She actually said that!

Have all of you heard what Barbara Bush said about the unfortunate people who are/were trapped at the Super Dome and the Convention Center? She said, (I'm paraphrasing here, but this is pretty much it) "Most of them were underpriviledged anyway, so this is working out rather well for them." Excuse me?? EXCUSE ME???? No. I'm sorry, but no. That kind of response from a former first lady, or really from anyone is completely unacceptable. COMPLETELY. I saw a political cartoon today depicting her as Marie Antoinette (of "Let them eat cake" infamy). Now, I'm not saying we should chop off Barbara Bush's head, but that comment shouldn't go unchecked.

This just brings up the bigger issue of the government's response to this whole catastrophe. Number one, we have a completely incompetent guy in charge of FEMA who is being used as Washington's whipping boy so they can avoid playing the "Blame Game." Now, I'm not condoning Michael Brown's actions (or lack thereof) regarding Katrina at all, BUT there is no way that one man's mismanagement of a situation could have caused a disaster this huge. Number one, he didn't appoint himself to the position. Someone else appointed him, and someone must have known how underqualified he was for this job. And it's not like Brown didn't have a boss. He had someone that he had to ask permission from in order to get relief efforts dispatched to New Orleans. Why didn't his boss do something?

Number two, why on in the world did G.W. take so long in coming out of his FIVE WEEK vacation to address this issue?? And when he finally did leave his ranch, did he go straight to New Orleans? Of course not. He attended other photo-op events for a couple of days first. And then, his response?? "Man, I used to get WASTED in New Orleans, too bad its reduced to rubble. You're doing a heck of a job Brownie!" What?? People are starving and dying. Families are torn apart. And the best thing he can think of to say is, "Hey, I used to have fun here! Sucks that it's gone."

Now, I'm not going to get into the whole race card. Whether the lack of response is because New Orleans is mostly poor and black, or whether it was just a poorly managed relief effort, the issue is, something obviously went terribly wrong. There are problems that need to be fixed.

I saw a political cartoon just a little earlier that kind of brought up a good point. It depicted a billboard that read "Your Tax Cuts at Work" surrounded by the floodwaters in New Orleans. It kind of makes me wonder. People are so adverse to paying higher taxes to support programs that could possibly have worked to avoid a situation like this, but then AFTER a catastrophe happens, everyone doesn't think twice about ponying up to the Red Cross. Is it just because with taxes the government is requiring people to pay whereas donating to the Red Cross is voluntary? Is it because no one thinks highly of you for paying your taxes whereas if you donate to the Red Cross you look philanthropic? Is it because high taxes are associated with Socialism? Of course it's highly possible that the same people who don't want higher taxes are the people who look at a situation like New Orleans and say "Well, they were underpriviledged anyway, this is probably working out quite well for them"