By David Edwards on 9/5/2005, 7:17pm PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Tonight, on MSNBC's countdown, Kieth Olbermann nailed the Bush Administration and other officials for their handling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans:

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might�ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could�ve brought last Monday and Tuesday � like the President, whose statements have looked like they�re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

...
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans � even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection � or at least amelioration � against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

...
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'?

You can find the rest of the remarks in Keith Olbermann's Blog. A video clip of the statement is here (Windows Media).

Share article...