Being Held Accountable


Listening to the news and to the commentators in the wake of Katrina you can hear the usual suspects begin their various political spins. I heard Sean Hannity put the desperate rant by the Mayor of New Orleans on his show as an example of partisan 'Bush Bashing' and I couldn't believe it. If anyone has a right to scream and yell and wonder where the hell the help was it was the Mayor of New Orleans. But what's right and what passes for common sense doesn't apply any longer in this word of balkanized politics. For Hannity and others of his ilk their party line is all that matters. Much like the stuff I would listen to on Radio Moscow which had often had no basis in reality these guys are singing their political song no matter what the reality is. Hannity, in the tried and true style of politics set about to discredit the Mayor, after all, it was the Mayor who didn't get all those people who wouldn't evacuate to evacuate. So, according to Hannity the man has no right to complain. Again, it reminds me of Radio Moscow and the parade of lies they would put out over the airwaves. Him and Rush also said that 'this is no time to criticize' since it's the middle of a crisis. Oh, I see. We can't be expected to be able to multitask at all. Sorry, but it is possible to work and focus on the efforts and to criticize those efforts where they are failing. Oops, trick no good dudes. I know they don't want to hear it but this time those who screwed up will be found out and will be booted out. It doesn't matter what party they are from and it doesn't matter to us which political party is running things. Things just need to be run at least half assed. At least. I don't know what party the Governor of Louisiana is from. Does it matter? She is not competent and deserves the scorn she is getting now and will continue to get. Bush, who went to a fund raising dinner the night that Katrina hit the coast and who fiddled away important days until the constant news coverage shamed him into acting deserves the loss of support he is experiencing. We don't expect our politicians to be perfect, we do expect a certain level of competence and this level isn't acceptable. This failure isn't acceptable. But you will continue to hear Rush and Hannity make it sound like things are getting much better in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. Not going to work this time. You're not going to get to pass this buck back to Clinton or Carter or FDR.