Pondering, as I wait for sleep to come, the comments of Michael Moore and former DNC Chair and leading Obama supporter Don Fowler suggesting that Hurricane Gustav is divine punishment of the GOP either for daring to exist or for spawning George Bush (or both), I find myself moderately peeved and contemplating fond hopes that such public insensitivity and heartlessness can be used to beat the DNC and its' assorted candidates about the head and shoulders at great length.
A thought. Cancel the GOP Convention in Minneapolis and phone it in. Seriously. The national conventions in recent years have been nothing but political showpieces, tightly managed media spectacles coronating known quantities. There no longer exists, with modern communication, any reason to gather twenty or thirty thousand people in one physical location to choose an already-chosen Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate to represent a given party.
So...in the face of Gustav, and stereotypical DNC "dancing in the blood" glee - just what does a GOP candidate get out of throwing a convention beyond providing a venue for protesters against his/her cause? Seriously, I'm not seeing a vast benefit here.....
Conversely, were McCain and Palin on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning to announce that the GOP Convention would be "virtual" (i.e., let's phone it in) and that they were requesting that the GOP re-direct all funds previously dedicated to the convention to helping victims of Gustav and taking preventative measures against future such weather-based victimizations, and ask that those previously planning on attending in whatever role do the same (and that various contractors/vendors "do the right thing")...wouldn't that rather just torpedo the whole "GOP are meanies that don't care about folks" meme while at the same time giving the GOP a *huge* PR boost?
I'm just saying...expensive & self-injuring party fling vs. huge campaign boost...
Just thinking, is all....
It's funny how for all the GOP's compassion for victims of the severe weather events that have been expected for decades by scientists to occur with growing frequency due to global warming, all they've given us for decades is added hot air.
ReplyDeleteGuess the key to compassionate conservatism is deep feeling more than actually doing stuff.
Paul -
ReplyDeleteWhere's the compassion of dancing about celebrating a major hurricane about to make landfall in the hopes that it will do injury unto ones political opponents?
And frankly, global warming increasingly to be a myth propped up by bad science inspired by folks seeking to guilt and frighten their way into new and unusual levels of power.
The problem with New Orleans isn't about climate change - New Orleans has always been wet, and has always flooded. The problem is local and state government with corruption issues that are the stuff of legend which result in ill-designed and ill constructed levies, a huge number of folks living in a "bowl" below sea level in the worlds biggest hurricane zone, and nepotism/corruption triumphing over engineering and logic.
At that point, all you can do is arrange rescue missions of varying efficacy, and still folks *will* die. Situation sucks, but as with an alcoholic, you can't really help them until they are willing to be helped.
Post-Katrina 12 billion in preventative aid (build new levee's, flood gates, etc) was budgeted by the Feds; less than 4 billion have been spent, with the rest tied up in environmental reviews, legal challenges, and fraud investigations. Even were those obstructions to magically go away tomorrow, enginners project completion of these measures in 2010 at the earliest, 2012 as a more reasonable estimate.
You can't build a dam, a levee, a bridge, or anything else really sizeable in a day. Cement cures as fast as it wants to, you can only put up steel frame safely so quickly, and then there's the regulatory reviews....