Fixing The Katrina Memes

Tuesday, September 06, 2005 Fixing The Katrina Memes I have to hand it to Hugh Hewitt, he was right. The Left's reaction to Katrina, rather than being a bounteous outpouring of that famous liberal compassion, was instead the Wellstone Memorial redux. Hugh advised that if your opponent is making a fool of himself, don't interrupt, so to speak. While of course there is wisdom in that, it is also prudent to amplify for all to see the foolery in which your opponent engages. I think the blogs have taken the lead in seeing that the odious memes cropping up about Bush's handling of this disaster have by and large not taken root. In fact, Wes Pruden tells us that the disaster fallout has not harmed the President's standing with the American people. An ABC News Poll tells us that Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster -- but far fewer take President Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest:" Two-thirds of those polled say the federal government should have been better prepared to deal with a storm this size, and three-quarters say state and local governments in the affected areas likewise were insufficiently prepared. Most Americans, 55 percent, also say President Bush does not deserve a significant level of personal blame for problems in the federal response to the crisis. And while 44 percent do assign him blame, only about half of those, 23 percent overall, blame the president "a great deal." It is now becoming apparent that the Feds responded in a timely and appropriate fashion. The levee is already repaired, and engineers are now pumping water out of New Orleans. FEMA seems to be the exception however, apparently the feds here waited until after the storm hit to call up homeland security agents. It has also become clear now that Governor Blanco, in her failure to call up the National Guard, or really do anything other than break down and cry, is the main cause of the looting and savagery that befell New Orleans. As for Mayor Nagin, I think the picture of the buses sitting empty in flooded parking lots pretty much demonstrates in graphic fashion his culpability. There are rumors that Nagin has resigned. Neil Boortz demonstrates how assigning blame is far more important to the Left than actually fixing the problem. Ben Stein shows how ludicrous it is to blame President Bush for the largest catastrophe to ever hit the United States. Paul Krugman, as expected, has eschewed facts and common sense to reach the conclusion that the whole thing is Bush's fault. Powerline and Rightwing Nuthouse do a tag-team takedown of the worst pundit in America. The title of 'pundit' should be reserved for those with at least a tenuous grasp on facts and reality. Krugman needs to have his title revoked posthaste - he has reduced himself to a sorry self-parody of a frothing liberal hack. Am I politicizing the issue here? Hardly. Correcting the habitual lies of the Left is not politicizing, but rather de-politicizing the issue. There is nothing 'political' about the truth. Linked to Outside the Beltway's Traffic Jam, and to PoliBlog's Longday Linkfest. Thanks! 9:31 PM | | |