THIS MODERN WORLD

The good news is, I’ve just added papers in Santa Fe and Santa Cruz. The bad news is, I’ve just been dropped by the Detroit Metro Times. As always, I discourage astroturfing (which is why I don’t provide direct links in these cases), but if you live in the Detroit area, please be sure to drop the paper a line and let them know what you think of this decision. As I’ve noted before, the papers are my bread and butter — if I had to live off my online revenues, I’d be in trouble. They’re also the best way to reach the sort of reader who isn’t directly seeking me out, which I consider important. Anyway, if you read the Metro Times, I’d appreciate the help — editors are sometimes willing to reconsider these decisions if they get enough feedback.

…one more thing: be polite. Abusive email does far more harm than good.

…also: I make no secret of the fact that I’m encouraging this response, so an initial flood of email is easily discounted. The thing is to keep the responses flowing over a longer period of time — that’s sometimes the only way to convince an editor that you’re not just zombies reacting to my mind control beams, that you actually do want to see the cartoon continue in their paper.

One:

The missteps on Katrina came at a crucial moment in Bush’s second term, when his top legislative priority at home, Social Security reform, was already on life support and the war in Iraq was becoming a mounting economic and political burden. The Administration that had been determined to defy history and ward off the second-term curse — and early lame-duck status — by controlling the agenda and seizing opportunities appears increasingly at the mercy of events, at home and abroad.

And as if the West Wing were suddenly snakebit, his franchise player, senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, was on the disabled list for part of last week, working from home after being briefly hospitalized with painful kidney stones.

Bush has always said the Presidency is about doing big things, and a friend who chatted with him one evening in July said he seemed to be craving a fresh mission even though the one he has pursued in Iraq is far from being on a steady footing. “He was looking for the next really important thing to do,” the friend said. “You could hear him almost sorting it out to himself. He just sort of figured it would come.”

But when it did, he did not immediately show that he sensed its magnitude. On the Monday that Hurricane Katrina landed and the Crescent City began drowning, Bush was joshing with Senator John McCain on the tarmac of an Air Force base in Arizona, posing with a melting birthday cake. Like a scene out of a Michael Moore mockumentary, he was heading into a long-planned Medicare round table at a local country club, joking that he had “spiced up” his entourage by bringing the First Lady, then noting to the audience that he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from Air Force One. “I said, ‘Are you working with the Governor?'” Bush recounted. “He said, ‘You bet we are.'” But the President was not talking about the killer storm. He was talking about immigration, and the Governor was Arizona’s.

Two:

Amid a slew of stories this weekend about the embattled presidency and the blundering government response to the drowning of New Orleans, some journalists who are long-time observers of the White House are suddenly sharing scathing observations about President Bush that may be new to many of their readers.

Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you’ve been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?

Maybe not so much.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don’t emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies — the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department — has failed a big test.

And three.

Major blackouts in Los Angeles.

…nothing dire, apparently.

…from a Gambit writer who went into labor that weekend:

All day Saturday, people were getting ready to evacuate. Everyone you saw in the street would say, “Are you leaving?” Among our friends, it was 50-50 between people staying, people going. We were debating because I was so enormously pregnant — 38 weeks along, big as a house and four centimeters dilated, which meant I could go on to labor at any moment.
Last year, I had evacuated for Hurricane Ivan. We spent 14 hours on the road, and then we got two drops of rain in New Orleans. I knew I couldn’t do that this time. For one thing, you really don’t own your bladder at that point in pregnancy. And if I had gone into labor, I probably would been forced to give birth in a car.

At about 10 p.m., when Merv got home from his gig, my contractions were getting pretty close. So he borrowed a car and drove like a speed demon to Touro — me in the back seat, on all fours and in a lot of pain. When we arrived to the hospital, they discovered Hector was lying sideways, so they had to turn him about 90 degrees before he could come out. I could have never given birth to him in a car. It turned out we probably did the right thing by staying.

I started to push at midnight. Hector wasn’t born until 4:14 in the morning. He was a cute, mellow little dude and we called some people to say that we were staying and then I fell asleep. About eight hours after I gave birth, the hospital was put on lock down, which meant no one could leave and no one could enter. So after that, I really didn’t think again about evacuating.

About 6 a.m. on Monday morning, we were awakened by the head nurse. The hurricane came through — it sounded like a train — and she was telling everyone to move in the hallways. Originally, they had thought we would be okay in our rooms because the glass was rated for 200 mph winds. But after a few windows broke in the upper stories, someone decided all the patients would sit out the hurricane in the hallways.

* * *

Merv went to a nearby grocery store with some other new dads from the floor. The guys came back carrying these big bags of groceries and I said, “Oh my God, you were able to get to a grocery store? There was one open?” They were like, “Kinda.” They said everyone was grabbing stuff — black, white, even cops. It didn’t matter.

While Merv was at the store, he heard that the A & P owner over on 19th Street had opened his doors and said, “Take whatever you want, just don’t wreck the store.” It seemed like it was one of those things everyone was doing in order to recover. People were just taking what they needed. Although, to be honest, I think the liquor went first in most of the stores. The liquor and the cigarettes.

From my window I saw these police loading up on boxes of Cheese-Its, and cases of Powerade and barbequing. Apparently, there were a couple of purse snatchings and muggings on the first floor of the hospital, so they had called in the cops.

More.

Chris Floyd settles the matter:

Look, it’s really very simple. On Saturday, August 27, 2005 — two days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall — President George W. Bush assumed responsibility for the coordination of “all disaster relief efforts” in the State of Louisiana. This is the specific, undisputed language of Bush’s declaration of a State of Emergency, issued that day by the White House, and still available for viewing on the White House website. The responsibility for coordinating all disaster relief efforts in New Orleans clearly rested with the White House. Despite all the post-disaster spin by the Bush Faction and its sycophants, despite all the earnest media analyses, the lines of authority are clear and indisputable. Here is the voice of George W. Bush himself, in the proclamation issued in his name, over his signature on Saturday, August 27, 2005:

“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing. The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures”

Bush goes on to say: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.”

(Here’s the White House link.)

…or maybe not. Reader Brian L., among others, notices an oddity:

Note the salient text:

“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts…in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides,
Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.”

Conspicuous by their absence are Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, Jefferson and basically every coastal parish, and the next parishes closest to the coast. So then, let me understand this: Team Bush saw by 26 August that Katrina would be sufficiently dangerous to warrant a preemptive disaster declaration for what looks like about 65-70% of the land area of Lousiana, and he declares it for the _landlocked_ parishes?

…Chris follows up here.