The "Blame Game" Game:Readers of this blog may not know that your humble narrator, here, actually has one or two things in common with President George W. Bush- Like, first and foremost, I'm
completely and utterly not qualified for my job, and my primary concern is making sure nobody finds out just what a massive scam I'm getting away with each day merely by not being hauled out from behind my desk and tossed out onto the street by the security guards.
No, I kid.
But, really,
like George W. Bush, I too had a "reckless youth", although my definition of "youth" is a little different than his- mine ended well before his (allegedly) did, on his fortieth birthday. But I must say, although I've lived like a monk for many, many years (except for the no sex part) watching television this week made me feel more like getting piss, rip-roarin',
puke-on-my-shoes drunk than I have in a long, long, loooong time.
Not just because of the abject suffering, the misery, the horror, and (worst of all) the knowledge that much of it really could have been avoided if we had a federal government that gave half a damn. No, the impetus behind the wagon fallingesque emotion was actually that I invented a GREAT NEW DRINKING GAME!
See, part of the surreal experience of watching cable news this past week was seeing elements of our nation's press corps magically
re-find their journalistic testicles, particularly the reporters who were down among the chaos in places like the Superdome. But the other half of it was watching- literally seeing the process in graphic relief- the corporate media's Bush-defending spin control mechanisms desperately try to click into gear. Here's an example: My wife agrees with me that the media is woefully non-adversarial with this administration, but she does roll her eyes a bit when I get all tinfoilhat about the corporate media and their overt manipulation of the American Public. So imagine my surprise when she grabbed me and pulled me to the television the other night, and said "This is unbelievable- I'm actually WATCHING them try to spin this for Bush".
What she had cue'd up on the TIVO (man, are those things great, or what?) was about 5 minutes of some blonde CNN anchor-bot with a snot-faced expression cut straight from the Laurann Ingcoulteraham mold, who said "With the
delay in
services, SOME people seem to want to play the BLAME GAME"..
(I like that line about a "delay in services". No, lady, a
delay in services is when your dry cleaning comes back on Friday instead of Thursday. When you leave tens of thousands of people with no food or water in a disaster area, that's called
criminal neglect.)
So then, they cut to Larry King sticking his proboscis up Poppy and Bar's rear ends, and then sure 'nough, there's Poppy repeating some bullshit about the "Blame Game", being sure to remind us all what a "caring, strong, man of faith" ol Dubya is.
I'm not sure if Bar said anything.. she's been on a roll this week, but it'd be tough to top that wonderful quote from the other day, where she said that things were "working out well" for the folks who lost all their possessions and had been locked knee-deep in shit in the superdome for five days with rapists, murderers, and a whole lot of stinky corpses.
Now, inquiring minds might wonder why, if George W. Bush is such a manly, tough, strong man, he needs his MOMMY and DADDY to come out to the front of the schoolyard to 'splain to the kids about what a good boy Junior is, and how he really didn't mean to leave all those negroes to die, with no food or water for close to a week.
But, really, what I found most interesting was this phrase, "Blame Game". Because after those few, precious minutes with ex-President Corleone and his lovely wife, it rapidly became clear to me that you couldn't turn on a cable news channel without being literally assaulted with inane repetitions of those two words. "Blame Game". "Blame Game". "Blame Game". Again, it would be one thing- and weird enough- if only administration flunkies were flogging that phrase, but clearly MEDIA personnel had been instructed to put it out there, as well. One can imagine that Karl Rove sat on the fucking phone all day Monday, screaming at the top of his lungs to his toadies over at CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, along with all his other administration apologists: "Blame Game!" "Blame Game!" "Blame Game!"...
You know how, if you repeat a word enough times, it turns into gibberish? Ah,
"Blame Game". "Blame Game.""BlameGameBlameGame!"
"BlameGameBlameGame!"
"BlameGameBlameGameBlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGameBlameGameBlameGameBlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame
BlameGameBlameGame!"
"I tell ya, Paw, They're Playin' That Dad Gum Blame Game Again, Dag Blammit!"
Sure, it's no "Knob Gobblin' Hobgoblins From Gobbler's Knob", but it'll make for a decent tongue twister in a pinch.
I wonder if it crossed the squirrelly, bald head-encased mind of Mr. Rove that the words "Blame" and "Game" also rhyme with "Plame".
After all, the Blame for Plame lies Mainly on the Game.
So, it occurred to me that if I was still in college, and my buddies and I had decided to make a drinking game this week where every time someone in the Administration or the Press used the phrase "Blame Game" we took a drink, by today we would probably be dead of alcohol poisoning.
Fortunately some members of
the White House Press Corps are calling bullshit on that. Bravo.
But while we wily librul media elites are busy playing the "Blame Game", surely -despite that slight
delay in
services- the Federal Government is busy savin' lives, doin' the heavy lifting, gettin things done, right?
Well, you will be relieved to know that under
Michael "Brownie" Brown, the guy whose previous experience had something to do with
horse shows... and he even fucked THAT up, FEMA really has its priorities in order: First off, they have gathered firefighters from all over the country to enlist them in the crucial post-disaster job of
handing out pro-FEMA flyers. How dare anyone say that the job hasn't been done right, even though
actual relief was needlessly delayed -perhaps by up to two days- AFTER the storm hit:
the Associated Press reported that internal documents show Brown waited until hours after the hurricane had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region -- and then gave them two days to arrive.
---because you know what? When it comes to
handing out fuckin' flyers, "Brownie" is on the god. damn. case!
This chowderhead actually said that one of the
primary duties of FEMA personnel was to "make the agency look good" to government officials and members of the press:
According to leaked internal documents, Michael Brown suggested teams should be given two days to get to the devastated region and told FEMA staff that one of their duties was to make the agency look good. "Convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public," he wrote.
Mr Brown, who has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the crisis, apparently blamed the delay in deploying staff on the need for adequate training.
Yes, clearly they couldn't be sent into the field until they completed the requisite 48 hour seminar on spin, bullshit, blather, toadying, and press conference management.
And you know what else they're on the case about? (Shit, don't tell me these boys don't know what's important) Censorship. FEMA has decreed that not only is no unauthorized (meaning effective) aid getting
into the city, but
no pictures of dead bodies are gettin' out. That's right, they understand that in today's world, reality is
what you can get away with- and if it aint on teevee, sheeeet mang, it didn't happen. While some quantum physicists might quarrel with such a drastic take on the Copenhagen interpretation, the fact of the matter is, if we don't see the dead bodies, for all intents and purposes, to much of the 'Merkin Public, they aint there. Much like a two year old who thinks he's invisible when he covers his eyes, millions of folks in this country are in active denial about realities that they will go out of their way to shield themselves from, and if a highly sanitized American Media will assist them in that, hey, even better. This is why you can have an argument with a right-winger about the Abu Ghraib images that, well, who knows what finally
spooked Judge Hellerstein, but I bet they won't be released after all... and said right-winger will argue until he's blue in the face about how these images MUST NOT be allowed to see the light of day- and then, if you bring up what some have
alleged the photos to contain, the same fucking jarhead will go, with a straight fucking face.... "Prove it.
Show me the pictures."
No, seriously. I've had that exact fucking fight with people.
Sooooo, FEMA probably figures they're doing everyone (particularly Bush) a favor by issuing edicts like
"no photos of dead bodies". Considering that the estimated death toll could range from 10,000 to as high as 40,000 or higher, it makes one wonder just what, exactly, people will be allowed to take pictures OF- because it seems to me that wherever you look in what used to be New Orleans, you're going to find... dead bodies.
Columbia Journalism Review on the Media's Complicity
What Will It Take To Get You People To Do Your Fucking Jobs?
Fiore: Whoopsi Gras
Bush's Use Of Firemen: As Props
Hey, Ready for a Laugh? I mean, as much of a laugh as you can manage, given the circumstances?
Check This Out: I remember watching this some nearly five years ago... Who woulda thunk just how prophetic it would turn out to be?
Will Ferrell should win some kind of Nostradamus award just for the lines about
"it's too hard!" and
"I told you, this is hard!".
Shit, it seems even Bush's
fuckups are stolen from someone else's material.
It's hard work, indeed.
Or,
Read The Transcript:
Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?
I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.
Olbermann is, of course, spot-on right, and in front of millions of MSNBC viewers he had the nerve tonight to speak the plain, unvarnished truth. Which means that his career in cable news is probably soon to end, but we here at the impeach dubya blog salute him for it, anyways.
Unfortunately, he co-opted several key points from the rant I've had sitting in my head all day, and clearly he said them in an astronomically more concise, hard-hitting fashion than your humble blogger would have. The only thing my rants have going for them is the liberal (get it?) peppering of foul language, but since the FBI has decreed that
the most pernicious threat currently facing our nation they can blow (get it?) my tax dollars on is
porn and obscenity, I'll probably have to ditch that as well.
One point that ol' Keith didn't bring up, but I am more than happy to, is that the 51% of American Voters who chose, last November, to return this train wreck of an Administration to the Oval Office should be
deeply, horribly ashamed of themselves right now. Maybe that's not the inclusive thing to say, the "big tent", thing to say, but hear me out. I'm not sayin' y'all are beyond redemption, but before redemption there must be responsibility. Accountability. (you like words like that, don't you? "Redemption", "Responsibility", "Accountability"...) What needs to be asked of the Bush voters and defenders, here, as the bodies float face down past Bourbon Street hotels, is, "Are you happy now?", and, more importantly, "Was it worth it?". Was, for instance, your tax cut worth the little babies and toddlers dying for want of water inside the Convention Center, as they wailed plaintively for help that never arrived? Was keeping the gays down the street from getting married so important that it was worth seeing people's grandparents
left dead in wheelchairs out on the street? Was getting your fucking 12 year old, testosterone, bomb-the-ragheads war fix worth not just the lives destroyed there, but the lives destroyed here as well?
Oh, I know, the STORM wasn't, technically, George W. Bush's fault. Rush Limbaugh and his shitty ilk on FOX NEWS have already started whining about "junk science" and bitching about people attributing Katrina to global warming. Well, one thing is true- it did not require global warming to make a Hurricane capable of swamping New Orleans. This was a possibility, a known possibility, for years- which makes the Bush Administration's gutting of funds to improve the levees even more inexcusable just as it makes his ridiculous bullshit line about "We never imagined this could happen" (Now, where have I heard that before?) push the outer envelope of total absurdity. But Rush & Co. are already grumbling about how 'no one can prove this storm was caused by global warming'. Yes, that is correct. Hurricanes are chaotic systems, as is all weather- and they don't show up holding signs saying "Brought to you by global warming". But what we DO know is, the water temperature in the gulf has gone up at least one or two degrees in the past few decades, and we sure as shit know that warm ocean water equals bigger, stronger hurricanes... and this hurricane ramped up to a category five in no time at all, thanks to the supercharging action of a very warm gulf of Mexico.
What kind of evidence to these right-wing chucklefucks require before they can just admit what the science community already knows? Namely, that the greenhouse gases we are pouring into the atmosphere at
an unprecedented rate are causing the temperature of the Earth to increase? Don't answer that- no, no amount of evidence will EVER cause these stupid shitheads to repent ("repent", there's another word you folks like, right?) and see the error of their ways. Rush, speaking to the three people who still actually listen to that fat junkie fuck, actually said the other day,
"I don't believe man could change the environment-- if he tried".
Yeah, that Cuyahoga river caught fuckin' fire on its OWN, pigboy. Now, go take some more pills.
No, these assholes will
always say something like Global Warming "needs more study", because you can't "prove" that a Category 5 hurricane had anything to do with the fact that the oceans are warmer. We could be living on Venus, and it would "need more study". I mean, the polar ice caps are already melting, but that's not enough "hard proof" for these assholes. Ironically, this is the same gang who will argue unti they are blue in the face that a lack of evidence constitutes "proof" for something like "intelligent design". So listen up, shit-for-brains, 'cuz I'm only saying this once;
there is a fuckload more evidence that Hurricane Katrina was directly caused by global warming than there is that the human race was directly caused by the God of the Bible. So piss off.
Now, back to the Bush voter. Okay, look- I really do think that 51% of this country owes the planet, certainly the people of New Orleans, a serious fuckin' apology. Let me qualify that by saying I do believe that people- most people- are fairly decent sorts. The first impulse most of us had when we saw the devastation caused by this hurricane was, just like it was after 9-11, "what can we do to help". This is why people, on their own accord or with
state and local government imprimatur, loaded up boats and planes and trucks with relief supplies and tried to get into New Orleans- only to be bizzarely, inexplicably, rebuffed and turned away by FEMA.
People -Americans- are generally decent, warmhearted people.. they don't like to see cruelty and can't abide abject suffering when it stares them in the face- which is why this Administration goes to such crazy lengths to
bury any and all evidence of the suffering it causes and the cruelty it endorses. Americans don't go in for that stuff, usually, which is why they need to be manipulated, lulled to sleep, or frightened into supporting policies which run contrary to the decent, generous American spirit. Some people voted for Team Bush out of pure greed, and that is one thing- although if you track the economy, the deficit, and the Dow Jones, it becomes clear that unless these folks were investing or living in a different country altogether, or they were among the lucky contractors
hauling money out of Iraq in duffel bags, they have screwed themselves along with the rest of us and our economy. I know plenty of fairly well off folks, and not one of them is doing better now than they were under Bill Clinton
. But millions of Bush Voters comprising the "heartland base" didn't vote for him to ensure that upper-bracket tax cut.. and I would wager that they were motivated, via effective manipulation on the part of Karl Rove's GOP propaganda machine, by a little thing called fear. Fear of Ter'rists, for sure, but also fear of change. Fear of gays. Fear of women. Fear of Minorities and People who are "different", for sure. Fear of the future. Fear of those pesky, metrosexual "elitists" who wear black, watch HBO, and laugh at anyone with an @aol email address. Okay, some of that "fear" may also be what is known as "hate", but past a certain point it's all the same, low-chakra energy. And as Yoda so eloquently told us in that Star Wars movie with the annoying kid, his bowl cut, and the floppy eared, thinly-veiled African American caricature alien replete with the southern Louisiana accent; "fear leads to... suffering".
And suffering is what is happening, now, in big screen, IMAX technicolor. The folks who thought they were voting for "Christian Values" have brought about a most un-christian situation in N'awlins and environs. An everyone-for-him or herself situation of raw, unabashed terror, death, mayhem and sub-human cruelty. I'm not sure why FEMA
blocked aid and the National Guard, or the Bush Administration waited several days to do jack diddly shit about what they knew were tens of thousands of people in places like the convention center with no food, water, or protection, but I do know one thing- when they say it's "not their fault", they're as full of shit as the corpse-filled water which has opened the sewers of that once great city. They've had four years- FOUR FUCKING YEARS, PEOPLE- since 9-11, and all that time they've made noises about how they were protecting us from dangerous things like library patrons through vitally important legislation like the PATRIOT act. Doesn't anyone think that maybe, just maybe, while they were designing those fancy-dancy color coded terror alert scales to flash on the television every time John Kerry had a surge in the polls, they could have been actually working on a rapid disaster response plan? As Olbermann alluded to, these folks have been claiming for years, particularly when it is electorally convenient, that Osama Bin Saddam Zarqawi and their swarthy bogeyman-of-the-month club are hovering over our American cities with suitcase nukes and doody bombs and mop buckets full of ebola virus and all kinds of unspeakable terror just a vote for a Democrat away, and they never stopped hammering their constant assurance that they were the only ones on Earth who could keep us safe.. so wouldn't it stand to reason that, if that were the case, they would have a gold-plated, well-oiled relief, recovery and rescue apparatus in place, prepared to spring instantly into action in response to those massive human disasters that they have constantly held over our heads for the past four years?
I mean, this was a
hurricane- we saw this coming. And it is inexcusable- really, just fucking
in. ex. cusable. that the Federal God-Damn Government took, what was it, four? five? days to get its shit together and start bringing starving, dying people food and water... and getting them out of those hellholes. There is no excuse, and I'm not buying this bullshit about how it was the local officials fault. Except if there's one thing we've learned in the past five years, with the Bush Administration, it's
always someone else's fault. These are the assholes who are going to protect us from nuclear terrorism? Can you, Mr. Bush voter, after watching the footage of babies and old people and bodies in the water,
honestly say these motherfuckers still make you feel safe?If you can, you're either a damn liar--- or a damn fool.
Okay, it's Official:
I No Longer Feel Bad For Making Fun Of Barbara Bush's Troll-Like Picture Last Week."And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
Yeah, Bar, those people who were stuck in that arena... things have really been
"working very well for them"!
.
The Compassion of Conservatism has wasted no time putting its best face forward, in the wake of what is shaping up to be easily the worst natural disaster this Nation has ever seen.. Bill O'Reilly had this to say about the folks swamped, terrorized, dead and dying on the flooded streets of what used to be New Orleans-
"A lot of the people -- a lot of the people who stayed wanted to do this destruction. They figured it out. And that's -- I'm not surprised." O'Reilly bitched the new Right Wing Meme, blame-the-fuckin'-victim, 'cuz anyone who stayed in that place was obviously just
hangin' around to steal some teevees! O'Reilly's message of compassionate conservatism amounted to, "in all fairness, these people were TOLD to evacuate"
To which, we have no doubt, the nursing home patient pictured at right- if she wasn't being CARRIED TO A FUCKING HELICOPTER, mind you- would respond to Mr. O'Reilly...
by putting her
little, old, invalid lady shoe up his ass.I wonder, after the events of this week, if GOP philosophical brain-trust Grover Norquist will change his favorite line about "shrinking government so small that we can drown it in the bathtub".
See, this tragedy; while the result of a natural disaster, was eminently avoidable and criminally mis-handled at every turn. But the utter lack of adequate response points up, clearly, the reason why we HAVE a federal government. A social safety net. How kind, again, of Bill O'Reilly to insist on FOX NEWS that motels in the south "not gouge" people left homeless by this disaster. Does the fuckknob really believe that everyone can afford to live in a hotel or motel room for months? Years? With no paychecks coming in? The scope of this disaster is mind-boggling, yet equally mind-boggling is that the usual suspects on the right can brainlessly continue to flog this bullshit about "personal responsibility"...
You mean you didn't prepare for the destruction of your city by leaving a year's worth of food, water and cash in a waterproof safe on your roof? What the fuck were you thinking, deadbeat? That you could expect a handout?No, see, this is WHY we have a safety net. Social services. Structures. This is why people in civilized societies TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER, because someday it could be
you floating on a styrofoam ice chest which contains everything left that you own.
But
The President did get active in the relief efforts, and although you may not have heard about it in the media (he's a humble man, and not much given to grandstanding or
staged photo ops),
he actually organized & paid for a flight that took, by conflicting reports, 130 to 150 very sick people out of the Hurricane Devastation so they could receive much needed medical care. Thus proving that our President is a doer, not a talker, someone whose faith leads him to genuinely care about his fellow human beings, and someone who this Nation clearly can count on in times of deep crisis.
Of course, we eagerly wait for 2009, when he, the
real President of the United States, can take back the office which he rightfully won back in the year 2000.
For the sake of the Nation, for the little black babies shamefully left without food or water for days in brackish, toxic floodwaters, for the soldiers dying in Iraq for a shabby pack of lies, for the deficit, for the economy, for the future, and for all the increasingly endangered life on this overheating planet... we sincerely hope that is what takes place.
- Mo Dowd: The United States of Shame
- So.. With People Dying, Starving, Dehydrated and Stranded... Why the Fuck is FEMA Cutting The PHONE LINES Out Of Jefferson Parish?
- Video (WMV) of Jefferson Parish Official Aaron Broussard Regarding Above:
- "One reason for the slow White House response, said a Republican who has been in contact with several officials, is that so many high-level officials and aides were on vacation."
- Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
- Krugman: "The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients."
Apparently, Those Two Random "Survivors" who Conveniently Showed Up On Cue To Be Comforted by Bush Yesterday Were Not The Only Fishy, Seemingly Staged Event To Come Out Of RoveCo Damage Control Productions:
- Sen Landrieu Blasts Levee Repairs As Phony "Photo Op"
- More World-Class Idiocy From The King Of The Senatorial Circus Clowns: Rick Santorum Wants To Do Away With Free Weather Information From The Government
- Hey, Speaking of Rick Santorum: "The Federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents FEMA from providing any relief in the form of family benefits to same-sex couples."
And, Last But Not Least- Deep Wisdom From The Mouths Of Hip-Hop Celebrities We've Never Heard Of... Because, Let's Face It, We're Really God-Damn Old:
- "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"
...Fuckin' A, Bubba.
