GOP Excoriates Bush on Katrina...

deadlline poet

By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the March 6, 2006 edition of The Nation.

February 16, 2006

Though Bushmen had claimed that word never reached
The White House that levees had finally been breached,
The White House was told, all the evidence shows.
Yes, this report shows that it's doubtless that those
In charge of tornadoes and floods and nor'easters
Had all been informed and then sat on their keisters.
And Chertoff was sluggish and clueless and worse.
It's in the report, all in chapter and verse:
His failure to get what the crisis demanded,
Like buses and boats, meant that thousands were stranded.
While Bush, at the ranch, kept on cutting out brush,
His gaggle of clowns seemed to be in no rush.
So Brownie is hardly unique in this mob.
No, others as well did a heckuva job.
It's easy to blame one incompetent slob,
But others as well did a heckuva job.

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About Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...
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