Pick Three

Caught a little bit of Countdown when it reaired last night--the show's becoming a bit of a habit for me (might have to start shelling out for the decent cable teevee when my free sample runs out). In quick succession, the following were noted:

1) Blanco's release of documents detailing Louisiana's response to Hurricane Katrina...and the federal government's LACK of response...a lack of response that devolved into outright dingbattery--Jesus H. Christ, people were literally dying, and the fed's wanted an extra copy of a letter they could've just as easily PRINTED off a goddamned web site. Fuckers.

Olbermann got it right:

...the reason the White House does not want to play the blame game could very easily be because it would almost certainly lose that game.

More:

KERRY SANDERS, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Hurricane Katrina caused havoc, behind the scenes, a storm of a different sort. You can hear it in this recorded phone call.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (on phone): We requested it, have requested it, been requesting it, and nothing‘s coming.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SANDERS: That‘s an angry Louisiana official. Ten days after the hurricane, FEMA still hadn‘t delivered promised food and water.

It‘s one of the 100,000 documents presented to congressional investigators chronicling the massive failure of local, state, and federal emergency coordination.

The day Hurricane Katrina hit, Governor Kathleen Blanco says, in an executive summary, that she told the president in a phone call, “We need everything you‘ve got.”

Then, four days later, the governor says she handed an official letter to the president asking for federal help. But it took another five days before she got this e-mail from a presidential aide. “Could you send a copy of the governor‘s 9/2 letter to the president? We found it on the governor‘s Web site but need an original to formally process the requests she is making.”

SILAS LEE, NEW ORLEANS POLITICAL ANALYST: This verified what she was saying all along, that she was reaching out to the federal government for help, and the federal government basically acted like a negligent parent.

Countdown also took a look at Khalid el-Mazri, a German citizen, who, in a case of MISTAKEN IDENTITY, was kidnapped, thrown on an airplane, dumped in Afghanistan, and held for five months of "interrogation" before being released. He's STILL on a "watch list" by the way, meaning he can't enter the United States for purposes of filing a legal complaint. Guess that's Team Bush's definition of "freedom on the march."

And finally, speaking of freedom on the march: apparently USAID is looking into offering up to a billion dollars for any enterprising soul who...has a plan for stabilizing "10 strategic cities" in Iraq...something that evidently CAN'T be done by the military...

Hmmm...shouldn't they have thought of that BEFORE they decided to waste 2100 and counting US lives, thousands more Iraqi lives, and so on?

What a bunch of dumbfucks.

Actually, dumbfuck might be a little generous.

Countdown transcript here.