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In a word, Blanche . . .
YIKES!! 
With humble apologies for bungling your name on the last go-round, and the understanding that I am not attacking you personally, let me me as blunt as you have been.
Does Christianity not call you to be truthful? If you want to say before the wide world of Blogit, "Look at me, I'm a Christian," and then engage in this kind of rhetoric, then you are in danger of discrediting your faith. Your opinions here contain not so much contempt as a profound cynicism that is completely at odds with the faith you profess. Your faith calls you to exercise judgement and practice discernment based on truth, and to avoid rumors and slanders. Yet you are basing your opinions of this man on falsehoods and the distortion of facts to make them fit your assumptions.
Case in point: The only "evidence" ever presented about the AWOL allegations were proven to be forgeries. Yet you claim it is so.
Case in point: Your account of the 2000 election. I give you the challenge no one else has fulfilled: Please explain how a president who has been in office only five weeks can "use the Supreme Court to railroad through" desired election results, after his predecessor of entirely opposite political leanings has named justices to the Court for the eight years previous. Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruling you wanted would truly have made for an illegal result, one in which basic fundamentals of due process and equal treatment before the law were violated as ballots were not given equal weight in the recounts that the Florida courts had ordered. (Read a chronology of Bush v. Gore at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0884144.html) What, for instance, of the absentee votes for Bush from servicemen overseas that were disqualified wholesale?
Case in point: What happened at Emma Booker School. No less an authority on how to handle emergencies in the presence of children than the school principal said his conduct was entirely appropriate. (See http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/7/95203.shtml). But did you take that into consideration, or were you too eager to simply condemn the man based on your cynicism and contempt? Too many people simply would have attacked him no matter what he did, in this or in any other situation. I hope you are not among them.
Here's another angle on this. If he is indeed a fellow believer, then where do you get off judging him on false grounds? Is that what you would want other believers to do to you? I didn't think so.
Having been in a Christian cult (and I do mean a cult, as opposed to the very many legitimate churches and denominations) myself years ago, I know full well that professing Christianity is no guarantee to having perfect knowledge or judgement about anything. But it behooves you as a professing believer to get your facts straight and to base your opinions on facts rather than fabrications. Otherwise, you run the risk of, in the words of a preacher I heard years ago, having your halo on so tight the horns poke out. Having been there myself more often than I want to admit, I can tell you it is no fun.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 5, 2006 at 6:17 PM
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WriterofLight,
My apologies for not having read your earlier posts on the subject of the levees (sp. noted), and Mr. Bush's culpability therein. I don't need to use merely this example of his flagrant, symbolic indifference to the suffering of the people of New Orleans as a reason to dislike his policies, there are too many others to precede them to justify my ill opinion of the man. Hatred? Pshaw. He doesn't deserve the emotion, it's a waste, mere contempt will suffice.
From his early years of cocaine and alcohol use, to using the military for his personal vendettas, because Saddam Hussein threatened "to kill [my] daddy", even though he himself evaded his own military service in the National Guard in Texas and never flew the plane that he was trained to fly, to his conveniently timed conversion to evangelical Christianity during his father's political campaign, using his family connections to obtain capital for oil businesses which never saw a profit, his fake Texas populism when he is as rich as Croesus and scoffs to his well-funded friends "Some people might call you the elite, I call you my base", to using the Supreme Court to railroad through an illegal election in 2000, to sitting in a schoolhouse full of children reading, "My Pet Goat", for a full 40 minutes after he was informed by an aide that the World Trade Center had been attacked.
The man lacks character, substance and moral fiber to be a leader. He is the one who used the suffering of the people of New Orleans and embarrasses me as a Christian by showing his indifference. The office of the President may be symbolic, but it is up to a leader to be on the job. I doubt very much if Harry S. Truman was "on vacation" during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would hope he would have been in the White House, standing his post, and showing some awareness of the gravity of the situation.
posted by
Blanche.
on March 4, 2006 at 11:05 PM
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Tough question for Blacnhe, the Professor, glenn, FW and company:
How many of you Bush critics are using the suffering of the people of New Orleans to justify your hatred of George W. Bush? That's precisely how you come across concerning Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated, massive dmaage in three states, and to judge by your rhetoric all you care about is blaming Bush.
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 4, 2006 at 9:19 PM
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Read it again, Blanche!
What part of my criticism of this and previous administrations did you not see? Here it is again:
"President Bush and everybody else in a position to do something about it, not just last year but for as long as there have been levees around New Orleans, should have anticipated the possibility of breaches. The danger is always there, whether or not it is exacerbated by exceptionally severe weather, by inadequate design, by shoddy construction, or by corruption, negligence and ineptitude on behalf of those responsible for their maintenance. All of these factors were present in New Orleans."
I also criticized the Bush administration, and its predecessors, in earlier posts on the subject. I suspect that, because I am not limiting my criticism solely to President Bush, it doesn't count ni your sight. Am I right?
And, indeed, the "party of personal responsibility" is taking responsibility to deal with the mess. Just as they have taken responsibility to deal with every other mess it has inherited, from terrorism to Social Security reform.
(By the way: That's "breach" the "levees," not "breech" and "levies." Being subjected to one tax levie after another, there are a few I'd like to breach! 
)
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 4, 2006 at 8:52 PM
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O-o-o-o-o. . . .The Professor is unhappy . . . .
Let's start at the beginning. I was commenting on you comment to the cited post on my blog. I will gladly visit yours to return the favor you grant me.
Apologies for misidentifying you, but that's how you come across. Interesting that you made your post immediatelyafter the story broke. No double-checking, no verifying, no thinking to yourself as I did, "Gee whillikers, there must be something more to this." Just an immediate presumption of guilt, a la the Bush-hating liberal.
Since you mention cuts to funding for flood control, let's finish the mention. Clinton also cut flood control funding, and his administration oversaw the acceptance of patently inferior construction of floodwalls that collapsed during the storm. When Louisiana Senator Landriuex had the opportunity to earmark tens of millions of Corps of Engineers funds for flood control, she instead earmarked it for a totally useless pork barrel navigation project. Local levee boards spent funds granted to them for maintenance, upkeep and flood preparation on everything from cars to travel. Your blaming Bush for the failures of both his predecessors and of members of Congress also would lead me to identify you as a Bush-hating liberal.
And you still are not offering the broad-ranging ideas that are needed. For example:
- Comprehensive soil studies to determine the load-bearing capacity of the ground, so as to ensure that the ground will support the weight of better levees. If you build a levee capable of withstanding the storm surge from a Cateogy Five storm but the ground beneath it fails to support it, you gain nothing.
- Raise and strenghten levees to the greatest capacity of the underlying soil to support them.
- Comprehensive reform of the local levee boards, so as to gaurantee competent and honest management and maintenance of the levees.
- Overhaul and expansion of the pumping plant system, including on-site generators on pilings above any possible flood level.
- Comprehensive inspection of all levees and floodwalls to detect and correct any other inferior construction, such as contributed to some of the levee failures.
- If it is determined that Category Five flood protection cannot be provided because of ground or other conditions that cannot be remediated, close up shop and rebuild elsewhere.
It will take a lot more than $62,500,000 to correct the problems that contributed to this. Once again - this goes back decades. (By the way - is it asking too much for you to identify the rationale for the $10 million versus $65 million argument?)
As for the impact of tax cuts, since tax revenues have increased so much, there's that much more money that can be allocated to the needs.
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 4, 2006 at 8:45 PM
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Writer,
you present an excellent, water-tight case! No breaches, no toppings!
posted by
Nautikos
on March 4, 2006 at 6:18 PM
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Great, great, great!
And I predict you will get many liberal responses, that say: well......that may be somewhat true, BUT.......".
posted by
sarooster
on March 4, 2006 at 1:27 PM
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Writer, thanks once again for presenting
a very balanced perspective on this issue. You've done well. Sadly, though, the Bush antagonists will never see reason, no matter how much of it you present.
I also concur with Jethro on the below comments. Well said!
posted by
JanesOpinion
on March 4, 2006 at 12:53 PM
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Let us remind everybody that the Sierra Club, no bastion of right-wingers, filed a lawsuit to stop certain improvements that would have greatly helped. Clinton also did not give the Army Corps near what they asked for. With govt. agencies it's sort of like 'if you really want a kitten, start by asking for a pony'. New Orleans officials repeatedly squandered or stole funds earmarked for levee maintenance. They were almost all Democrats. It goes on and on.
And yes, topping and breaching ARE very different things.
This is just another hit piece on Bush. Three more years of them to look forward to.
posted by
jethro
on March 4, 2006 at 9:53 AM
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Levees Breeched or Topped? Apples v. Kumquats, Writer!
Your point seems to be that because the meteorological expert did not specifically say that the levees were about to be breeched, merely topped, the President wasn't adequately informed, and therefore his responsibility is negated on a technicality? The mock hurricane studies indicated that a mock hurricane nicknamed Pam WOULD breech the levees, given a hurricane of sufficient force. The President was informed that Katrina was a Category 3 at landfall, and therefore of sufficient force to breech the levies.
In other words, even if his expert at that moment said "topped" rather than breeched, the data already existed to show that he knew that a Category 3 hurricane WOULD breech the levies.
As for not focusing on the name-calling rather than solving the problem, well, I think we need to let the party of personal responsibilty take responsibility for what happens on their watch.
posted by
Blanche.
on March 3, 2006 at 11:14 PM
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Parsing words
First off, why do you comment about my blog but neglect to comment on my blog? Are you really THAT afraid to give me the measly click? Chickendroppings!!!
I take umbrage at being accused of echoing the Democrat and liberal talking points. Minor point, I'm neither. I'm a registered Libertarian, and have been since I was 18. But more importantly, I made my post immediately after seeing the AP video on CNN. I didn't check with the DNC, Michael Moore of Daily kos.com. I made my own points, and stand by them. Unlike the Bushbots, I don't take marching orders from anyone.
By YOUR standard, President Clinton DIDN'T commit perjury and shouldn't have been impeached; he said he didn't have "sexual relations" with that woman (Miss Lewisnky). Webster's defines "sexual relations" as "a joining of the sexual organs..." Now, since he only got a BJ, that doesn't "count" as sexual relations. Silly and asinine? YES!!!
But parsing words like "breech" vs. "topping" is JUST AS ASININE!!! When you're hip deep in water and your home is flooded, do you CARE if it was a breech, a "topping" or a backed-up toilet? The point is, before you start micro-defining the words, is that President Bush knew about flooding dangers and claimed later that no one could have anticipated it.
Of course I called him on it; your prediction (not really a prediction, since my post pre-dated yours) does not prevent me from commenting on it. To quote Al Franken to Bill O'Reilly "Shut up Bill!! This is NOT your show!" Most of us have "suspected" that Bush was lying about Iraq, but couldn't prove it. Here is an example of him being proven to be a liar. You can spin it any way you want, but the tape speaks for itself.
As far as "solutions", nothing new there.
In an era of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush consistently slashed the Army Corps of Engineers’ funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain. This year, he asked for $3.9 million, $23 million less than the Corps requested. In the end, Bush reluctantly agreed to $5.7 million, delaying seven contracts, including one to enlarge the New Orleans levees. Former Republican congressman Michael Parker was forced out as the head of the Corps by Bush in 2002 when he dared to protest the lack of proper funding.
Similarly, the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which is supposed to improve drainage and pumping systems in the New Orleans area, recently asked for $62.5 million; the White House proposed $10.5 million. Former Louisiana Senator John Breaux, a pro-Bush Democrat, said, “All of us said, ‘Look, build it or you’re going to have all of Jefferson Parish under water.’ And they didn’t, and now all of Jefferson Parish is under water.”
There's nothing "magical" about preventing floods in New Orleans. Improving the levees, enlarging them, improving drainage and pumping. It's just that Bush and the Republican administration slashed their own Corps of Engineer's budget for doing so.
There's our "ideas". But we can't implement them as long as that lying, uncaring bastard controls the White House & indirectly the Congress.
In the future, if you're going to quote or mention me in your blog, have the common courtesy to at least comment on mine. The clicks aren't that important to me; all my Blogit earnings go to the Scooter Libby defense fund.
posted by
Professor_Peabody
on March 3, 2006 at 9:08 PM
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Thanks for reading, Blanche . . .
. . . but a breach is a breach, and a top is a top. No "is" about it. If you or anyone else wants to pursue it further, here's a link to a technical paper by the U. S. Geological Survey about the levee failures. http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2006/01/. Note the distinction it draws between topping and breach, as well as the cause and effect I cited.
Which takes us back to the point: Given the cause and effect between topping and breaches, breaches should have been anticipated.
And back even further: It is pointless to throw around discredited accusations of lying while doing nothing to prevent another recurrence of the flood.
posted by
WriterofLight
on March 3, 2006 at 8:59 PM
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Writeroflight, regarding the "breaching" v. "topping" of levees:
this is a distinction without a difference. I guess it depends on what you're definition of "is" is, to quote the Clinton-haters favorite phrase. I dont' hate Bush, but a lie is a lie is a lie, regardless of who tells one.
posted by
Blanche.
on March 3, 2006 at 7:57 PM
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