Some More Facts
In response to this post from last night, I received some of the most amusingly hateful and deranged email ever (predictably devoid of any facts).
It's fun driving the tragedy pimps and the "armchair first responders" (to borrow Michelle Malkin's felicitous phrase) crazy! So we're going to do it again. Here are some more facts to rain on the parades of the Bush-hating wing nuts:
Charge: The hurricane was as bad as it was because of global warming. Shame on the US for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Truth: As this piece points out, "[T]here's no evidence . . . of any increase in either the frequency or the intensity of hurricanes since Man has been polluting the atmosphere." Moreover, the Kyoto Protocol is virtually worthless when it comes to addressing global warming, as this article notes (Aside from draining $1 trillion from the world economy, "we know that the Kyoto Protocol will do nothing about climate change: at the most it will delay changes by two years over the next century.").
Charge: The hurricane was particularly devastating because the Bush Administration underfunded requests from Louisiana and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Truth: First, check out last night's post, which points out that the levees were only designed to handle category 3 hurricanes; it wasn't until last year that any discussion was even broached about fortifying the city against categories 4 or 5. Moreover, if there's any political blame to be passed around, it's certainly bipartisan; here are quotes from a series of pieces in the New Orleans Times-Picayune deploring Clinton Administration underfunding of the Army Corps of Engineers. In fact, even this snarky AP story concedes that levee projects have been underfunded since the days of Jimmy Carter.
Not that full funding might have made a difference, mind you; one of the levees broke in an area that had, in fact, been recently upgraded, as this piece points out.
Charge: There are inadequate numbers of Nationa Guardsmen because they are all serving in Iraq.
Truth: There are plenty of Guardsmen. Moreover, one of the Louisiana units still in the state, the 225th Engineer Group, and its four organic Engineer Battalions, is well suited for disaster relief. In fact, it's been touted by the Louisiana National Guard as being the largest engineering group in the reserve components.
Charge: The levees were underfunded/relief is underfunded because of the Bush tax cuts.
Truth: When will they ever learn? Read The Washington Post -- hardly a right wing tip sheet -- on July 2, 2005: "An unanticipated surge of tax payments may push the 2005 federal budget deficit as much as $100 billion below official forecasts, leaving Republicans to claim vindication in their theory that lowering tax rates actually boosts tax receipts."
Charge: Why didn't Bush stop the lawlessness in New Orleans earlier?
Truth: Law enforcement is a primarily local and state function. Under the posse comitatus laws, the U.S. military is not to be used for domestic law enforcement -- unless specifically authorized by Congress, the Constitution, or the President, who can waive the law in an emergency (but for obvious reasons, wouldn't and shouldn't take such a step until it was clearly and absolutely necessary). In response to the looting and lawlessness, martial law now has been imposed on New Orleans.
Charge: President Hitler Chimp Bush is heartless and uncaring because he hasn't even been to visit the devastation yet.
Truth: Get a grip. For some people, it's about substance, not pain-feeling, lip-biting emoting. President Bush is visiting tomorrow -- four days after the hurricane hit New Orleans (early Monday morning). Please note that President Clinton visited North Carolina five days after Hurricane Floyd.
Moreover, there are times when it's more helpful for a President -- with the Secret Service, defense and other disruptive elements that inevitably accompany him -- not to be in the way of rescue operations, just so that he can look concerned and get a photo op. President Bush has always been mindful of not stealing limelight or attention from others that he believes deserve/need it (remember how he chose to welcome home the detained Navy flyers at The White House, so that his presence in Hawaii wouldn't take attention from their arrival back on to American soil?).
So to the tragedy pimps and the armchair first responders: Knock it off!
It's fun driving the tragedy pimps and the "armchair first responders" (to borrow Michelle Malkin's felicitous phrase) crazy! So we're going to do it again. Here are some more facts to rain on the parades of the Bush-hating wing nuts:
Charge: The hurricane was as bad as it was because of global warming. Shame on the US for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Truth: As this piece points out, "[T]here's no evidence . . . of any increase in either the frequency or the intensity of hurricanes since Man has been polluting the atmosphere." Moreover, the Kyoto Protocol is virtually worthless when it comes to addressing global warming, as this article notes (Aside from draining $1 trillion from the world economy, "we know that the Kyoto Protocol will do nothing about climate change: at the most it will delay changes by two years over the next century.").
Charge: The hurricane was particularly devastating because the Bush Administration underfunded requests from Louisiana and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Truth: First, check out last night's post, which points out that the levees were only designed to handle category 3 hurricanes; it wasn't until last year that any discussion was even broached about fortifying the city against categories 4 or 5. Moreover, if there's any political blame to be passed around, it's certainly bipartisan; here are quotes from a series of pieces in the New Orleans Times-Picayune deploring Clinton Administration underfunding of the Army Corps of Engineers. In fact, even this snarky AP story concedes that levee projects have been underfunded since the days of Jimmy Carter.
Not that full funding might have made a difference, mind you; one of the levees broke in an area that had, in fact, been recently upgraded, as this piece points out.
Charge: There are inadequate numbers of Nationa Guardsmen because they are all serving in Iraq.
Truth: There are plenty of Guardsmen. Moreover, one of the Louisiana units still in the state, the 225th Engineer Group, and its four organic Engineer Battalions, is well suited for disaster relief. In fact, it's been touted by the Louisiana National Guard as being the largest engineering group in the reserve components.
Charge: The levees were underfunded/relief is underfunded because of the Bush tax cuts.
Truth: When will they ever learn? Read The Washington Post -- hardly a right wing tip sheet -- on July 2, 2005: "An unanticipated surge of tax payments may push the 2005 federal budget deficit as much as $100 billion below official forecasts, leaving Republicans to claim vindication in their theory that lowering tax rates actually boosts tax receipts."
Charge: Why didn't Bush stop the lawlessness in New Orleans earlier?
Truth: Law enforcement is a primarily local and state function. Under the posse comitatus laws, the U.S. military is not to be used for domestic law enforcement -- unless specifically authorized by Congress, the Constitution, or the President, who can waive the law in an emergency (but for obvious reasons, wouldn't and shouldn't take such a step until it was clearly and absolutely necessary). In response to the looting and lawlessness, martial law now has been imposed on New Orleans.
Charge: President Hitler Chimp Bush is heartless and uncaring because he hasn't even been to visit the devastation yet.
Truth: Get a grip. For some people, it's about substance, not pain-feeling, lip-biting emoting. President Bush is visiting tomorrow -- four days after the hurricane hit New Orleans (early Monday morning). Please note that President Clinton visited North Carolina five days after Hurricane Floyd.
Moreover, there are times when it's more helpful for a President -- with the Secret Service, defense and other disruptive elements that inevitably accompany him -- not to be in the way of rescue operations, just so that he can look concerned and get a photo op. President Bush has always been mindful of not stealing limelight or attention from others that he believes deserve/need it (remember how he chose to welcome home the detained Navy flyers at The White House, so that his presence in Hawaii wouldn't take attention from their arrival back on to American soil?).
So to the tragedy pimps and the armchair first responders: Knock it off!
posted by LadybugUSA at 6:54 PM
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