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DurbsBRONZE Member
Classically British
5,689 posts
Location: Epsom, Surrey, England


Posted:
Didn't want to add to the other Katrina thread as this is a bit of an extended side issue...

We're seeing a LOT of criticism of the Bush administration at the moment. His popularity rating in the US is at an all time low (something around 33%) and I have yet to see anything he's said or done which can alleviate this.

Katrina has raised so many issues for him - the national/home guard being depleted due to Iraq, him going on a fundraiser 2 days after Katrina (He visited N.O 5 days after...), lack of funds available for relief, slowness of response (in many peoples eyes due to the ethnography of the city), diverting funds away from disaster relief/prevention for 4 consecutive years etc etc.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking - but could his (and his govenerments) shocking treatment of this disaster be enough to un-seat him?

Some abstract thoughts: -
~ It's always seemed Bush is popular with the strict Christian population. By all means, in their eyes this is an act of God - directly in response to his war?
~ Post 9/11 it was deemed un-patriotic to criticise the Government over it's handling of that disaster (leading up to and aftermath), yet this one has been pretty much no-holes-barred against him - surely a sign of his ever decreasing popularity? In such a media driven country, if all the news channels are saying the same thing, this can't do anything but scupper his supporters even more.

Maybe it won't be an immediate thing - but I really wouldn't be at all surprised if his 4-year terms is cut dramatically short.

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude


PeleBRONZE Member
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA


Posted:
Written by: MurfdaSmurf


...will Katrina sink Bush. Well I heard lots of blame being thrown around at first but now people seem to be putting that aside for the moment and are just trying to help solve the problems that are going on. Will the blame game return??? You bet. Will Bush get the brunt of it? I doubt it. He has time to find people to take the blame from him. Not to mention, he may not be really be to blame. I don't like him but I am able to say that it may not be his fault. There are a lot of other people to look at and possably take down.

So my answer as always to this thread is I doubt Bush will sink.

I do want to put one other thing in here. In my short time here at HoP I have noticed a lot of threads being taken over by tangents and others beside the person who posted the thread. I am wondering if it is normal for HoP? Oh well.




Huh, interesting that people want to "start with me" concidering I am not posting opinions but stuff from documents and whitehouse.gov, and the senate website, and politics101 site, etc. Huh.

Anyway, yes, tangents are part and parcel to the HoP lifestyle. We try to rope them back in but it does not always work.

Did you, by any chance, read GW's response to when Senate and Congress said they wanted to form a committee to look into who is to blame for the response time?
(paraphrasing) "Right now is the time to focus on rescuing survivors, not to play the blame game. But when the time comes I will personally head the investigation into what went wrong."

Isn't that special? He will evade all blame by spear-heading the investigation and garuntee someone else is to blame.
I agree, I do not think he is alone in this. However, the decisions he and his friends have come to over the past 5 years I think are to blame, especially those regarding FEMA, but I think that statement clinches that he is not going down at all.
Someone will, I agree with Murf on that, but not Bush.

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK


dreamSILVER Member
currently mending
493 posts
Location: Bristol, New Zealand


Posted:
Sorry... the quote (not the memorandum but the commentary) refers to Perot and the 96 election... the way I used it could be seen to infer that it also relates to the 92 debate... sorry.

Perot was in the 92 presidential debate after both major parties agreed to his inclusion (both felt Perot would take more votes from the other). Dole campaigned hard not to let him take part in the 96 debates (probably feeling that Perot with 19% of the vote in 92 had taken more votes from Bush than Clinton), the democrats went along with this as it meant that they could dictate most of the other conditions for the debates. This was seen as a major factor in Perot's vote declining from 19% to 9%.

In 2000 the Comission For Presidential Debates (which was set up following the 1985 memorandum, and is co-chaired by one republican and one democrat) published guidelines which state that no candidate who is polling less than 15% before the debates will participate in them. This would have barred Perot in 92, whose popularity rose after the three person debate.

Nader was the leading independent in the 04 election with 406,907 votes, out of just under 120 million... less half of one percent.

'Nader and Buchannan were there'

The CPD keeps transcripts for all the presidential debates from 1988 onwards on their website. Nader and Buchannan don't feature in them anywhere. If you've got other sources which indicate that they were involved please share them, they'd be really useful to me. Evidence that the CPD has erased independent's comments in their archives would make for quite an interesting paper.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Nietzsche


MurfdaSmurfmember
59 posts
Location: Eugene, Oregon


Posted:
Yeh Pele he won't be the one to go down. Last night on the radio (ABC news) I heard them start up again with Dem's blaming the Pres and a Rep starting to build a bypartisan committee (gotta double up) to investigate who was to blame. Over and over they kept say who is to blame. The sad part for me is why could it not be just an accedent or a screw up or a deliberate way to kill poor blacks in the south? Oh that last one wouldn't be good to admit would it? It may be true though. I would hate to find out that it was. That is all we need, more tentions btween ethnic groups. I don't know what cuased the lack of assistance but the sad thing is that it is still a problem there. The Govener still will not force people to leave. The water is so toxic that they say not to even touch it!!! Morticians said not to be surpised if the death toll exceeds 40,000 people!!! What the *&#@!(&%^$@!@#$%&I^%&^&$@#@$%^&**^*@!#$!*(*$^%^^@. OK I feel a little better now. Why did this happen? That is going to be a big question, but Bush is safe from it even if people do blame him. He won't get to much put on him. As I stated early on I hope though this brings the troops home. I know we can't just pull them out. But I hope it starts untill they are all home again. I had friends go over and I have meet others who have come back. I wouldn't wish for anyone to have to be over there like that.

I thought I waz just dreammin'?!!??!!??!! Dis place can't really be real.


PeleBRONZE Member
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA


Posted:
Written by: MurfdaSmurf


Yeh Pele he won't be the one to go down. Last night on the radio (ABC news) I heard them start up again with Dem's blaming the Pres and a Rep starting to build a bypartisan committee (gotta double up) to investigate who was to blame. Over and over they kept say who is to blame. The sad part for me is why could it not be just an accedent or a screw up or a deliberate way to kill poor blacks in the south? Oh that last one wouldn't be good to admit would it? It may be true though. I would hate to find out that it was. That is all we need, more tentions btween ethnic groups. I don't know what cuased the lack of assistance but the sad thing is that it is still a problem there. The Govener still will not force people to leave. The water is so toxic that they say not to even touch it!!! Morticians said not to be surpised if the death toll exceeds 40,000 people!!! What the *&#@!(&%^$@!@#$%&I^%&^&$@#@$%^&**^*@!#$!*(*$^%^^@. OK I feel a little better now. Why did this happen? That is going to be a big question, but Bush is safe from it even if people do blame him. He won't get to much put on him. As I stated early on I hope though this brings the troops home. I know we can't just pull them out. But I hope it starts untill they are all home again. I had friends go over and I have meet others who have come back. I wouldn't wish for anyone to have to be over there like that.





I just read about one of the police officials in Mississippi (which, btw, is even more wiped out that NO. There are several parrishes there which simply no longer exsist at all). Did you know the water there is so toxic that the spray from riding in the rescue boat causes chemical burns on any exposed flesh? That is crazy to think about. They have no way to clean out the homes (not enough man-power and they don't want more volunteers because of the toxicity) so they are marking homes with a green "O" for clear and a red "X" for dead inside. Crazy.

I hope it will bring them home. I know several who have gone to Iraq, one who was shot and brought home because of it. It's all messed up but I don't think coming home to this, especially those from that area, is going to help them much. Two officers in NOLA killed themselves, one after finding his family in his destroyed house.

I think accountability starts at an individual level. Mother Nature comes into play. The gov't can only bare a minimal cross in this. I think people forget that. This wasn't a breech of homeland security (which how it is being treated).

OMG!!! That black statement is something. *picturing Bush with a tall white hood and realizing it doesn't seem so far fetched* Scary!!! Anne Rice released a comment to the same effect two days ago, whilst playing the blame game in the media. She essentially said "You want our Jazz Festival, you want our Mardi Gras but you do not want our poor and helpless so you leave them to die in tainted waters or at the mercy of looters." It was a strong statement and would have been more powerful if she hadn't moved to San Diego years ago. *shrug*

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK


PrometheusDiamond In The Rough
459 posts
Location: Richmond, Virginia


Posted:
In the spirit of Bush being blamed for human suffering, I stumbled across this tidbit. Enjoy. I know I didn't...

https://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/man_of_the_peop.html

Dance like it hurts; Love like you need money; Work like someone is watching.

Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you DO criticize them, you are a mile away, and you have their shoes.


MurfdaSmurfmember
59 posts
Location: Eugene, Oregon


Posted:
that link was interesting...

I thought I waz just dreammin'?!!??!!??!! Dis place can't really be real.


LazyAngelGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
2,895 posts
Location: Cambridge UK


Posted:
I know this is trivializing but....


Non-Https Image Link

Because ActiveAngel sounds like a feminine deodorant

Like sex, I'm much more interesting in real life than online.

'Be the change you want to see in the world around you' - Ghandi


KyrianDreamer
4,308 posts
Location: York, England


Posted:
Right, only two quick comments, as there's sooo much new stuff here.

Pele, third party canidates have been allowed in the past. In the last election they were not, and I belive in 2000 also Nader was not. Now, there are rules governing what you have to do to be featured in the debates, which we can agree or disagree with, but what I do disagree with is Nader having been banned from entering (2000), and the libertarian party canidate getting arrested for entering from the campaign site, but you can google for many more instances of the story
also david cobb, the 2004 green party presidentail canidate.

As to whomever asked about the legal possibilities of bush getting impeached, if anyone was interested I think it would be a done deal from a logical standpoint (lying to send us to war is plenty, a la downing street memo.) Katirna needn't be in question, altho not responding quickly to a national crisis may not be as cut and dried legally, i havn't the faintest....
But no-one is interested and bush is allowed to colour things his own way, so...

Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive

Shalom VeAhavah

New Hampshire has a point....


SethisBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,762 posts
Location: York University, United Kingdom


Posted:
Oooh, remembered this thread when I saw this:

Written by: The Sunday Times



Fully 86% of [Britons] said Bush's handling of the crisis was "Bad" or "Very bad", while 70% said he was a "Generally incompetent" President.

...

63% think that the response to the Hurricane would have been speedier and more effective if most victims had been white and middle class. 67% think that racial divisions in America are as bad as ever.

...

The findings do not appear to have been driven by hostility to America over Iraq. Less than half (48%) thought the failings in Louisiana and Mississippi were because money and man power had been diverted to Iraq.

...

The poll (by YouGov the online pollsters) uncovers deep hostility to Bush. 57% agree, and 23% disagree that he is "one of the worst presidents America has ever had". By 66% to 18% they think that he is "generally untrustworthy" and by 68% to 21% that he is "not really interested about the fate of ordinary people".

...

Americans believe by two to one that the government should have been better prepared. One in three say that it would have responded faster had the victims not been mostly black or poor. The mounting criticism has prompted supporters of Bush -whose popularity fell to a record low of 39% in another poll yesterday- to try to shift the blame to Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans.






Agree with the points of view or not, the British are losing all faith in Bush. Maybe our Prime Minister will stop brown-nosing someday soon. Maybe pigs will fly.

After much consideration, I find that the view is worth the asphyxiation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.


MurfdaSmurfmember
59 posts
Location: Eugene, Oregon


Posted:
One of the sad parts of this whole thing is I have been hearing a lot of people complaining that the Mayor of New Orleans didn't do enough. That man has tried to do stuff and has been blocked from above over and over. If any one heard his rant on the radio you would know that he was one of the few who really did respond well and timely. He was pissed and couldn't stop swearing on the radio broadcast it was crazy. He had a lot of good points and you could hear his pain at not being able to do more for the people suffering from the loss. I really hope they don't try to push blame on him. I don't know him ouside of this event, but he is the only one in Government dirrectly related to the tragidy that seems to have reacted with true compasion.

I thought I waz just dreammin'?!!??!!??!! Dis place can't really be real.


MurfdaSmurfmember
59 posts
Location: Eugene, Oregon


Posted:
here is a link to see the transcripts of that broadcast

https://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/

I thought I waz just dreammin'?!!??!!??!! Dis place can't really be real.


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