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It Affects You
Scotty McClellan, amongst others, wants you to stop politicizing the hurricane. Or at least that's what he says. What he really wants is for you to stop interfering with their ability to politicize the disaster. But while many of us were naive once, it's not going to happen twice.
It might be impossible to find any large American tragedy which has been politicized more than 9/11. I don't think one exists. After fumbling badly the first few hours, Bush talked tough, and then he came to NYC and talked tough some more from Ground Zero. The press went gaga over Bush's "strong leadership" and Bush has ran with the image since with ongoing support from the media despite a record remarkable mainly for its level of failure.
They politicized the hell out of 9/11 at every turn. The RNC was in New York City with the singular goal of exploiting 9/11, and in the process it seemed they demanded no speaker could go more than two sentences without mentioning terrorism and/or September 11. They used it to invade Iraq. They exploited it to win reelection. They exploited it to attack Max Cleland. They used it to remove privacy protections. Today they are using it to claim everyone who has anything critical to say of the war in Iraq has forgotten about 9/11, wants the terrorists to win and probably hates America. They're planning to exploit it in 10 days with a gala 9/11 event.
I suppose all that politicizing of 9/11 wouldn't be quite so terrible if Bush actually was the leader he's made out to be and had accomplished great things following 9/11. But he's not and he hasn't. Far from it. It's difficult to imagine a worse performance in the war on terror than we've seen. After getting off to a decent start in Afghanistan, Bush did more than abandon the true war on terror when he invaded Iraq; he made it worse. A more complete failure of leadership is not easy to comprehend. Bush says things like, "If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks; they'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions; they could recruit more terrorists by claiming an historic victory over the United States and our coalition." I got news for you George: Iraq has already become terrorist recruiting and training grounds on a massive scale. We are not fighting to prevent that. We are fighting against what you already let happen and we will be for years. That is not leadership; that is a complete failure of leadership.
Bush's only victory has been a PR one. Because he got off to an early start politicizing 9/11, the image of him as a strong leader willing to take on terrorists has, helped along by a willing press, has carried him to a second term in office and a still inexplicable 56% approval rating of his handling of the war on terror.
Do you know how many times I have been told by some Conservative hack I have forgotten about 9/11 because I disagreed on some point about Bush? These hacks, most of whom support the war in Iraq but would never fight themselves and most of whom have never been to NYC, are telling me, a NYC native, that I have forgotten 9/11. So you'll forgive me if this pisses me off more than usual and If I take this somewhat personally. I may not be able to do much, but I aim to do what I can to prevent George W. Bush and his Conservative boosters from doing to the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama what he did to the people of New York and the rest of the country after 9/11. Namely, I will not, if I can help it, allow him to politicize the tragedy, portraying himself as some sort of savior when in fact he failed to do his duty. I will not sit back and watch as Bush goes around the nation and uses these people as political pawns, as he did New Yorkers, when the reality is he failed them.
So to any Conservative hacks out there who want me to stop "politicizing the hurricane," I understand what you really mean is you want me to stop trying to prevent Bush and his cohorts from politicizing the hurricane. But it's not going to happen. Bush isn't going to be getting a free ride this time.
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