So it appears (how shocking!!) that the White House
flat out lied. Blatantly. Again. This time it's the lie that:
Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.
Actually, according to the New York Times:
But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.
Yet a diary on this subject by deepsouthdoug has scrolled most of the way down the list with little attention. [Update]: blksista's later diary did make the list. But please read on, as this diary is about something much larger and even more important...
How sad is it we are so inundated with stories and scandals of all stripes coming from this administration, that a diary on a New York Times article detailing a lie of this magnitude and importance doesn't even make the Rec List?
How sad is it that we live in an America where our government is so corrupt that we can barely keep track of all the scandals? Where we have at least two or three brand new scandals emerging almost every day?
Look at today alone:
- Scooter Libby is apparently flipping on Dick Cheney--and the story is receiving scant media coverage.
- Bush apparently invited Jack "Who?" Abramoff out to his ranch, and met with him over a dozen times.
- Frist and Hastert include a law protecting pharma companies from vaccine lawsuits in a defense bill.
- MSNBC and the AP are caught with their pants down flat out lying about Reid and Abramoff, while failing to cover Libby and failing to adequately cover Bush's ties to Abramoff.
And now this Katrina bombshell, directly preceding Brownie's testimony coming tomorrow.
And that's just all in one day.
It's just one scandal after another after another--and we can't even keep track of all of them on our Recommended List in one freaking day!
I'm exhausted. I'm tired. And you know why?
Because I've always figured that if you just work hard enough to bring the dark and slimy underbelly of modern "conservative" thought into the light of day, that people would see the truth.
I've always figured that if you expose enough of their crimes, that the public would become fed up to the point that there would be calls to have these people's head on a plate.
But increasingly, it just looks to me like nobody cares--least of all these assholes in power.
Which isn't to say that things haven't been moving apace. They have been. It's moved from our uncovering one scandal a week, to our being unable to even keep up with three or more new scandals every single day.
Yet nothing changes.
My apolitical friends remain clueless and apolitical.
The media continues to carry water for Bush, even though it's clear by now to everyone with eyes that the emperor has no clothes.
The Democrats, while they are doing better, continue to be unable to get their message across to John Q. Public--partly because the media hamstrings them.
And the GOP, meanwhile, laughs all the way to the bank, as they realize that they can truly get away with anything.
The truth is that this Republican Party is simply pushing the envelope to see how much they can get away with. And the answer is looking like it's pretty much everything.
Indeed, it's starting to seem that so long as they can keep the issues obfuscated and make every scandal appear to be bipartisan or confused or complicated, and keep labeling their opponents as unAmerican cowards, that they can continue to get away with murder.
And that will remain true even if we take 12 House seats and three Senate seats away from them.
The fact that they've gotten away with this much shit for this long means that they know the gig is up: they can do essentially anything, and no one will hold the vast majority of them accountable, unless they live in purple districts.
----------------------------------------------------
This is why impeachment is absolutely critical. This is why calls for prosecution of congressional misdeeds is absolutely critical.
This is why libel lawsuits against the media who cooperate in feeding the American public absolute lies is so critical.
We CANNOT wait until the 2006 elections, folks. By then, The GOP will be scaring voters with the prospect of Ayatollah nukes, and over 300 scandals will have come and gone and blown over.
We must show these criminals--and the American public--that we will not stand for a three-scandal-a-day America. That we will take the People's House by storm if we have to.
Because I can't keep the outrage up any longer.
And because I work for a living, I can't spend four hours a day reading blogs to keep afresh of EVERY NEW FUCKING SCANDAL THAT THESE CRIMINALS PERPETRATE ON OUR COUNTRY EVERY GODDAMN DAY.
Prosecute. Impeach. Protest. Shut the Senate down. Obstruct. Do what you have to, Democrats.
Because if we wait for the elections, it will be too late to save the very concept of accountability, much less repair the damage done to our nation, our constitution, and our democracy.
It's time to make a stand. I'll stand. I'll go to jail. I'll do anything it takes at this point, because I feel like I'm under assault every day. And I'm ready for my leaders in Congress to do the same--even if it means shutting down the government. NO GOVERNMENT IS BETTER THAN THIS GOVERNMENT.
Because the only thing worse than a three-scandal-a-day America, is putting up with a three-scandal-a-day America.
Update [2006-2-10 0:52:33 by thereisnospoon]:: blksista made it to the rec list with a diary on this. Thanks to all who recommended, and I'm glad it got noticed. The point remains, however, that her diary was not the first, and it took a while to make it to the list.
Most importantly, this diary is more about what to do about the problem of the seemingly endless scandals that the GOP foists on us, than it is about the Katrina situation directly.
[cross-posted (with edits) on my blog There Is No Blog: Bending Left]