Bush himself has become a monster in his own right, (he’s come to believe in all the propaganda about himself as being a great leader and a man of faith), in the end I don’t think all monsters are automatically evil. When you give the village idiot a machinegun or a nuclear bomb, the potential for catastrophe is enormous. But the real villain in such a scenario is the provder of those weapons, not the hapless fool who detonates them just to see what will happen.
Angela,
I understand now the distinction you are making between perceiving “bad” and perceiving “evil.
While I believe Bush the younger is the most destructive chief executive the country has ever had, and while I believe he poses, by virtue of his position, the greatest threat to the world of anyone on the planet, my definition of, my sense of evil doesn’t include him personally. Petty and petulant, clinically dysfunctional across a broad spectrum, delusional, mean-spirited, imbecillic, intransigent; yes to all of that. But, for me, “evil” requires malevolence that goes beyond the typical petulant, “get even” behavior of emotionally dysfunctional adolescents.
As for Evil, I reserve that description for this Bush’s puppetmasters; Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen, Feith, and yes, Mommy too. I see Bush as the front man for these true demons, these unabashed malevolent monsters, these architects who’ve devised the evil agenda being propagated in Bush’s name, (and who, in the person of mother Bush, has so damaged his psychological autonomy in such a way as to make him easy prey for the manipulations of these others). Bush himself, as disgusting a creature as he’s become, I see as a victim of these cleverer and more diabolical minds, in much the same way as I might see someone in a cult who’s ignorance has been weaponized and then deployed to serve the interests of the cult leader.
I guess my fundamental point is that while Bush himself has become a monster in his own right, (he’s come to believe in all the propaganda about himself as being a great leader and a man of faith), in the end I don’t think all monsters are automatically evil. When you give the village idiot a machinegun or a nuclear bomb, the potential for catastrophe is enormous. But the real villain in such a scenario is the provder of those weapons, not the hapless fool who detonates them just to see what will happen.
Some,
Don’t think he can help himself. pl
Colonel,
Given the fact that military soldiers and officers take an oath that they will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic…do you believe that there would ever be a way for the military to organise a coup d’etat in the US? Theoretically?
Karl Rove has recruited the Dam of Dubya to the cause. She hasn’t been seen or heard from for a while. This is what Ann Coulter termed “trog bait.”
The umbrage orgy keeps people from thinking too much about what they have been seeing.
Darin
No.
PL