UPDATE: An excerpt of the transcript of Lou Dobbs and Jesse Jackson can be found below.
The race issue is now being used by right-wing commentators, like Lou Dobbs, to make the critics of this disasterous response by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT look like extremists.
STOP USING THE RACE CARD -- NOW!!!!
(there's plenty of time to talk about it a couple of months down the road -- after the government is toppled)
(more after the fold)
Many times during Dobb's interview with Jesse Jackson, he tried to play the race issue with Jesse -- even when Jesse explicitly stated that he was critical of the response IN GENERAL.
Jesse, in my opion, was not forceful enough to put people like Dobbs in his place. He looked weak.
I'm telling you guys, the Democrats and their allies better start attacking this administration more directly RIGHT NOW (fuck this "no politics now" criticism), because Rove is already making his moves and pretty soon these tactics by people like Dobbs and other political hacks are going to start working.
Race is an issue -- Yes. But "economic class" is the main issue. Race is part of this primary issue.
Nonetheless, please, PLEASE forget hammering this particular "why" point at this time. It is only going to alienate people who would otherwise be furious at the Bush administration. It is significantly more difficult to prove that race was indeed an issue when decisions were made during the Federal response. Why make this difficult??!!!
It is the FEDERAL RESPONSE to this disaster which should be the focus. PERIOD!!! There is enough here to make heads roll. Deal with the race issue later.
Look at this response by shoe-shopping, theatre hopping responder Condaleeza Rice:
Rice, the administration's foremost African-American, made her first foray through the affected areas on Sunday, rejecting the charge and strongly defending the government. She, however, admitted the response of the government agencies to the tragedy could have been better.
"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," she said in Alabama adding: "I don't believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans. I just don't believe it for a minute."
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Now, compare this to the government defending their general response to Katrina:
Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief, told WWL-TV that he thinks FEMA's response to the disaster has been an "embarrassment." Walter Maestri, the emergency management director in suburban Jefferson Parish, said FEMA and other federal agencies are not delivering help nearly as fast as it is needed.
Yet, back in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CNN Thursday that he believes he thinks FEMA and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under difficult circumstances to deal with the unprecedented disaster, citing their "courage" and "ingenuity."
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Which attack is going to be more effective? Do we really need the race card at this point?
Now, here's a part of Jesse Jackson's interview with Lou Dobbs. Notice how much time Jackson had to spend trying to avoid the race issue. Even Jesse knows that this is not the time to bring this issue up. Although, I wish he was a bit more stronger with his criticism with this administration:
The Reverend Jesse Jackson has been in Houston, Texas, and Baton Rouge, today. He's had some harsh word for the federal response to the hurricane disaster.
Jackson has said, in fact, racism is in part to blame for the slow response. He's questioned why President Bush hasn't named African-Americans to top positions at FEMA and said some of the media's coverage of this crisis has been outright racist.
Reverend Jesse Jackson joins me tonight from Baton Rouge.
Good to have you with us. Let's start with the...
REV. JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Let me be quick to say...
DOBBS: Let me say welcome, and then you can do whatever you want.
JACKSON: Thank you. I want to be quick to say, though not referring to American citizens as refugees, they are American citizens. I do not know whether the slow response was a combination of racial insensitivity or incompetence or indifference. I'm not sure what the percentage was.
Suffice it to say America was not in readiness for a storm that was anticipated. So there's been slowness in rescue, we've lost lives, more in dehydration and starvation maybe than even the flood itself.
America was not in readiness for a storm that was anticipated. So there's been slowness in rescue. We've lost lives. And dehydration and starvation maybe even than the flood itself. Slow in relief and slow in relocation.
We are sending people to Utah and to Minnesota when we in fact could use military bases that are not used in Louisiana.
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DOBBS: But as we get bogged down in this, my real question to you is, Jesse, what purpose does it serve to inject racism into the discussion when we've got thousands of our fellow citizens hurting? They need our help. There's going to be a -- you and I both know there's going to be a complete broad and deep investigation into the failures of governance at the local, state and federal level after this. I think you and I both agree on that, right?
JACKSON: I did not inject race. When the media saw these long lines of African-American people, referring to them as refugees. In fact, they are citizens. And the media began to ask the question, what are the class race implications?
I did not raise those questions. My concern is that we did not have lack of preparedness to save Americans, who in fact, were facing a storm that was predictable unlike 9/11, unlike the tsunami.
So I think the bigger issue here is in light of the global warming, in light of our coastal vulnerability, how should we address the issue of national security and alertness from this day forward?
DOBBS: Yes, I couldn't agree with you more.
JACKSON: Some of it was fairly self evident.
DOBBS: I couldn't agree with you. I think worrying about whether we refer to the unfortunate victims of this storm as refugees because they are certainly refugees from Katrina.
But I think focusing on the fact that a quarter of a million people are in the hearts and homes. And the relief shelters provided by their fellow Americans in 12 states is something we need to focus on.
I don't think there's anyone...
JACKSON: Well, Lou...
DOBBS: ...let me finish my sentence and I'll let you finish.
JACKSON: Yes. All right.
DOBBS: I don't think there's anybody in this country -- you know, Mel Watson, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus said, you know, Katrina didn't pick out New Orleans because there were black people in it. His exact quote was "Katrina went after New Orleans, not black people."
The fact is there isn't anybody that calls himself or herself an American who cares one way or the other where somebody who needs help is black or whatever race in this country. They're American citizens. And I think that it would really be helpful for you to give everybody some credit.
JACKSON: Lou, I do not want to deal with how many people are turned away on the race class question. My real concern was that we had a five-day warning, a level five hurricane was coming. We did not have capacity for mass rescue, mass relief...
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full transcript
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And finally, a FOX NEWS poll: