Conservatives love to argue that we liberals "cannot decide" whether George W. Bush, Karl Rove (or Dick Cheney, etc) are omniscient geniuses or stupid idiots.
Here they go again, for example:
Once again, the American Left is at odds with itself over whether George W. Bush is the omniscient wizard or brainless Scarecrow. This time it didn't take a tornado or contentious election to send them spiraling skyward toward an alternate Land of Oz where every conspiracy theory, no matter how contradictory, comes to vivid Technicolor life. The excuse this time was a hurricane politicized a full day before it came ashore.
The answer is, of course, that conservatives have all the
power to be ignorant and stupid most of the time, and to apply dirty "smart" tricks when they need that. They have the power to get away with all of that. When you have such freedom, you can play fool when people need you, and you can
I wish to make a list of things where Bush gets away much easily than any other person in the world. But I do not have time really. Just to mention a few examples:
- In the build-up for the Iraq war, the Democratic opposition would have asked Bush many tough questions. Nothing was asked.
- Bush gets much approval when he dresses or behaves casually. His opponent Gore was ridiculed for that.
- Lies of "Swift Boat Veterans" were not questioned during the last election campaign. But genuine concerns about global warming are ignored.
- Diane Sawyers did not ask Bush to clarify the statement "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
You can write down more things, if you only wish.
One more observation. The article that I cited above fantasizes how John Kerry would look in the wake of Katrina. Not so much interesting there, since the writer misses one important starting point - proportions of the disaster and its consequences had to be completely different in a sane world. You don't have to fantasize much to a real president would have acted:
MARSHALL (7/11/96): As Hurricane Bertha churned toward the Southeast coast Wednesday, a massive exodus of tourist havens began.
Officials urged at least 1 million people to leave as Bertha took aim with 100-mph winds.
An estimated 500,000 people were ordered to evacuate six north Florida counties. About 50,000 were asked to get off Hatteras and Ocracoke islands on North Carolina's Outer Banks. And officials urged the evacuation of parts of two South Carolina counties with 380,000 residents...
Bertha's immediate effects:
- NASA moved the shuttle Atlantis off its Cape Canaveral launch pad to a hangar.
- Olympic officials in Georgia moved yachts inland.
- Navy officials ordered 54 ships out to sea to avoid being battered against the docks.
- President Clinton canceled appearances set for today in Orlando and Tampa.
Witt was upbeat about his agency's plans for the storm. "Everyone is ready and on alert," he said. "I think as far as our planning efforts, we're in good shape. We have a lot of resources available"
MCQUILLAN (9/20/99): President Clinton, who has picked up the moniker "comforter in chief," visits North Carolina today to meet with victims of Hurricane Floyd and confer with state and local officials to coordinate federal relief efforts.
Clinton will go to Raleigh and then take a helicopter to Tarboro, where torrential rains created massive flooding. "We are on the threshold of a crisis," Edgecombe County Manager Joe Durham said...
In fact, Clinton was unwilling to be away from Washington when the storm struck the East Coast last week. He called off plans to golf in Hawaii after a five-day trip to New Zealand and returned to the nation's capital.
Aides say Clinton's 12 years as governor of Arkansas made him particularly sensitive to the need for swift federal action to help communities cope with natural disasters, and to the political benefits derived from meeting the needs of victims.
And we don't start to speculate, how, if Kerry would have won last year, conservatives would have fantasized now about strong leadership Bush would have shown instead of Kerry.