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Expectations, redux (updated)

Mark Levin, the Corner:

Frankly, I am embarrassed by some of the nonsense I am reading here. Much of it isn’t even thoughtful, just knee-jerk. This is a massive tragedy. An entire city is under water. 100,000 people either didn’t or couldn’t leave. For the first 100 hours, access was almost impossible. The entire infrastructure was obliterated. The nation is rallying. Every available governmental resource has been or is being mobilized. Individuals, charity groups and corporations are all rallying. Nothing is being spared. The president is doing that which any president, of either party, would or could do. It disappoints me that conservatives in particular, who supposedly understand the limitations of government, are reacting so callously to the unprecedented response in the name of compassion for the suffering. There’s nothing compassionate about it. And I dare say that many of those reading it, including those who are volunteering time and money, find is distasteful.

While I’m at it, we can do more than debate this. In addition to criticizing what other people are (or are not) doing, why don’t show civic spirit as well. Landmark Legal has wired a substantial donation from its operating budget to the Salvation Army. There’s no reason every other conservative or libertarian group can’t do the same thing. I encourage it. There are things we can do, too.

Can I get an Amen?

There’s nothing more distasteful than watching commenters—those on both the left and the right, from the Andrew Stuttaford-conservatives to the ecohysterics and the Congressional Black Caucus—climbing over each other to assert just how much they care, and in so doing, trampling on the beleaguered bodies of first and second responders and the federal relief corps, who are dealing with a disaster the scope of which is unprecedented, and the damage from which those of us who aren’t there can’t even begin to fathom.  If the feds are guilty of anything, it’s that they were too deferential to those who warned against declaring Martial Law and hurrying the military into the fray. 

That is, they were afraid of how the left would frame any severe and immediate response.

The handwringers at the Corner have shown themselves to be particularly weak-minded; and to my way of thinking, the downright awful coverage from our sensationalist media is at least partially responsible for Paul Krugman being able to write this morning, without serious fear recrimination, that “[The Bushies] like waging war, but they don’t like . . . rescuing those in need.”

Think about that.  Krugman is writing, in the Paper of Record, that the President of the United States and the rest of his Administration hates life.

Which, if he’s been watching Shepard Smith, who can blame him, really…?

FEMA is reporting that 90% of the New Orleans infrastructure is gone.  300,000 people stayed behind, not heeding warnings to evacuate.  To blame the resultant chaos in the immediate aftermath on the Bushies is to argue implicitly that you expect your federal government to act as a surrogate parent, not as a smaller, hands off federal entity that defers power to local governments.

To be clear:  I’m not saying the feds shouldn’t doing everything they can to help; but what I am saying is that too many people seem to think they have magic powers, and that their failure to have all the problems in New Orleans solved by now—in the absence of an infrastructure on which to operate—is an institutional failing rather than an obvious certainty of terrestrial physics.

****

update:  Here is “reasonable” lefty David Anderson, doing what he does best: congratulating himself and his ideological brethren for saving the poor and displaced by heaping scorn and blame on the President and his administration.

Because, you see, without the lefties screaming and yelling about how Bush hates brown people and wants to see them dead—or about how he underfunded a levee that, were it to have prevented this disaster, would have needed to be 50% taller to begin with in order to prevent the Category 4 storm surge (a plan that was never in the pipeline)—they never could have FORCED him to provide the relief he otherwise wasn’t going to give. 

They got him off vacation and into ACTION!  THEIR CRITICISM IS SAVING LIVES!

This, my friends, is why having a debate with wannabe pundits on the left is a losing proposition:  their ignorance of the facts is surpassed only by their preening and utterly unfounded self-righteousness—not to mention their stunning ability to consistently misunderstand the scope of complex logistical problems.

Like Gulliver, I fear I’m beginning to despise large swathes of humanity.

****

update 2:  From the New York Times:

Disaster experts acknowledged that the impact of Hurricane Katrina posed unprecedented difficulties. “There are amazing challenges and obstacles,” said Joe Becker, the top disaster response official at the American Red Cross.

Under the circumstances, Mr. Becker said, the government response “has been nothing short of heroic.”

But he added that the first, life-saving phase of hurricane response, which usually lasts a matter of hours, in this case was stretching over days.

While some in New Orleans fault FEMA – Terry Ebbert, homeland security director for New Orleans, called it a “hamstrung” bureaucracy – others say any blame should be more widely spread. Local, state and federal officials, for example, have cooperated on disaster planning. In 2000, they studied the impact of a fictional “Hurricane Zebra”; last year they drilled with “Hurricane Pam.”

Neither exercise expected the levees to fail. In an interview Thursday on “Good Morning America,” President Bush said, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” He added, “Now we’re having to deal with it, and will.”

(h/t Balloon-Juice, whose comment section is as bad as the comment section at Eschaton)

****

update 3 (or, the Terry Ebert needs to shut his pie hole update): JunkYard Blog has some interesting photos that he thinks Terry Ebert, head of New Orleans’ emergency operations, should study carefully.

****

update 4:  Steve Graham weighs in. Quite ably, too.

60 Replies to “Expectations, redux (updated)”

  1. corvan says:

    Jeff,

    When you’re right you’re right, not much I can add, other than journalism has become an ignoble way to make a living.  I would be very, very unhappy if a kid of mine decided to work in the porn industry.  I would be horrifed if he, or she, decided to be a journalist.

  2. Rick Moran says:

    I really think part of the problem is that the disaster is so enormous and unprecedented that people can’t get their minds around the scope of absolute need on the part of tens of thousands of people.

    Couple that with the time it takes to deploy tens of thousands of troops – even if, as CNN hysteric Jack Cafferty says – they should have “known” that this was going to happen 2 days before the storm hit, and there is just no way any significant help could have gotten to New Orleans any faster.

    Every where there’s a camera and no help, people are invited to say “Well hell! If Fox news can get a camera there why can’t the government help these people?” Chances are of course that the “government” is 100 other places helping other people.

    It’s maddening…

  3. susan says:

    Amen.

  4. Carin says:

    Last night, Randi Rhodes explained it all perfectly. George Bush hates brown babies.  That is why he is letting them all die.

    Thank you, Randi Rhodes, for your contribution to society. Whatta gem.

  5. justin says:

    while i agree with you, jeff, i still wonder why it is taking 5 days to get basic foodstuffs airlifted into there.  food, water, insulin, etc. 

    also, why weren’t buses dispatched to NO from everywhere on tuesday?  while i understand that the infrastructure is gone, it seems that a few small things done quicker could have prevented this from getting so bad.

  6. On the one hand, Stuttaford and Derbyshire are right that one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government is to take the lead in disaster relief, a function that they’ve been slow to take up. On the other hand, Stuttaford in particular has been more of an obnoxious twit than usual in his self-righteous condemnation of efforts he doesn’t understand and hasn’t bother to keep track of. (Derbyshire is guilty of this to a lesser extent.)

    Mostly I just wish we could get past the recriminations and into the process of helping people. The Democrats and the media can line up their articles of impeachment later, after the recovery effort has been going on for a while.

  7. Amen, indeed–and it seems to me that the people who should get the credit and/or blame are the state and city authorities who should have been the front line–and in the case of Mississippi have been the front line.

    I’m sensing a note of disappointment from the commentators now the relief effort is going into effect.

  8. Pursuit says:

    Come on Jeff, they could be dropping sandwhiches.  Nice tasty pb&j’s with whole wheat.  I bet Shep can get all the sandwhiches he wants, so why not the people?  If they bought the stuff with the jam and pb mixed together then they could even make more sandwhiches faster.  I can figure this stuff out why not Bush?  Its because he doesn’t want the people to have sandwhiches.  He wants a world where we have those who have sandwhiches and those who don’t.  He is an evil twisted man and you are covering up for him.

  9. Leftism = Slave Morality says:

    “To blame the resultant chaos in the immediate aftermath on the Bushies is to argue implicitly that you expect your federal government to act as a surrogate parent”

    Slave morality….it also infects the Right.

  10. Rick Sterling says:

    NO BLOOD FOR GULF COAST OIL! NEW ORLEANS IS A QUAGMIRE! Let’s support the troops by bringing them home from New Orleans. Or are any of you chickenhawks going to send YOUR children to die in the streets of New Orleans? YOU NEOCONS PROMISE DEMOCRACY AND LOOK AT NEW ORLEANS. These people are not ready for law and democracy.

  11. shank says:

    Justin, to answer your question, because you can’t show up there with out enough for everyone.  It takes at least 24 hours for any small team to mobilize.  For a team of the size needed to support an ENTIRE REGION the size of a SMALL COUNTRY might actually take a few days, hey, even 72 hours.  And that’s lightning quick.  I mean, think about how long it takes to mobilize a military force to strategic action.  That’s basically what we’re talking about here, and we’ve never done it before. 

    People need to get a grip on the reality of this situation, and how completely unprecedented everything about it is.

  12. Jeff Goldstein says:

    Of course the feds should take the lead (a misnomer, of course, as those there who are able have to take the lead) in disaster relief. And they have.  But it takes time to get the military staged and transported into an area with almost no remaining infrastructure.  Tuesday and Wednesday, remember, the flood waters were still coming in.  And you don’t just fly over New Orleans like Santa Claus dropping Army Rangers down every chimney to bring sardines and crackers and bottled water to every stranded person.

    The convoys are on their way now that the scope of the problem is better understood.  Because, as Shank says, you have to bring enough for everybody, or else risk making the violence worse. 

    What drove this crisis, in my mind, has been the sensationalist media (“Officer? People are thirsty!”), and the fear of a sensationalist media, which made the feds hesitant in taking the lead to quell the looting.

    I’m beginning to think that a democracy cannot function with a 24 News cycle that is less interested in reporting than it is in making newsertainment.

  13. Matt30 says:

    I think it is practically unavoidable now that as time goes on it is going to become conventional wisdom that this administration didn’t do enough, soon enough for those poor people.  Couple that with the “fact” that resources were strained, and all those National Guardsmen were over in Iraq instead of being available to help out here at home. 

    Just as this President’s father was blamed for not doing enough in the aftermath of hurricane Andrew in 1992.  It helped cost him the election that year. 

    It doesn’t matter if the criticism is unfair and inaccurate, once it gets out there it is hard to refute it.  And it appears to me that there are a lot of people trying to get it out there now.  I don’t want to seem callous in the face of this crisis, but it appears to me that all the political points are being scored on one side right now, and the long term effects could be disastrous.

  14. covan says:

    One more question for our friends at the corner.  Did they do as Levin asked and send the money? 

    TW-National as in the press is a national disgrace.

  15. HAPPY FRIDAY says:

    This is super! The GOP will lose in 2006 and 2008, the Dems will win, confiscate our firearms and THEN ALL OF US WILL BE HELPLESS WHEN MOTHER EARTH DROPS ANOTHER HURRICANE ON US and the Dems let the looters go wild raping and pillaging. Gaia will bless us all!  grin

  16. still not Jonah Goldberg says:

    Ok, Ok…..

    SCREW THE TREES, MAN, WHAT ABOUT THE ZINC??

    I mean, guys, this is a “sobering analysis” from SRATFOR.  STRATFOR, for crying out loud!!!! 

    WHEN IS THE PRESIDENT GOING TO ADDRESS THE TREES AND THE ZINC?

    <sob>

  17. leelu says:

    Let me add another 2 cents worth of perspective.  (BTW, I’m a trained disaster services worker).  First thing that has to be done in any situation is an assessment of the situation, so the teams know how to best allocate resources.  This is why, even in a smaller emergency, the fire department won’t be out to get Fluffy the cat out of the tree for you.  They will be busy figuring where the major threats are and assessing the remaining infrastructure.

    So, it *is* incumbent on *everyone* to be able to get by for 3 to 7 days.  In the case of NO, even that may not be enough, but it certainly is a start.

    TW: ‘bed’ as in, can we put this bickering to bed and focus on the problem?

  18. justin says:

    point taken that there was very little that could be done.  i just wish the buses and hospital ships could have left from all over the country on tuesday rather than thursday.

    but i am sick and tired of people spouting “blah blah chertoff fema buried under dhs paperwork, bushitler levees iraq!”

    let’s just worry about getting the people out as quickly as we safely can.

  19. Hubris says:

    Thanks for this post.

    I would add that overblown criticism against the local government’s actions has been equally annoying.  Heck, NZ Bear was calling for Mayor Nagin to be charged with negligent homicide.  For not ordering the evacuation sooner.

    I had a huge argument with my girlfriend* last night, whose judgment on the effectiveness of government’s response is solely driven my camera shots of the suffering victims, which she believes is prima facie evidence of government fucking up.  She does not allow for the possibility that some things are so huge and bad that terrible things will happen despite everyone’s best efforts.

    Heck, months from now we might be able to do a post-mortem and see where mistakes were made.  The thing that bothers me is the armchair quarterbacks taking the slightest bit of data obtained from a chaotic situation, and using it to form an ironclad opinion.

    That, and say, suddenly claiming to possess the expertise of a former head of FEMA.  Everybody’s a freaking expert all of a sudden, armed with a criticism rifle featuring a 20/20 hindsight scope.

    *I was already thinking about breaking up with her because she looks at me to verify that I’m laughing along with her in the same spots during movies, which drives me fucking nuts.  Good Lord, the price I pay for being led around by nice boobies.

  20. Hubris says:

    Oops, I made up that e-mail addy as an example, I didn’t realize it would hyperlink.  I hope it’s not a real one, please don’t hit it.

  21. corvan says:

    I’ll leave the political ramifications for another time.  Right now, like Jeff, I’m beginning to wonder if this particular free press is essential to this particular democracy.  Frankly, that’s something I never supposed I would have to think about.

  22. Lew Clark says:

    The news coverage has been a greater disastor than the “first disastor”.  It’s the typical “experts” that don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.  Instead of reporting on what has been done, they run around looking for “victims”.  So what the nation gets is “everyone that was in NO when the hurricane hit is still there and dying”.  When thousands have been rescued and thousands more are being rescued.

    One point I have not seen reported yet is the geography of the place.  NO is an island, even worse an inverted island.  Before the hurricane, you couldn’t get to NO from any direction without crossing a really long bridge.  Many of those bridges are gone or impassible.  Making getting in and getting out really hard.

    Most of the areas where the evacuation is not complete have turned into war zones.  It’s like trying to evacuate Falugia during the heat of battle.

    And something I never thought of.  The constant cry for more troops/workers doesn’t take into consideration that those people have to be fed/housed etc.  I have a friend in the Oklahoma National Guard whose unit was called up to go to NO.  They are sitting and waiting now for a determination of where they will be set up when they get there.  They will bring all necessary supplies for themselves, but there just isn’t much “high ground” left to set up another National Guard unit.

    It looks like the solution is going to come from the Gulf, as ships are coming in now to provide portable “high ground” where there is not much of that around.

  23. David Beatty says:

    Matt30, point of contention.  I think Bush 41 lost the 1992 election for two reasons:

    1.  Ross Perot siphoned off a large amount of

    the independent vote, but more importantly:

    2.  He broke his pledge not to raise taxes.

  24. BumperStickerist says:

    The Berlin Airlift didn’t happen overnight and the C47s did not drop individually wrapped packets of coal, flour, and water onto each Berliners flat.  Big planes flew large amounts of cargo that had to be distributed.

    Oh, and there was a fully functioning US Airbase in the middle of Berlin the whole time.  And all the roads were fine.

    I lay the responsibility (not the blame) on the municipal government for the dire circumstances faced by the majority.  There’s no legitimate reason supplies couldn’t have been pre-staged two days before hand. 

    They could have put portable cisterns at the convention center and Superdome and started filling them with municipal water .. just in case.  Stage tanker trucks with diesel fuel in strategic areas like near hospitals.  Put five to ten man details of local cops in hospitals which you know won’t be evacuated until afterwards if necessary.

    It’s the municipal equivalent of buying milk, eggs, bread before a NorEaster and filling up the bathtub with water in case a line freezes.

    Bush has been tone-deaf (temporary was a particularly poor choice of words) and one hopes that things will move into high gear – but the immediate aftermath and the suffering isn’t on Bush.

  25. MC says:

    …obvious certainty of terrestrial physics.

    Water-flows-down-hill. I haven’t heard anyone say that in the news media.

  26. MD says:

    Well, I for one find the calm, collected, and informative response of the Corner heartening. Imagine if they had wasted their time linking to charities, or to bulletin board messages so that they could direct all those NR eyeballs to people who need help? I mean, come on. These people type for a living. In ties and tasseled shoes. They know what to do.

    Ok, sarcasm aside, just so so sad and heartbreaking. Heartbreaking.

  27. Blame the Chimp says:

    “obvious certainty of terrestrial physics.”

    Nice excuse. But we all know that King Chimp is the All Powerful is Master of Wind and Air.

    He has SPECIAL POWERS, like Emperor Palpatine.

  28. durand says:

    Lets not forget that much more than New Orleans is involved here. The gulf coast, from west of N.O. all the way to Pensacola is destroyed…look at a map and try to imagine how to get aid to all of those people. And also, it appears that a large number of police from these areas have lost all of their equipment. In, you know, a hurricane.

  29. Matt30 says:

    I agree with you, David, those are almost certainly the two main reasons.  The hurricane Andrew thing was further down the list of reasons Bush Sr. wasn’t reelected.

  30. mojo says:

    “The more I see of Men, the more I like dogs.”

    — Mae West

  31. Phil Smith says:

    “300,000 people stayed behind”

    WHAT!?!?!?!?!?

  32. Fred says:

    Rod Dreher joins the chorus of doom and gloom over at The Corner with this shriek of existenial despair:

    WHERE IS THE ARMY?

    Maybe its all the granola he’s been eating as a “crunchy con” but whatever the reasons he should quit cause he scaring the horses as we like to say here in Texas.

  33. Like Gulliver, I fear I’m beginning to despise large swathes of humanity. Jeff, what took you so long?

    I’m not exactly sure how large the swath is, but I am sure that I am having ever greater difficulty comprehending and dealing civilly with the willful ignorance of so many whose monotonal screeching is becoming louder and louder.

    Turing Word: often

  34. Paul Zrimsek says:

    I had a huge argument with my girlfriend* last night, whose judgment on the effectiveness of government’s response is solely driven my camera shots of the suffering victims, which she believes is prima facie evidence of government fucking up.

    Hubris, are you really going out with Ann Althouse? Why am I always the last to hear about these things?

    Looking on the brighter side: people like this have always been with us, haven’t they? In 1942, for example, they were agitating for an immediate and doomed landing in France. They got ignored, and everything worked out. We’re actually better off this time: instead of demanding any particular, counterproductive action, they’re merely jumping up and down and saying “Do something! Anything!” Once enough stuff has been done so that even they can see it, they might settle down.

    TW: “effect”, as in “David Anderson’s film bio, Rebel Without an Effect.

  35. Also, I am convinced that the parallels of the aftermaths of 9/11 and Katrina and going to continue to grow ever more similar.  Some have criticized such thinking, but when we get the Katrina Commission in a few months staffed with former government officials who will be unable to discover and document their own shortcomings, I will feel fully vindicated for my cynicism.

    Turing word: told (this is getting spooky)

  36. kelly says:

    Thanks, Hubris.

    It’s comforting to know I’m not the only guy to have suffered a fool just because she had a great rack.

    What?

  37. kelly says:

    More on topic, it appears I’m not the only one to have the “Corner” denizens grate on my nerves these days. It’s like I can barely stand to read it anymore. Still, it’s way better reading than the Balloon-Juice comment section. What the hell is up with that?

    More, more on topic, has the news media ever been more narcissistic and preening than now?

  38. corvan says:

    The sort of stuff Jeff is talking about in his update isn’t merely the province of the left.  Follow Fred’s advice.  Go look at the Corner.  I realize I’m picking in them and I apologize.  All the same, the lessons hold true.  The reporter class see themselves as a primal scream that aids the helpless.  Unfortuantely primal screams don’t do any damned thing except make the people that are screaming feel better, and they think, look better.  It is the ultimate in self satisfied selfishness.  No other profession in this country is allowed that sort of histrionics, not lawyers, not doctors, and not the military.  Not even politicians are allowed this sort of preening self interest.  It is ridiculous, but there it is.  And I admit, I have no diea what to do about it, other than make fun of them.

  39. Continuing not to be John Derbyshire says:

    What they need down there, above all else, is order. Couldn’t FEMA send in some prefects armed with willow switches to thrash these looters right across their dusky bare bums?

  40. Old Dad says:

    We’re not a stupid nation, but it seems that we are both ignorant and arrogant. Our arrogance blinds us to our ignorance. Hence, we have so many idiots spounting nonsense about things to which they are clueless.

    I just visited a local bookstore, and sure enough, there it was on the nonfiction table, a book by Bill Clinton, “What to Do When a Weak Cat 1 Hurricane Crosses the Florida Peninsula, Strenngthens to a High Cat 4 and Heads Straight For New Orleans, But Does Little Immediate Damage, Except To a Levee Which Catastrophically Fails Well After the Storm Has Passed, Tragically Flooding This City Built Below Sea Level.” Copyright 1996.

    There’s an interesting “Afterword” by George Soros titled, “You Can Blame That Fucker Bush If This Ever Happens.”

  41. K1 says:

    ” congratulating himself and his ideological brethren”

    _The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy_ by Thomas Sowell

  42. B Moe says:

    Although it is likely being exagerated by the coverage, it seems to me like the New Orleans City government and police services just completely and immediately collapsed. Was the government there that hollow and corrupt that it could be destroyed that easily? And I realize there are a number of brave police officers and fire fighters going far above and beyond down there, but where the hell are the rest of them?

  43. Fred says:

    Spot on, Derb.  Spot on.

    These underclass types need a good reminder of who’s in charge around here.  Just like the Brits handled matter is duskiest India in days of old.  Kipling, where are you when we need you most?

  44. X says:

    ” I despised hypocrites a long time ago. “

    BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRACY!!!!

    “And just to make it clear, I never accused Bush of Racism”

    Ooops sweetheart. Then maybe you should have put this at the bottom of your post:

    _Posted by David A at September 2, 2005 11:02 AM

    Filed Under Hurricane Katrina, Hypocrisy, Politics, Racism | 854 Words_

    “Oh, and just so you know, I do understand disasters, having lived through a few of them myself.”

    Again, he’s keep it real. Unlike you naziracists, who are guilty of THE HYPOCRACY!!!!

    “What I dont understand is people who just cant acknowledge that they are wrong. That never fails to amaze and annoy me.”

    What never fails to amaze and annoy me is how dopes like this don’t proof their copy. Or maybe they are too stupid and CAN’T.

    REALITY IS GOOD.

  45. David R. Block says:

    300,000?? I didn’t think that there were that many idiots in Louisiana (I used to live there), much less all of them in New Orleans.

    TW: sat, as in “You mean you just sat on your ass waiting for it to hit you?”

  46. CHICKENRESPONDERS says:

    BUT JESSE JACKSON SAYS THE DISASTER WAS CAUSED BY BUSH NOT PAYING FOR THE LEVEE. And the Huffinton Reports that black people are eating corpses. Are you eating corpes you hypocrites?

  47. BLT in CO says:

    I’m with Jeff: the hyperbole has become so twisted and grotesque that I almost can’t bear it.  Bush is now held personally responsible for every fault right down to the last flake of dandruff of every person in every country on the entire planet.

    When the accounting of what systems and procedures failed during and after Katrina, there’ll be plenty of blame to go around and I hope this disaster will serve as a wakeup call for other cities with similar risks.  But this grand idiocy and mental illness that calls itself progressive patriotism is really getting to me.

    I despise some of the planks of the Republican party, but I’m damned sure going to be working on someone’s campaign in the next election just to ensure that this disease-ridden leftist ideology fails and those who espouse it are pushed further from the reins of power.  We need a two party system.  We need both ‘sides’ in order to keep things sharp and honest.  What we don’t need is this anti-American cult mentality that sees everything as a conspiracy and every problem as being planned or provoked by some evil Jewish corporatist cabal.  Truly this is madness and cannot continue.

  48. OHNOES says:

    *Salutes BLT*

  49. is he also proud of getting congress back early?

  50. Forbes says:

    Hey BLT, you mean all our troubles are NOT due to the evil Jewish corporatist cabal? It seems, from a few of the comments, that’s the case.

    What’s a poor man to believe?

    /snark off

  51. mojo says:

    Ok, I only have one question:

    Who the fuck is Randi Rhodes?

    Or does that mark me as out of touch with this new, modern age?

  52. Joshua Scholar says:

    Some NPR reporter ‘asked’ a hurricane victim she was ‘interviewing’, “If there was anything you could say to president Bush, what would it be?”

    Oh shit, what an obvious set up.  I braced myself for the obviously pre-arranged answer.

    The man didn’t disappoint. He hammed it up thorough.  He harrumphed mirthlessly, as a man who has been wronged beyond all hope, and said “I would say he should bring the troups home from Iraq, to where we need them”

    Turing word “stupid”

    as in “just how stupid do you think we are?”

  53. Matt says:

    Hi, so fuck liberals.  Seriously.  Do you want them in charge during a crisis.  Look no further then the parish of New Orleans to see where that gets you. Look at the NO police department, research the unbelievable amount of corruption which has existed in the NO PD for years and years.  Then recognize which political party has run New Orleans into the ground.

    You want to know why so many police officers in NO bolted ? Because they’re liberals, because they’re cowards.

    Yes, I firmly believe most liberals are inherent cowards.  Its not that you think fighting is wrong, its that you are inherently frightened of getting your ass kicked.  You don’t want guns in the hands of ordinary citizens ?  Why ? Because you’re a terrible shot, because loud noises and gun discharge scares you, whatever- personally, I’m to the point where i Know most of you won’t join the military and you’ll armchair quarterback all day long but never once get involved and do something about it.

    and omg, yes I was in the military so feel free to take that chickenhawk memme, turn that sucker sidewise and stick it straight up your candy ass.  I stand on a wall so I Can protect YOUR right to call me a douchebag ?  Yep, thats exactly what I do but I GD guarantee if you call me a douchebag to my face (which none of you has had the balls to do yet, even when I wear my “Bush is right” T-shirt), you will learn that while I respect the constitution, I also respect a citizen’s right to respond to bullshit- IE, big fat hambone to the face.

    Seriously, you douchebags- you dont support our troops so please, for the love of God, walk up to one of these guys/gals in fatigues at an airport and call them a baby killer.  ONce they knock you the fuck out, I’ll be more than happy to use my hard earned law degree to defend them in any state in the union.  I’ll whip you and your ACLU lawyers ass into the ground- not only will I get the GI off scot free, I’ll convince the judge to make you pay attorney’s fees.  Come on you california lawyer pussies, bring your BS to Florida and lets see you try to win a fight-judges here don’t wear burks and choose granola and they will sure as hell rule against you.

    TW “student” Awww, so easy. BRING IT .  I’ll school your liberal ass, make you my student, teach you common sense.  Listen to Jeff, listen to Roger Simon, listen to Charles Johnson – these are guys leaving the liberal fold to butt heads with you – these are your former comrads in arms.  Learn something, quick, before you become as irrelevant as the Whig party.

  54. mojo says:

    Boy. You eat one little foot, and suddenly people don’t want to be seen with you.

    What’s up with that?

    SB: couldnt

    resist. And SB can’t punctuate.

  55. Matt says:

    *Who the fuck is Randi Rhodes?*

    Nobody you’d know unless you were unlucky and found Air America on your radio dial.  In short, she’s the bitch who was encouraging the poor to loot New Orleans. 

    Which was then condemned by the international community.  The sheer irony is, fucking democrats loot pillage and steal, then they whine about how the rest of the world, who witnesses the aforemtnioned looting, thinks of us.

  56. bennett320 says:

    I have never seen so much ignorance in my entire life!  I would be willing to be my life that no one who is condemning the relief effort to be a failure has ever spent any time either in Mississippi, or New Orleans.  If they have, they didn’t step foot outside the French Quarter, and slept in the car while driving through Mississippi to the French Quarter.  Because these jackasses have no CLUE of the scope and scale of either the disaster itself, or the efforts now underway. 

    I turned my damned TV off a couple of days ago.  Since then, I have been listening to feeds of NG and FEMA and ATC radio frequencies streamed over the web, and bloggers still in NO to get my news.  There are thousands of hard-working, dedicated, selfless people working under conditions of stress, faced with seemingly impossible tasks, and working endless hours for what amounts, in monetary terms, to very little.  And they are getting the job done and doing it very fucking well!  Not only are these asshats climbing over dead bodies to make their worthless political points, they are taking a crap on the efforts of these men and women, and only making their jobs that much harder.  Like Jeff, I am losing faith is large swaths of American society, because so many people seem to be not only buying into this ignorant bullshit, they also seem to be reveling in it!

  57. bennett says:

    I would be willing to be my life…

    That should be “willing to bet my life…

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