[imporesweemo]

As some in here have asserted, the Cheney "shoots friend in the face after drinking" story isn't that big. The following stuff brought up in this article is, however.

The real issues? We launched a war where intel was fixed around selling the war, not the other way around. Going to war was always a given. The intel was cherry picked to sell it. It was NOT just a mistake. It was a mistake byy design.

Kitrina was fumbled so incredibly bad. One thing that the commission found was that Bush and the adm. failed miserably in reacting to the storm. The failures were of a colossal nature.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0218-29.htm

Thank you Harry Whittington. Not only for surviving being shot, but also for apologizing to Vice President Cheney for causing him so much trouble.

Now those of us who find this administration an ongoing disgrace can continue to have fun with the best little quail hunt in Texas.

Then there's the undeniable schadenfreude, the naughty pleasure of seeing someone's thinly concealed bad habits blossom into fact right before your eyes. Just as Monica's blue dress became the emblem of Bill Clinton's long-rumored womanizing, your pellet-peppered face has become the emblem of Dick Cheney's trigger-happy and secretive lifestyle.

So it's not surprising that this quirky story kept the public's attention for almost a week. What is surprising is that all the truly important stories about your political pals' failures and misdeeds have stayed in the public's consciousness no longer than the flicker of a dying fluorescent bulb.

The litany is too long, but consider just a few of the most recent news items:

• Paul Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, confirmed that the intelligence on Iraq was, in fact, molded to make a case for war. "It has become clear that official intelligence . . . was misused publicly to justify decisions already made…and the intelligence community's own work was politicized."

• Former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby reportedly told a federal grand jury that his "superiors" authorized him to leak highly sensitive intelligence to journalists. Scooter's superior was Dick Cheney. You decide.

• House Republicans released a report on the response to Katrina, citing government failure at every level, including the executive branch. As if to illustrate the ineptitude, it was reported that 10,770 new trailers, ordered by FEMA and costing over $431 million, are sinking into a muddy field in Arkansas -- because FEMA forbids placing them in a flood plain. Sources say it's likely that the fully furnished trailers will eventually be towed to a landfill and destroyed.

• Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, testified that insurgency attacks in Iraq are on the rise. ''There are peaks and valleys,” he said, "but if you look at every peak, it's higher than the peak before.''

• American commanders in Iraq reported that Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for terrorists, what one commander called "Jihad University -- a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency."

• The UN Commission on Human Rights called for the closing of America's holding tank at Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are held without charges, and those on hunger strikes are strapped to chairs and force-fed through a tube down the nose.

Add to that the election victory of Hamas, Islamic extremists rioting over a cartoon and Iran burbling towards nuclear capability, and no wonder it was a real howler when the vice president shot you in the face.

Your friends in the Bush administration justify their unprecedented secrecy and snooping, their use of torture and imprisonment without charges, their reckless expenditures and managerial ineptitude, as well as the unforgivable loss of life in Iraq as a necessary part of the war on terror.

And while they can fairly say that fate handed them two staggering blows in the attacks of 9/11 and the fury of Katrina, they can only point to their own shallow ideology and arrogance for the failures of their response.

[Dstyeglm]

Katrina was a failure at every level. In the case of New Orleans, it was a faulire from Nagin all the way up to Bush.

Nobody got it right.

Matt

[soyclocky]

Katrina was a failure at every level. In the case of New Orleans, it was a faulire from Nagin all the way up to Bush.

Nobody got it right.

Matt

Nobody got it right, but they CONTINUE to not get it right. Those trailers sitting there in a field in Ark is so fucked up. They are helping no one, and yet there they just sit.

Bottom line: This adm is so uninterested in the welfare of the poor. They really just don't care.

One of Bush's college classmates said Bush, even back then, said, "The poor are only poor because they don't try and are just lazy." Although I would have agreed with that statement at one time in my life, I have since matured and realized such an attitude is not 100% accurate and lack compassion.

Every indication I see from this adm. shows me they still believe the way Bush's classmate said he believed while attending Yale.

[Sopsneork]

Beanie,

Thanks for keeping your fonts small. It adds credibility to your message.

I agree with Matt that the ball was dropped by every level of government when the disaster hit.

The question should be "who hasn't picked it up yet?"

I know that the Governor of Louisiana has been trying to get money approved for housing and reconstruction costs, so she is trying to do something, but last I heard it was voted down.

All I hear about FEMA is that there are thousands of trailers sitting in Hope, AK.

From what I understand too is that there is federal money earmarked for the victims but very little going where it is needed.

I think a lot of it depends on what the insurance companies will cover (or more likely not) before pouring money in.

[hotsaucemidl]

Katrina was a failure at every level. In the case of New Orleans, it was a faulire from Nagin all the way up to Bush.

Nobody got it right.

Matt

and they are STILL not getting it right. What bothers me the most, is that they don't seem to have learned anything. they are STill running around like heads with their chickens cut off, Or vise-versas

[cjOTw7ov]

Bottom line: This adm is so uninterested in the welfare of the poor. They really just don't care.

One of Bush's college classmates said Bush, even back then, said, "The poor are only poor because they don't try and are just lazy."

They [the poor] also spend money foolishly. Look at some of the items purchased with the $2,000 debit cards -- alcoholic beverages, adult erotica, condoms, pistols, etc.