Dowd always writes an
Posted By: twaddle on 2008-09-11
In Reply to: My Fair Veep - sm
interesting column. Not many columnists can make you laugh and learn at the same time.
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Dowd article
Hi guys, if you dont agree, pleae dont read, just dont report me once again to the administrator and start a ruckus on this board, like was done last night (by either a conservative or a chicken-sheet who wont come forward)..Thanks.
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 3, 2005
Stuff happens.
And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.
W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees, he told Diane Sawyer.
Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in the great city of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute, he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen. Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.
Why does this self-styled can do president always lapse into such lame who could have known? excuses.
Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.
Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.
Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.
In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.
Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.
Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.
Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.
It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended Spamalot before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.
When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.
When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.
Who are we if we can't take care of our own?
But every book she writes goes to #1. sm
She is unbelievably wealthy and she can always fall back on her law degree. I don't think she is hurting.
who writes the bill?
The furor over this confuses me, since writing bills is the job of the legislature, not the executive. It's obviously not Obama being talked about. The idea of a monkey running things got pretty played out in Bush's day, so it's not like this is funny enough to deserve much defense, but it does deserve a little, I guess.
Coulter cheats when she writes?
I'm SHOCKED! (NOT!  )
Maybe her hatred and anger are preventing her from forming original thoughts. Or maybe she's just following the trends of those in her party, the masters of illusion and fallacy.
She also cheated when she went on Leno and stacked the audience with freepers to give the illusion that she is popular with normal reasonable people.
She apparently also cheats when she votes, and when she gets caught, who represents her? None other than Bush's 2000 (s)election attorneys!
Coulter Hires Law Firm to Fight Vote-Fraud Allegations
By E&P Staff
Published: June 02, 2006 5:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Universal Press Syndicate columnist Ann Coulter has hired a White House-connected law firm to defend herself against allegations that she voted illegally in a Palm Beach, Fla., election, reported Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet Friday.
The attorney from Miami's Kenny Nachwalter firm representing Coulter is Marcos Jimenez, who was among the lawyers who fought for George W. Bush in Florida during the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Lambiet, in recapping Coulter's February voting problem, wrote Friday: A poll worker reported to his supervisors that he saw Coulter try to vote in the precinct closest to her Palm Beach home. But when she was told the address on her voter's registration was elsewhere, Coulter ran out instead of correcting it and ended up voting in a precinct that wasn't hers. Knowingly voting in the wrong precinct in Florida is a felony.
Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson gave Coulter until April 30 to explain what happened, but she has yet to answer his registered letters. Now with Jimenez, [Deputy Elections Chief Charmaine] Kelly said, officials will wait 'a few more weeks' before starting a procedure that could strip Coulter of her right to vote here and refer the case to State Attorney Barry Krischer for possible prosecution.
Lambiet's Friday column was highlighted by Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002612877
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