Digby, as he is wont to do, hits the nail right on the head with this post from today:
Blame the Victim Talking Points
Michael Chertoff, his boss, said the same thing:
"The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster," he said on NBC's Today program. "Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part."
This was an official talking point. On Thursday, September 1st, three days after the scope of the disaster was well known, George W. Bush sent his disaster officials out to the media with the instructions that they were to blame the victims --- the same day that we were seeing dead bodies and dehydrated children all over our television sets.
He's right. It is official policy. You can see it all over every right wing spin: they should have left, the looters are at fault, the victims are to blame.
And the scary thing is, this is working. Much of the reason for that is the victims happen to be poor and black. Much of the reason for that is that supporters of the President want to believe it couldn't be his fault. Whatever the reason, I and members of my family have seen enough anecdotal evidence to see that this is the case with many more people than we would like to believe. People say "they shouldn't have been there". Some people think that there were buses available to evacuees before the hurricane. Other people say "it's the looters fault that aid wasn't able to get through. They're hurting themselves".
This sickens me.
These are hurricane and flood victims of perhaps the greatest natural disaster our country has ever suffered, and many people across this country currently feel little if any sympathy
for the victims.
I guess that's Compassionate Conservatism for ya. When's the next flight out of this damn country? If we can't feel sympathy for hurricane victims anymore, If our President blames the victims for being there rather than helping them, I just don't know if this country is worth living in anymore. The Compassionate Conservatives can have it.