Month: September 2005
-
Tom DeLay is one classy guy
Here’s Tom DeLay’s classy response to Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to appoint Democrats to a Republican-dominated Katrina commission: When aides to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) attacked Pelosi’s response to the investigative commission, they illustrated it with an e-mailed photo of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury intersection, associated with the hippies of the 1960s. Because nothing says
-
Illogic in action
From MoJo Blog via Atrios, yet another example of the administration’s MO of taking a crisis and claiming that it necessitates some pre-existing policy agenda (tax cuts, ANWR, Iraq, etc.): It’s an old business myth that the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” It doesn’t. But I’m not sure anyone’s
-
More administration payola
Katrina has buried the latest news on the payola front — more third parties have been caught promoting Bush administration policies without disclosing that they’re receiving taxpayer dollars for doing so: In 2003 and 2004, Garcini’s nonprofit group, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Education Options (CREO), received two unsolicited grants, totaling $900,000, from the
-
John Kerry is right
I’m not a big fan of John Kerry, but this prediction (from an email to supporters) is dead-on: How long will it be before [Republicans] start telling us that tax cuts for the wealthy can provide just the stimulus we need to get the Gulf Coast economy moving again? I’d say a week, maybe less.
-
Fire Brown movement grows
Even top Republicans agree — Michael Brown must go: Senior House Republican officials said that, behind the scenes, some lawmakers were pressing the Bush administration to dismiss Michael D. Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “He’s been compromised,” said one top Republican lawmaker who works closely with the White House and did
-
With us or against us demagoguery
Here’s yet another illustration of the ugly binary logic of the Bush administration, which deals almost exclusively in false dichotomies — with us or against us, stay the course or cut and run, etc. As I described below, approximately 1,000 firefighters from around the country are being used as community relations specialists and PR props
-
“What didn’t go right?”
Via Andrew Sullivan, here’s Nancy Pelosi claiming that President Bush is even more clueless and out-of-touch than we thought: At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush’s choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had “absolutely no credentials.” She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire
-
“Problem solvers”
The latest excuse for not firing failed horse association executive and FEMA director Michael Brown: Mr. Bush also resisted renewed calls to fire Michael D. Brown, the director of FEMA, who became a lightning rod for attacks last week when he said he was unaware of a crisis at the New Orleans convention center, news
-
The political fallout from Katrina
What will the political effects of Katrina be? Fred Barnes, always eager to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, touts an ABC News poll supposedly showing Bush won’t be hurt much by Katrina in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today: Americans break along normal partisan lines in judging Mr. Bush’s performance in coping
-
The Bush White House: PR first, last, always
This Josh Marshall post is so disturbing and indicative of a larger problem that I want to reproduce it in full: On the Al Franken show this afternoon I mentioned this article from today’s Salt Lake Tribune which tells the story of about a thousand firefighters from around the country who volunteered to serve in