Congratulations on the opening of your library. Now maybe you’ll go inside one. [...]
[A]s a resident of post-Katrina New Orleans, the one decision point that really has me fired up is how your library represents the choices you faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. [...]
Looting was the big problem?
As much as 80% of the city was flooded. Nearly a thousand Louisiana residents died, many in their own homes, drowned by storm surges that breached inadequate federal levees. Many thousands more were trapped in the Superdome and Convention Center for days without food, medicine, water, electricity, or working bathrooms.
And you were trying to figure out whether or not to quell an insurrection? These people were Americans, Mr. President. [...]
I am glad that you are slowing down, catching your breath and finding a way to live life to the fullest. In the meantime, tens of thousands of New Orleanians are still trying to find a way home, still displaced by the policies of your administration, still reeling from the failures of your decisions.
As the inimitable Garry Trudeau continues his wickedly satirical story arc about the George W. Bush “lie-bury”, Melissa Harris-Perry didn’t hold back either. She hosted The Rachel Maddow Show last night, and full-on skewered W in this segment:
What is the Decision Point that the Bush library asks you to confront when it comes to Hurricane Katrina? A disaster in which nearly 2,000 Americans died, many in their own homes. What’s the Decision Point that’s laid before you at the Bush library?
“Officials in New Orleans are overwhelmed. The president can send in troops, but those troops would serve in supporting roles and state efforts and would not have law enforcement powers unless the president invokes what’s called the Insurrection Act. President Bush had to make a choice: One, rely on the National Guard and local police. Two, send in federal troops in a supporting role with no law enforcement authority.
Three, invoke the Insurrection Act and send in troops to restore order.”
Excuse me, restoring order was the problem when it it came to Hurricane Katrina, seriously? The main dilemma faced by President Bush when it came to the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina was quelling disorder?
The Bush library takes you through this whole scenario about how to deal with the problem of looters and how to restore law and order in New Orleans. That is the Decision Point. No mention at all of, you know, search and rescue.
Eight years later, the people of New Orleans, who were basically left to starve and dehydrate and die in our city, mostly elderly people and children, eight years later, these people are memorialized at the Bush library as public enemies, not as citizens who were in need of relief….
So it should be noted that the level of urgency that’s on display inside Decision Point Theater was not so much on display when it came to the decider himself.
This was President Bush, the morningthat Katrina made landfall, sharing a cake with John McCain in Arizona! This was after his administration had already been informed that levees in New Orleans had been breached. This was President Bush on Day Two of the disaster, yukking it up with the country music star in Southern California.
That night as the situation was growing worse and worse in New Orleans, George W. Bush decided to return to his ranch in Crawford, Texas to finish up his vacation.
When he finally headed back to D.C. the next day, President Bush got an aerial view of the damage in Louisiana and Mississippi.
But by Friday, five days into that disaster, his aides at the White House were putting together DVDs of news coverage to convince President Bush how bad things were in New Orleans. During those five days,
President Bush was not “on the edge of his seat” as the Bush library would like you to believe. He was basically checked out. That’s the real history.
The truth is, the American people have already decided how they felt about President Bush’s leadership during Katrina, and while his approval ratings before Katrina weren’t that impressive, they never recovered afterwards.
15 months after the failed response, Democrats took control of the House. They took control of the Senate. and they took a majority of gubernatorial seats across the country. The public has already decided.
But, hey, if you’re in Dallas this weekend, you’ve got some time, go see how President Bush “saved” a city from disaster, and “restored a sense of calm” in all of the disorder.
Garry Trudeau’s depiction of the continuing physical deterioration of GW Bush’s appearance, and character, was enough reason to fall in love with today’s strip. Bush has always been nothing more than an empty hat, one that is as threadbare as his (pronounced lack of ) ethics, humility, and respect for the rule of law.
But Trudeau gave us so much more in today’s strip. We get to point and laugh at the relationships between Daddy Bush, Jebby Bush, and W all in one snarkalicious effort. But he didn’t stop there. He took jabs at Willard M. Romney, “self-deportation,” W’s obsession with his unhinged version of “freedom, ” and of course, his sick devotion to torture.
And as always, in the last panel we were treated to the punch line. Gold.
It just got funnier. No, I mean, it really it did. Come on: “Prieb-Dawg”?
By the way, the mental image of any A-lister– or anyone else– “getting in bed” with Prieb-Dawg is so not pretty and it should never be mentioned again under any circumstances ever in the history of ever.
And don’t even get me started on the “Some of us aren’t old” punch line.
Of course, that left an opening to poke fun at the celebs who Republicans value: Meat Loaf, Clint Eastwood and his silent sidekick, President Empty Chair, Ted Nugent, and Victoria Jackson.
Today Trudeau and Mr. Kibbitz, included two more who completely slipped my mind (thankfully): Dennis Miller and Chuck Norris. They are all too easy to forget.
Garry Trudeau must have psychically tuned into my mental Doonesbury Wish List, because he’s continuing the Mr. Kibbitz/Reince Priebus story arc, adding the element of Reince’s imaginary “GOP celebrity task force.”
That’s funny all by itself when you consider which celebrity supporters the Republicans value. Meat Loaf ring a bell? Or Clint Eastwood and his silent sidekick, President Empty Chair? And of course, who could forget Ted Nugent and Victoria Jackson?
Two words: Oy and Vey.
It’s rewarding enough just to watch poor Reince Priebus’s struggle to get to square one with Mr. Kibbitz.
But Trudeau then goes on to skewer Donald Trump specifically and conservative entertainers in general. There are no A-listers who Republicans can depend on, nor is there a B-list, which leaves a possible C-List… of sorts.
Garry Trudeau came up with a name that might even be funnier than the name Reince Priebus: Mr. Kibbitz. Hopefully, he’ll keep this story arc going and continue to focus on the chairman of the Republican National Committee, because IMHO, nobody can snark about Priebus better than Trudeau.
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