Did anyone catch Michelle Bernard on Tweety's show? Honestly, I just spent the last several minutes typing out a proper transcript of this exchange. The question at hand was Jindal's remarkably stupid statement that the Bush Administration's failure during Katrina was reason to not look to the government for help.
Besides the absurdity of that statement stacked up against years of being forced to be protected from terrorists by the Bush Administration, all it proves is that government shouldn't be run by Republicans, not that government doesn't work.
If no-eyed Clyde rams the car into the tree, it's not the car's damn fault. Or the tree's for that matter.
But Michelle Bernard just blew my mind...
Michelle Bernard: Surprisingly, I'm going to come to Bobby Jindal's defense on this point
Joan Walsh: Oh boy
Michelle Bernard: - as, as - this is very interesting, I'm a person of color, he's a person of color,
Tweety: Right
Michelle Bernard: we're both children of immigrants; immigrants have a very different look - outlook, about the proper role of government. A lot of immigrants that you will meet have come from countries where they see that big government can do absolutely horrible things and I think that if you can look at it from that perspective what he was saying, as I saw it, as a black person watching all those black people drown during Hurricane Katrina, is that you better take personal responsibility and take care of yourself because if you're going to wait for the government to do it you could die.
Tweety: Did he say that?
Michelle Bernard: That's what I took from it
Joan Walsh: I didn't, I appreciate your perspective but
Michelle Bernard: Well, of course you didn't, but that's how I took it.
Tweety: Well, you took it as a failure of personal responsibility and not to rely on government, but
Michelle Bernard: No, not a failure of personal responsibility, but to never be put in the trap of thinking "you don't have anything to worry about, your government will always take care of you." Most black people will say to you that they turned on the television, they looked at what was happening during Katrina, and our government - it wasn't just that our government didn't want to take care of us, but that they couldn't.
Tweety: By the way, where is that community that thinks the federal government always has to take care of them?
Joan Walsh: No one believes that
Michelle Bernard: There's a lot of people, they're just not on this show..
Tweety: Go ahead Joan, your thought here.
Joan Walsh: The government let black people drown Michelle, I mean come on.
Michelle Bernard: I just said that. I watched it in horror. It's why I don't trust government.
I don't know what to say. I have never heard such craziness in my life.
UPDATE: Link courtesy of robertacker13