September 7, 2005

Let Them Eat Cake

Okay, before you read any further I need you to take precautions. Sit down and plug each ear with a finger. Otherwise when you read what follows you will fall down and your brains will squirt out of your head. You simply cannot make this kind of stuff up. Here's the short news item I spotted buried in the back pages of my morning paper.

Barbara Bush, Storm Victims Better Off Now
As President Bush battled criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina, his mother declared it a success for evacuees who, in her words, "were underprivileged anyway," adding that many of the poor she had seen while touring a relocation site were faring "better than before the storm hit."

"What I am hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay here in Texas," said Mrs. Bush. "And so many of the people in the arean here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." adding that many of them wanted to stay in Texas, "which is pretty scary."

Honest. She said just that. But what was she really saying?

Well, first, that the evacuees are poor and black and want to stay in her state, Texas, and she that she finds that "pretty scary." (One can suppose the Bush's already have all the house and garden help they need, so these out of state helpers should leave before they bring down property values.)

As for all those awful images we have all seen on TV of families suffering in hellish conditions, Lady Bush's message is, stop worrying, they're used to living like that, and worse.

In fact even stacked up like cordwood in over-crowded shelters, those poor folk are better off than they've ever been, in Lady Bush's world. Hell, if those people had their way I bet they'd pray a hurricane hits every six months just so they could enjoy more of this life of Rielly at taxpayer expense. (And those who died, well, Barb is sure they are in a better place too.)

It's accidental moments of raw candor like Barbara Bush's that exposes America's growing, dirty little secret. The nation is increasingly divided between to way-too-rich, and the rest of us. And they don't give a fig for the rest of us.

Barbara Bush's comment crashed into my frontal lobes just hours after I'd watched Mel Brooks, History World, Part I. In it French King, played by Mel Brooks, commiserates with Count de Money (Harvey Corman) on growing public unrest.

"Your Highness, the peasants are revolting," Count de Money warns.


"They sure are," King Brooks replies, "They stink on ice!"

After taking some liberties with ladies of the court the king looks into the camera and declares, "It's good to be the king."

Little could Brooks have known he was writing a script that would be recited years later by none other than the mother of the President of the United States.

It's no wonder Barbara's son, George, thought it was appropriate to play a round of golf last week, at the very moment poor black New Orleanians were drowning. Why should he care? After all, he already had a caddy.

Besides, Momma Bush had checked and assured sonny the news reports were getting it all wrong. After all, how could people who had nothing to begin with have "lost everything," as those bleeding heart liberal journalists were reporting.

Mike Chertoff, a longtime Bush Family toady, agreed with Lady Bush. Chertoff told members of congress yesterday that "the conditions at the New Orleans Super Dome were no where near as bad as the TV images suggested."

How's that for chutzpah? We've become so used to this administration hiding the truth then lying that we no longer even flinch. But this is a new order of Orwellian lie. Those pictures had been broadcasted live on TV. Eeveryone on earth with access to a TV had seen them. Nevertheless, the Bushites are sticking to their lie and deny strategy. Chertoff was asking "who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?"

Memo to Red State Voters:
Hello again,suckers. Are you getting the message yet? Or will you have to hit rock bottom and have Lady Bush declare you "better off than ever," then warn you to keep your hungry, grubby kids out of Texas, before you get it? Even though you voted for this pack of modern-day robber barons -- twice -- they still think you folks "stink on ice."


Mutiny? Not.
I'm not getting any traction on my legislative mutiny idea. (See below) I am afraid it's just politics as usual now that congress is back in town. Yesterday was filled with CYA news conferences.

House Majority Leader Tom "soon-to-be-indicted" DeLay – R-Texas, declared that it was not the feds who failed storm victims, but local and state governments. Never mind that half those states first responders were pinned down in Iraq, it was still their fault. The buck no longer stops in GOP Washington – unless it's a good buck. Bad bucks are someone else's fault.

Hillary made a TV appearance yesterday, reminding me that if that woman is elected President I will have to poke out my own eardrums so I don't have to listen to her. I thought Gore was an annoying speaker, but Hillary is Gore singing falsetto.

Senator-Doctor Bill Frist, who wants to be the next President, rushed to an evacuation center long enough to have a photoof him taken with a stethoscope dangling around his neck, then rushed back to DC to chair a meeting of GOP committee chairs. Of course he let C-Span broadcast the meeting live. One by one, well-dressed, well-fed and well-hydrated GOP senators congratulated Frist and one another for their "fast response" to the disaster. It was as if the officers of Titanic had called one last meeting with the activities director to document that they had provided all the necessary shuffle board gear and music to keep the doomed passengers minds off their troubles.

But nowhere on Capital Hill did I see or hear any member of either party ready to become my Fletcher Christian. There will be no bipartisan mutiny against crazy Captain Bush and his first officer, Dick Cheney. In fact, they not only remain in full and unfettered control of our ship of state, but have even assigned themselves to new tasks.

Dick Cheney is heading to the disaster zone to "take charge." (Which reminds me. I had a dream last night in which Cheney shows up in a stricken neighborhood. A large black lady, clearly furious, rushed out her front door right at our pacemaker-powered VP. In her arms she cradled a running microwave oven trailing an endless extension cord. Cheney turned in horror and hightailed it. The lady chased the terrified Dick down a rubble-filled street, microwave humming away, as she screamed "Microwaves don't kill people Dick, politicians kill people." Whew. I think I need to stop watching storm coverage.)

Meanwhile, back in Washington the captain that ran this ship aground in the first place announced, without a trace of irony, that he was personally going to get to the bottom of all this. He announced he had appointed himself to take personal charge of the investigation into what went wrong. He said he would thoroughly investigate himself and let us know how he did.

So, Captian Crazier-than-ever Queeg remains in charge, at the White House. Micheal "Barney Fife" Brown, is still in charge of FEMA. Michael "It's-not-so-bad" Chertoff is still at the helm of Homeland Security. And the people's representatives, Congress, remains in charge of nothing, including itself.

But not to worry. The matron of the Bush Dynasty, Barbara, has declared the whole mess a blessing in disguise --unless of course all those poor black folk stay in Texas. Now that would be a disaster.