GOP to New Orleans: Liberals Did It

One of the more deeply twisted--and, one would have hoped, now thoroughly discredited--right-wing storylines of the Bush era is currently enjoying a comeback: all that chaos and suffering after Hurricane Katrina, all those people stranded on rooftops, left to die in jail cells and swelter in the Superdome, that was big government's fault! Writes the Washington Legal Foundation's Daniel J. Popeo in the Washington Examiner, "From the Hurricane Katrina response, to ongoing dysfunction in providing adequate medical care to veterans, to keeping out illegal aliens, the federal government has done little to inspire public confidence."

The Katrina disaster, in this telling, had nothing to do with Bush's decision to gut FEMA and hand the reins to the incompetent former International Arabian Horse official Michael Brown; instead the problem was that the citizens of New Orleans were foolish enough to expect the federal department of emergency management, to, well, manage an emergency.

Notoriously, Bill O'Reilly made just this point while the city was still under water: "If you rely on government for anything, anything, you're going to be disappointed," he said, noting, moreover, that the lesson of Katrina that should be taught in school is, "If you don't get educated, if you don't develop a skill, and force yourself to work hard, you're most likely be poor. And sooner or later, you'll be standing on a symbolic rooftop waiting for help."

Since the desperate plight of post-Katrina New Orleans was the doing of big-government liberals, it naturally follows that, under Obama, we have more Katrinas in store. This breathtaking logic is on vivid display in a creepy email blast distributed by Townhall.com from Independent Living publisher Lee Bellinger (cited in Tapped): "Think about the widespread collapse of order and emergency services in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina--except on a national level. The implementation of gun-confiscation laws, looters and thugs terrorizing the elderly with impunity, besieged hospitals without power, doctors and medicine. People forcibly herded into ‘containment zones' and denied access to food, water, and medical attention." Think about it, indeed.

(Recall that, before this, the last person to try to use Katrina's legacy as a Republican talking point was Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal in his response to Obama's state of the union address, in which he praised Sheriff Harry Lee for defying government bureaucrats who were allegedly preventing volunteers with boats from rescuing people on rooftops. The story turned out to be, at best, colorfully embellished.)

Conservatives are reaching desperately here into a tattered bag of tricks, claiming that the very government services that they have systematically starved are ineffective and thus unworthy of funding. At a moment when economically anxious Americans are looking favorably on government, this tack seems likely to be self-marginalizing. On the paranoid, shrinking Republican base, though, it's sure to be a hit.

Comments (26)

1. vote in a pack of wrongheaded satano-aynrando ideologues to run the gubbamint who want to drown the gubbamint baby in the bathtub...

   and watch gubbamint suck!!!!

   brilliant!!!

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/16/2009 @ 5:41pm

2. I was a recipient of FEMA (under Clinton) assistance after the 1994 Northridge earthquake out here in La La Land. If there's one thing that Clinton got right (and he got a lot right IMHO), it was FEMA. I was not one of the people whose life was totally destroyed, but I respected what FEMA did for me in those days after the disaster. It's one of the most vulnerable things you'll ever feel, and the FEMA under Clinton got it right.

   It was horrible to see what happened to my favorite American City (New Orleans) after Katrina. And while I do think government failed (on many levels), on the Federal level, it was a failure of historic proportions, due in most part, to historic racism. I have a feeling that the Obama administration understands this.

   It's nice having a smart man be President again.

   Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/16/2009 @ 6:16pm

3. Compare the results of Katrina to those of Andrews in Florida 15 years ago. It wasn't the actions of FEMA. It was fundamental preparations done by the local governments. Florida was much better prepared to deal with disaster until FEMA came in a few days later. However, Louisiana and New Orleans simply did not have workable planning from the get-go. The local cultures had a lot to do with the ability to plan. Now I have been to the French Quarter two or three times. It's a great place - depraved, gross but fun and controlled. But in every way, Louisiana and New Orleans is, if anything, "Casual". Combine that with a CAT 5 hurricane and you have massive destruction in any location. It is what the local and state governments can do in the first few days after the storm is gone that counts.

   Posted by pyeatte at 04/16/2009 @ 6:24pm

4. People aren't rescued from hurricanes by their culture, "pyeatte." Neither the party culture of New Orleans nor the stoic culture of Lake Wobegon saves anybody from anything. When you're under a hurricane, you need buses, trucks, fresh water, food, a few helicopters, and quite a lot of first aid. There's nothing about New Orleans that opposes or resists these things. Neither casualness nor formality saves you from becoming a casualty in the face of a natural disaster.

   I'll refrain from the accusation that "pyeatte" uses the word "culture" as code for "race." Although this interpretation may hit the nail right on the head, it cannot be proven. And that's exactly what the code is for.

   The only "cultural" barriers that I see in connection with the Katrina disaster are:

   (1) The inability of the white majority to feel concern about the hardships of a mostly black metropolis; and

   (2) the inability of US-Americans of any color to take scientists seriously when they point out problems whose solutions promise to be expensive, such as: "Your levees are too low and need to be built higher."

   The magazine SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN made very clear what the consequences of a Katrina-sized hurricane would be, several years before the disaster struck. Not enough people of any skin color, either inside or outside of Louisiana, cared to heed their warning.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 04/16/2009 @ 6:50pm

5. well...not to disparage, but the big easy HAS had a pretty rotten rep and history of corruption and likely WAS less prepared...

   but thats a guess.

   it would be rather silly, i think, to assume the fed response was "up to par" though...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/16/2009 @ 6:54pm

6. Noooooooooooooo, of course that's it.

   I mean, it HAD to be the local Louisiana Dems' fault.

   I mean, can you imagine a more qualified person for FEMA Director than...

   a horse lawyer????

   Posted by Mask at 04/16/2009 @ 7:05pm

7. Posted by Mask at 04/16/2009 @ 7:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person

   man...if i thought the repugnants had a chance sometime before 2020 to return i'd be tempted to join up.

   bet i could tie down a cabinet post...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/16/2009 @ 7:11pm

8. The people of Louisiana know the truth...thats why they now have a Rebublican in the state house...nuff said.

   Posted by mike63 at 04/16/2009 @ 8:22pm

9. Posted by mike63 at 04/16/2009 @ 8:22pm

   So what's your explanation for Darin the Troll's home state of North Carolina, mike?

   Bev Perdue easily beats GOP Gov candidate.....Hagen beats Liddy Dole....state goes for its first Dem President in years.

   That's Jesse Helms country.

   Posted by Mask at 04/16/2009 @ 9:14pm

10. The people of Louisiana know the truth...thats why they now have a Rebublican in the state house...nuff said.

    Posted by mike63 at 04/16/2009 @ 8:22pm

    So then what's your explanation for the White House if the people always choose the right person because they "know the truth."

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/16/2009 @ 9:58pm

11. Posted by JakobFabian at 04/16/2009 @ 6:50pm: "Neither casualness nor formality saves you from becoming a casualty in the face of a natural disaster."

    I beg to differ - formality breeds purpose and determination. Think what you like but culture matters. Preparation is for the first responders at the state and local level, not the feds. Flordia was just better at it than Louisana. Protecting New Orleans from the flooding disaster would have required a CAT5 leevy system which the Army Corps of Engineers had proposed for decades. No administration or congress wanted to spend the money. It would take 20-25 years and several billion dollars of construction to upgrade, so work would have had to start during the Carter administration to be ready for Katrina. BTY, the leevy system there is a work in progress staring with the French, who built the first in the 1700s.

    Posted by pyeatte at 04/16/2009 @ 11:11pm

12. As usual the reactionary response is so ludicrous, as to be seen as little more than a need for attention.

    After reading something regarding Rove, a memo me thinks ... and other various and sundry (regarding real estate) datums, I came to the conclusion that it was ethnic cleansing.

    Everything the GOP does is to keep the hardcore 15-28%'ers on point, with new, no matter how idiotic... read meat.

    They are hardly unaware, technology and their access to it being what it is... that such stupidity is palatable to "independents."

    Nurture sans caring. To what end?

    Posted by V at 04/16/2009 @ 11:34pm

13. Funny, after Katrina the Demoncrat Gov. Blanco was THROWN OUT of office and a REPUBLICAN Bobby Jindal was elected. Louisian has spoken on the subject!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/17/2009 @ 05:24am

14. Ibble is on target.

    The repubs put incompetent people in charge and gutted programs, now act SHOCKED that those programs did not function properly and attempt to use that to show the ineffectiveness of government. Let's be honest, it is the ineffectiveness of republican government .

    This is echoed in the recent teabagging protests (pretty sparsely attended BTW) in which people who wanted industry exec's put in charge of govt agencies are now protesting the policies and results brought about by having industry guard industry.

    They are reaping what they have sowed, and in typical fashion seek to blame others.

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/17/2009 @ 06:31am

15. Funny, after Katrina the Demoncrat Gov. Blanco was THROWN OUT of office and a REPUBLICAN Bobby Jindal was elected. Louisian has spoken on the subject!--------Posted by comancheamerican at 04/17/2009 @ 05:24am

    True...and Repubs were thrown out of Congress in that same election and a continuation of Bush's policies was rejected in the last election.

    America has spoken on the subject!

    heheh

    Posted by Mask at 04/17/2009 @ 07:59am

16. It's nice having a smart man be President again.

    Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/16/2009 @ 6:16pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Welcome back Carter!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/17/2009 @ 08:01am

17. True...and Repubs were thrown out of Congress in that same election and a continuation of Bush's policies was rejected in the last election.

    America has spoken on the subject!

    heheh

    Posted by Mask at 04/17/2009 @ 07:59am | ignore this person | warn this person

    OR, Living proof that the failed U.S.A. public education full of unionized "protected" tenured teaching failures is turning out a larger than usual crop of uneducated liberal biased secular humanistic brainwashed idiot sheep than ever produced! (kinda like the guy behind the mask)

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/17/2009 @ 08:14am

18. We all know it was the local and state government that failed miserably. Now I've been to New Orleans many many times. I would go on the tours and the tour guide would show the pumps (this is before Katrina) and the levees and tell us how they wouldn't stand up to a major hurricane. Then he would tell us how the improvements were voted down time and time again because people thought they were too expensive and not really necessary. Now this goes back to 1985. So to lay the blame on Bush is really disingenuous.

    Posted by abell12ct at 04/17/2009 @ 08:51am

19. Posted by comancheamerican at 04/17/2009 @ 08:14am

    Hmmmmm....so when you win it's "the people have spoken"...

    when you lose it's "the people are dumb!"

    Sounds familiar, RIO.

    Posted by Mask at 04/17/2009 @ 09:00am

20. Posted by abell12ct at 04/17/2009 @ 08:51am

    Agreed that the LA and NO governments did not do what they should have. My question is, shouldn't the feds step in to save it's citizens when localities fail? You demanded that the feds step in to save New York from more terrorists, why not NO from a forseeable occurence?

    We also have to keep in mind that almost the entire state wide communication system failed in a couple of hours. That inhibited efforts.

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/17/2009 @ 09:47am

21. One common thing keeps happening time and time again. The rethugs talk the big talk of being responsible for their actions and personal responsibility and all that, but in fact, haven't accepted any responsibility for anything they were involved in.

    A good example is the people posting here. Typically, the rethugs posting here will defend any GOP member to the nth degree no matter what the outcome.

    Now, in comparison, many of us who actually voted for Obama, have been complaining about his appointments, some of his positions etc. In short, we are not all in lock step like a bunch of trained monkeys regurgitating what the party we voted for tells us to think.

    I guess that's the difference between the parties. At least some of the progressives in the dem party can think for themselves. The same can not be said of our counterparts....they would like to burn college books because evolution is taught there.....that idiotic woman in the youtube video probably overheard some student talking about an axis turning at so many revolutions per second and figured that the axis of evil was fighting for the evolutionists 4000 times per second. LOL

    Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/17/2009 @ 10:54am

22. Wolfgang1,

    This is where the real depression kicks in for some visiting this website.

    I guess you have proven your point. Some of you on the left are independent thinkers and yet those of us on the right are all in lockstep.

    How can one argue with that? You can't.

    It is what it is.

    The only problem I get hung up on, and I need to stop getting hung up on it is, that does not seem to be the reality.

    Any number of Conservatives were not at all happy with a lot of the actions during the Bush administration, and were not bashful in saying so.

    The Harriet Miers nomination was withdrawn because of Conservative pressure.

    I read a book recently by Joe Scarbourough.. he had been a Congressperson who came in about the time of the Contract with America.

    His book was all about wasteful government spending.

    Three quarters of his book was critical of his fellow Republicans and Conservatives....expressing disappoint and anger at actions by them that promote government spending.

    He was saying that after a few years of the Contract with America, it all came undone and Republicans went back to being the big spenders they had been before the contract.

    I was not intentionally being sarcastic in my first few paragraphs. I am frustrated by your comments, and they were out of frustration. The reality is that a lot of Conservatives are not in "lockstep"

    If on this site that appears to be the case, it is because this site is a liberal web site, where if a Conservative is posting it is to take issue with something the author of the original thread said (a liberal columnist) or then the liberal bloggers, so the back and forth is more oriented towards that.

    Posted by sjchermak at 04/17/2009 @ 2:44pm

23. When you put people who hate government in charge of the government, you get bad government. Of course, the Republicans never mean "regular people" when they say, "Get the government out of your life."

    They have no problem with surveillance, warrentless searches, drug tests in schools and workplaces, and other indignities. No - what they mean is "get the government out of the business community, get rid of regulation, and lower business taxes." In other words, make the government small enough to fit into your bedroom.

    Consistency is not the regressive's strongest quality. One might say their strongest characteristic is the incredible ability to ignore their own hypocrisy. It doesn't matter what their "leaders" and pundits do or say; they simply go along and ignore discrepancies and contradictions. I think that's what is meant by "dittohead."

    Posted by LeeAnnG at 04/17/2009 @ 3:01pm

24. Posted by Mask at 04/17/2009 @ 07:59am: And I suspect the people will speak yet again in 2010.

    Posted by pyeatte at 04/17/2009 @ 3:57pm

25. "Any number of Conservatives were not at all happy with a lot of the actions during the Bush administration, and were not bashful in saying so. "

    Some, like Bruce Fein, were called America Haters by some, like Scarborough.

    some, like Gen Hoar, were called liberals, by some, like Rush Limbaugh.

    Some, like Colin Powell and Sec O'Neil, were driven out of the Bush white house.

    the actual number of "real" conservatives speaking out in opposition to Bush policies were very small and very quiet. To say otherwise is to engage in revisionist history

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/17/2009 @ 4:36pm

26. " Let's be honest,"

    Always, even to a seeming fault.

    "it is the ineffectiveness of republican government ."

    If you were a Real Estate Developer you would consider them savants.

    "They are reaping what they have sowed,"

    That's the trick isn't it, keeping it from being a shared event.

    "and in typical fashion seek to blame others."

    They will never admit that, too easy to lash out at others, feed their dysfunction and sleep.

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/17/2009 @ 06:31am

    Posted by V at 04/17/2009 @ 8:15pm