John Sidney McBush


Two examples of how the next four years could easily be like the last eight:

Earlier this year Mr. McCain, as part of his strategy of distancing himself from the current administration, condemned Mr. Bush’s response to Katrina. If he’d been president at the time, he says, "I would’ve landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally."

Um, that completely misses the point. The problem with the Bush administration’s response to Katrina wasn’t the president’s failure to show up promptly for his photo op. It was the failure of FEMA and other degraded agencies to show up promptly with food, water and first aid.

And let’s hope that Mr. McCain doesn’t jet into the disaster area in Gustav’s aftermath. The candidate’s presence wouldn’t do anything to help the area recover. It would, however, tie up air traffic and disrupt relief efforts, just as Mr. Bush did when he flew into New Orleans to congratulate Brownie on the work he was doing. Remember the firefighters who volunteered to help Katrina’s victims, only to find that their first job was to stand next to Mr. Bush while the cameras rolled?

and

There is precedent, of course: Invade Iraq, then check to see if Saddam really had WMDs; make Mike Brown head of FEMA, then check to see if he actually knew anything about disaster response, etc. But I thought the whole idea was to get away from that kind of "leadership" (or at least fool the voters into thinking McCain would do things differently.)

Can we really afford it?

Note: Posting will be light for the next day or so while I deal with Gustav's aftermath.