A Time for Action, Not Outrage
Colbert King has it right. There will be plenty of time to assign blame later. What is needed right now is for people to focus their energy not on recriminations, but on helping those in need. Once we have the people of New Orleans and the surrounding region sheltered and fed, and the city restored to a point that people can return, then the blame game can begin. But not now.
3 thoughts on “A Time for Action, Not Outrage”
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One does not preclude the other. I must say that it’s a time for action *and* outrage. In many cases, they seem to go together, one fueling the other.
What there will be plenty of time for later is excuse making, partisan commissions, and well-scripted talking points, such as labeling “accountability”, “playing the blame game.” Now, in the midst of the crisis, is the only time to get the raw, unspun data and make of it what you will.
It’s not like Karl Rove and our Man-Child President exploited 9-11, telling Democrats to rally around the country and then bashing them for five years as weaklings. It is not as if Bush still uses “Sept. 11” as an applause line at rallies, or that his administration STILL blames Bill Clinton for any problems in the country.
Mr. Young is correct. Sorry, Joe. George Bush had four years to get this country ready for a calamity, and he installed right-wing cronies in positions responsible for defending all of us. The fact that Bush believes in tax cuts more than a government that protects its citizens, believes in a government for the rich and with policies based on the beliefs of born-again Christians more than a government for all citizens and with policies based on science and research and (God forbid) education, is an outrage. He staffed FEMA with political cronies (unlike Bill Clinton, who had real experts there) because he fundamentally does not believe that intelligence is something to be rewarded. He values loyalty more than competence.
George Bush cut short a vacation to exploit a brain-dead woman. He didn’t cut short a vacation while thousands sat helpless in New Orleans. You may not be outraged about that. You are a better man than I am.
I was merely using the headline that WaPo had. JP is right that outrage and action can, and often do, go hand in had.
As for blame games, when Buck says this is all Bush & Co.’s fault, I’ll grant him that…but only to a small extent. The vast culpability lies with the local officials who completely ignored the evactuation plan they had set up, and instead of using the buses they had on hand to get people out of the city, used them to concentrate people in the SuperDome. If the people had not had been there in the first place, then the post-levee-break evacuations would not have had to have been on as large a scale.
Bush has taken responsibility for the mistakes at the federal level. Still waiting to hear from folks at the local level.