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Not your father’s GOP

Even the usually mild-mannered Kevin Drum is outraged:

CLUELESS . . . .  Could the people in charge of managing the catastrophe in New Orleans possibly be more clueless?

George W. Bush, President of the United States, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina: “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, following widespread eyewitness reports of refugees living like animals at the Convention Center: “I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the Convention Center who don’t have food and water.”

Mike Brown, Director of FEMA, referring to people who were stuck in New Orleans largely because they were too poor to afford the means to leave: “. . . those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city. . .”

Patrick Rhode, deputy director of FEMA, commenting on his agency’s performance after four days of steadily increasing urban warfare, deeply flawed coordination, and continuing inability to evacuate refugees: “Probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country’s history.”

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives, providing needed reassurance to the newly homeless: “It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that’s seven feet under sea level. . . .  It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed.”

This is beyond belief. What’s with these people?

Well, Kevin, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that these people are Republicans.  Not just any kind of Republicans, either—they’re modern Republicans.  Modern Republicans are not the Republicans you and I remember from childhood, Kevin.  Those Republicans balanced budgets.  They built highways.  They did social infrastructure, and they did disaster management.  They knew where other countries were, too.  They helped to fund universities, and they didn’t mind that university professors taught the theory of evolution.  Some of them were even pretty good on civil rights.

Modern Republicans have left all that behind.  They don’t like government; they want, in Lovable Furry Old Grover Norquist’s famous words, to shrink government to the size at which it can be drowned in the bathtub.  Consequently, when they get into government, they quickly fill its halls with two kinds of people:  people who are charged with the task of destroying the agencies they run, and people who have no idea whatsoever about how their agencies work.  (Reagan set the template:  James Watt at Interior, Clarence Thomas at the EEOC, Anne Gorsuch at EPA, among the destroyers; Samuel Pierce at HUD, among the no-idea-whatsoevers.  FEMA gets the latter group.) So your modern Republicans don’t do disaster management.  In fact, there’s a lot of things they don’t do anymore.  Basically, they’re down to two things:  one wing retools the tax code so as to redistribute wealth to their friends and cronies in the top .001 of American society, and the other wing works to expel gays and lesbians from the body politic.  That’s about it.  They don’t even do war very well anymore, to be honest.  If it doesn’t involve hoarding wealth or crusading against gays and lesbians, their hearts aren’t really in it.  (That’s why they’ve been pretty good at the “hoarding wealth” part of the Iraqi occupation but not so good at the military and diplomatic parts.  And of course they like where the Islamist clerics stand on gays and lesbians, too.)

Now, I know some folks will say that I’m not being entirely fair to modern Republicans.  They’re right, I’m not.  Some modern Republicans, such as the Dauphin, like to dress up in lots of specially personalized uniforms.  But that’s not a matter of public policy.

When the levees first broke, I thought that the Bush Administration had drawn up a list of American Cities Worth Saving.  You know, Denver, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Omaha, Richmond, Tallahassee, Topeka, and of course Dallas and Houston.  And cities not worth saving—the rest of ‘em.  But now I don’t think they got even that far.  They’re not specifically motivated to abandon New Orleans just because the city is full of poor people and African-Americans; they simply never gave a serious thought to New Orleans one way or the other.  Now, if the mayor of New Orleans had been conducting gay marriages, then sure, the federal government would have intervened in a heartbeat.  But repeated warnings of natural disasters?  Plans for delivering food, water, and medicine to trapped survivors?  Your modern Republican doesn’t read those.  In fact, he fires people who persist in writing ‘em after they’ve been told to chill.

Kevin, we could use a man like Thomas Dewey again.  But he was from your father’s GOP, and that Old School is long, long gone.

Posted by on 09/02 at 10:25 AM

  1. To be fair, as a gay guy with every reason to be paranoid about this administration, I’m getting the sense that their heart isn’t really into persecuting me, either. 

    At the core of this regime are people so immoral that even paleoethical pieties such as gay-bashing fail to motivate them.  They pander to such attitudes in the public only to serve their highest good:  taking care of their .001 percent.

    Posted by jw  on  09/02  at  12:39 PM

  2. Hey, jw, I have no doubt that the Administration is made up mostly of the first wing.  But around the rest of the country, as a cross-section of the modern GOP as a whole, that second wing is still very serious business.  As you know.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/02  at  12:45 PM

  3. I don’t want to sound all retro here, but when the hell are we gonna knock these motherfuckers on their ass?  Or, more politely, when are going to stop putting up with the idiots who currently excercise power over allocating our tax dollars away from things that matter to most of us?

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  12:50 PM

  4. The so-called crisis in New Orleans is really a creation of the hyperventilating liberal media that is desperate to pin blame on Katrina on President Bush and the Republicans.  Take the looting. The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over. It’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building and you see it twenty times. You think, my goodness, were there that many Winn-Dixies? Is it possible that there were that many Winn-dixies in the whole country?

    These things take time and they take a long time, and some people get weary of the constant barrage that we see in the media. You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as New Orleans is held to, nobody’d go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the press is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways.  And if you took that as the image of what is a great city that has an incredible quality of life and an incredible economy, it’s amazing to me. Go to New Orleans. And see what’s actually happening there. Everybody that comes from New Orleans is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television set.

    And don’t even get me started on all of the school construction in New Orleans that the MSM is suspiciously ignoring.

    I, for one, am not going to be brainwashed by the liberal media bias.  Remember, these are the same Chicken Little reporters that act as if Bagdad has a safety problem, too.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  12:58 PM

  5. move these modern republicans to the dome in the big easy. Let them eat shit. Even Mr. Bill has more sense than these guys.

    http://espn.go.com/outdoors/conservation/news/2004/0122/1715528.html

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  01:00 PM

  6. I work for an internet company that turns print ads into internet ads (thanks 30K in debt causing education!).  My retailer is Winn-Dixie and so I can say with confidence that there are, in fact, that many Winn-Dixie supermarkets.  As to the ‘looting’, I prefer the term liberated, as in “I liberated this bag of bread from the store that is completely flooded and unusable.”

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  01:21 PM

  7. Michael, the chronology of irresponsibility can be fully appreciated here.

    Old, old predictions that the levees around Lake Pontchartrain were not safe can be found in this piece from 2001.

    There is site for inquires about missing Tulane University people and reports on the ones who’ve checked in safely.

    We’ve also set up a database in my blog for the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking community of New Orleans. 2 out of the 15 faculty in our department are still missing. 4 or 5 of our graduate students are missing as well. That’s in my department only.

    Greetings from Brazil, in mourning and anger,

    Posted by Idelber  on  09/02  at  02:06 PM

  8. Idelber,

    So sorry to hear about the missing faculty and students.

    That database, what a good idea. I’ll post something about it at our blog.

    jw,

    exactly right about Bush and his immediate cohort. I often feel that Bush himself is insufficiently evolved ethically to even know when he’s lying, or that a stated promise implies that some actual action will be taken at some point.

    Michael, perfectly laid out, as always.

    Posted by Leah A  on  09/02  at  02:25 PM

  9. Jim E.

    I thought Michael had his first troll until I hit the “my goodness” in your post. Well done.

    Posted by DrDrang  on  09/02  at  02:44 PM

  10. [Modern Republicans] don’t even do war very well anymore, to be honest.

    Don’t exaggerate or distort in your use of shorthand, Dr. B.  The war part they do pretty well, given that all they do is point the armed services at the target and pull the metaphorical trigger. It’s all that pesky “occupation” and “rebuilding” stuff that causes so much trouble that they immediately fall back to what they’re really good at: redistributing wealth to their friends and cronies.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  02:52 PM

  11. Thanks, DrD.  Those real Rumsfeld and DeLay quotes—with the substitution of “Winn Dixie” and “New Orleans” for “vases” and “Baghdad,” respectively—have always pissed me off.  I’m just waiting for a Bush-apologist to really blame the media for the lack of recovery in New Orleans. At this point, it really wouldn’t surprise me.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  03:04 PM

  12. The only humor i can find in me today came when i was thinking how really messed up the handling of Bush has become.  Could it be that our efforts to challenge the criminal conduct of Rove, has forced him to lose focus and control of his puppets? Bush’s and Cheney’s comments and behaviors these last few days are well off the VU meter of sensibility.  Consider the wire photo of Tuesday with Bush playing guitar and smiling; or the one today with all the polished USCG helicopters and personnel in the background.  Rove at his best would have at least cut that stupid imaging out.  oh wait, my bad.  Wasn’t he the one who ordered those Made in the USA fake paper labels be placed over the Made in China containers in that warehouse in Kansas?  Have we just put too much pressure on the staffers and puppet masters that they have lost the capacity to properly manage the spin and PR on this one???

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  03:18 PM

  13. Metaphor almost fails to describe what awaits Bush.

    Almost . When what is around you fails to sustain, look to the classics. And to laughter.

    Posted by The Heretik  on  09/02  at  03:29 PM

  14. For Idelbar to share with his students, and with everyone else in academia who might be interested.  The five universities out here in our region put together some scholarship packages yesterday for providing relief to the several universities and colleges in the LA and MS region.  They have agreed to take any students(particularly local to this region) who have been accepted and/or have been attending those schools who cannot now continue their education there.  They are pooling economic resources to provide ten scholarships at each university for students who will lose their senior years at those schools.  They are coordinating with other universities and colleges to work out increasing available free and reduced student housing.

    If your university is not doing something like this, it really should be.  Many of you are situated in large communities that send students to those schools in the Gulf Region.  You can make your school available to them for this academic year and provide scholarship resources for those who live and attend the univesities and colleges in that devastated part of our nation.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  03:30 PM

  15. More importantly, why isn’t anyone getting alarmed about how woefully inadequate our emergency response plans appear to be?

    After billions upon billions in appropriations and garrison state fearmongering tactics in the name of Homeland Security, these people don’t seem capable of putting out a brush fire.

    They were “shocked” by the number of refugees? “Surprised” by lawlessness? What fantasy world do these people inhabit?

    I’d say more, but I hesitate to clog your comment board. You can scan my last couple blog entries (ginandtacos.com) for a slightly more fleshed-out argument. But I suppose my original intent for this comment was the compelling nature of Michael’s question, “What exactly are these people good at?”

    Posted by Ed  on  09/02  at  03:35 PM

  16. Is it a sign of my intelligence or a sign of the state of the country that I took JimE’s post as straight?

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  04:40 PM

  17. Actually, the giveaway for me, in JimE’s comment, was the very belittling of the looting.  Wingnuts only minimize looting in Baghdad, especially when it comes to liberal-elite things like museums and libraries.  In New Orleans, by contrast, the wingnuts are treating looting as the very worst thing about Katrina—something that damages our national credibility far more than the federal government’s failure to respond to the crisis—and are urging authorities to shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.

    But I have to admit I did laugh out loud at “my goodness, were there that many Winn-Dixies?” This blog will always welcome a bit of black humor from its readers.  Thanks, JimE.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/02  at  05:04 PM

  18. One thing that the new GOP is doing a good job of is to seperate the word competence from Republican.  How can anyone claim that this administration even cares about doing the right thing.  They are most upset that the Dauphin will have to stop trying to get rid ofSocial Security and Medicare.  It is going to be funny when they try to get rid of the estate taxes.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  05:40 PM

  19. I don’t want to sound all retro here, but when the hell are we gonna knock these motherfuckers on their ass?  Or, more politely, when are going to stop putting up with the idiots who currently excercise power over allocating our tax dollars away from things that matter to most of us?

    Well a nice starting point would be if our supposed opposition party began thinking first and foremost about putting forward a coherent alternative set of policies, instead of quietly hoping that eventually the GOP will screw up enough that folks will run to the Democrats whether or not they stand for anything.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  05:48 PM

  20. Ben, waiting for Democrats on this might be a little like waiting for a rescue bus outside the New Orleans Convention Center.  Now I hear that Bill Frist is going ahead with the vote to repeal the estate tax next week, and that Halliburton has been contracted to clean up Louisiana.  I.  am.  not.  making.  this.  up.  So I’m thinking that a nice starting point would be massive civil disobedience, myself.  I don’t see that anything else has a chance of getting through to these criminals and fools.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/02  at  06:17 PM

  21. Michael,

    Do you have any suggestions for civil disobedience?  I’ve been really disappointed by the antiwar protests that I’ve been to.  They’re really unfocused.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  07:40 PM

  22. My political ideology has always been pretty far to the left, but this tragedy has moved me even further left.

    This week’s events clearly prove that there are--like Senator Edwards claimed in the 2004 campaign--two America’s, and our so-called compassionate conservative brethren who run the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Supreme Court (not to mention many state governments) have done much to make sure that the America in which they and their supporters belong do not give a flying fuck about the other America.

    Finally: Is there anyone who would sound more idiotic in light of this tragedy than the “less government is good” Libertarian? Can we FINALLY put to rest that lazy, stupid, and self-destructive ideology?

    Posted by mat  on  09/02  at  08:02 PM

  23. "All right we are two nations.”

    Dos Passos, commenting on the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, in “U.S.A.”

    How to translate this understanding into a real politics remains the problem. Me, I don’t have a clue, or much hope either.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  08:18 PM

  24. Oh, don’t get me started on the goddamn antiwar demonstrations, Abby.  If you’re talking about the notorious “Free Iraq/ Mumia/ Palestine/ Willy” lack of focus, I’ve been there, done that.  I meant something on a smaller scale.  Like, for instance, if Frist really does go ahead with the estate-tax vote, can’t some clever Disrupters break into the Senate, onto the floor, and cover Frist and the Senate Republicans with barrels of water culled from downtown New Orleans?  Kind of like a Gatorade tribute?

    Now that’s focus.

    And jackd, sorry for not getting back to you earlier.  Don’t exaggerate or distort in your use of shorthand, Dr. B.  The war part they do pretty well, given that all they do is point the armed services at the target and pull the metaphorical trigger.

    I think you’re confusing “waging war” with “blowing shit up.” The Bush Administration is, I admit, very good at the latter.  But waging war actually involves bouts of diplomacy and post-invasion planning.  “Bo-ring,” said the Dauphin as he was fitted for his monogrammed flight suit.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/02  at  08:29 PM

  25. well, let’s be honest, ‘Natural Disaster President’ just doesn’t have the same panache that ‘War President’ does, so no wonder that our Fearless Leader doesn’t have the same swagger and ‘take charge’ attitude that was (supposedly) on display after 9-11…

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  08:59 PM

  26. Kanye West just basically said what needed to be said, “George Bush doesn’t like black people.”

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  10:04 PM

  27. Waching all this stuns me, and I thought I was passed being able to be stunned by these fools. 

    mat: Some libertarians are claiming that it is the perversion of small government (the small covers disasters and war, everything else is up for debate).  Now, I find that most unpersuasive and highly self-congratulatory.  See Sullivan today, the 2nd. 

    The modern republican party is so nakedly interested in power and so nakedly uninterested in governing. 

    I could be wrong, and I wonder what others think, but it seems like the milk has turned for Republicans.  The disgust of so many journalists normally disposed to roll over for this adminstration, the number of conservatives fuming at the incompetence and what it exposes about our readiness to defend against terrorist attacks (let alone disasters). 

    Has the hangover worn off finally?  And if so, why did it take something this stupendously awful to make it happen?

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  10:08 PM

  28. Speaking of John Edwards, he’s got an essay about the two Americas as shown in NO over at TPM Cafe.

    Posted by Linkmeister  on  09/02  at  10:21 PM

  29. During a short stint living in Orange County CA in the ‘80’s, I came to believe that the bumbling ideologues and nut jobs elected to office out there were basically a manifestation of the fundamental contempt that “Wing 1” Republicans had for government in any form. I still think there is an element of truth in that - but in retrospect, congressmen like Dannemayer and Dornan were bellwethers of the coming modern Republican onslaught. Dannemeyer was a Beta release of Rick Santorum
    (see http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/dc/dcdocuments09.htm)
    while Dornan was well and truly whacked on many fronts - http://www.bobdornan.com/ .

    [For a really wonderful and thread-relevant two-for-one on these guys, I strongly urge you to read “Why Bob Dornan Should Be President” By William Dannemeyer, here : http://www.angelfire.com/il/Dornan/Dannemeyer.html - notice the contempt expressed for GOP stalwarts of the day.]

    Today their behaviors would have them in the leadership rather than the nutty margins of the party, plus the “Wing 1 ers” themselves have opted for a more active looting of the common good.

    And I can’t help trying to think of a potential “Wing 1 and Wing 2”, Cat-in-the-Hat parody, but can’t figure out who/what is the fish.
    ... dunno, maybe Objective Reality.

    Posted by  on  09/02  at  10:46 PM

  30. Hey, Doc:  Indianapolis is a Democratic city now, although I admit our Democrats look a lot like other people’s Republicans, just ethnically diverse.  Though the administration might just plan to save it provided they get the hang of getting black people onto buses and shuttling them somewhere.

    And our mayor’s pretty good at givin’ Mitch Daniels fits, although it turns out if you just wait a few days he’ll have ‘em all by himself.

    Posted by Doghouse Riley  on  09/02  at  10:50 PM

  31. I love it when you call him the Dauphin. So completely perfect.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  09/02  at  11:46 PM

  32. Ben, waiting for Democrats on this might be a little like waiting for a rescue bus outside the New Orleans Convention Center.

    Couldn’t agree with you more, Michael. That’s why I’m a Green.  I’m just amazed at others’ continued willingness to play Vladimir and Estragon for the Democratic Party.  Well? Shall we go?

    Posted by  on  09/03  at  03:28 AM

  33. It’s the same problem we have in elections. Some of us less prone to introspection are just never, ever going to really absorb that an affectation of vague Cheeverishness in politicians may push all your class signifier buttons in a comforting way but it’s not a virtue or a theory of governance and it doesn’t make anyone a good person or a competent one and it probably has an inverse relationship to good governance (and probably to competent journalism and news analysis, come to think of it).

    The only thing surprising about the response to Katrina is that rats eating dead bodies in the streets while babies die of dehydration has actually breached the reality bubble around some of the usual suspects.

    Posted by  on  09/03  at  07:09 AM

  34. Michael: “I meant something on a smaller scale.  Like, for instance, if Frist really does go ahead with the estate-tax vote, can’t some clever Disrupters break into the Senate, onto the floor, and cover Frist and the Senate Republicans with barrels of water culled from downtown New Orleans?  Kind of like a Gatorade tribute?”

    If this the kind of parodic political action Judith Butler’s work suggests, I’d like to change my vote from Nussbaum to Butler, please.

    Posted by  on  09/03  at  09:08 AM

  35. I’m just amazed at others’ continued willingness to play Vladimir and Estragon for the Democratic Party.  Well? Shall we go?

    Ben, I feel your pain.  I’ve gone twice, once to the Citizens Party and once to the New, as I noted above.  But the Greens, alas, are worse than a circular firing squad.  Let me know when the Camejo Greens finally do split off officially from the Cobb Greens, or whether a new faction will form the Greener-Than-Thou Party or join forces with David McReynolds.  The appropriate Beckett reference here, I’m afraid, involves not Vladimir and Estragon but Hamm and Clov.

    Don’t get me wrong—I like the Greens politically.  But as an actual force in the country, beyond electing city council members in Portland or Madison, there’s just no hope there.  Sadly enough.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/03  at  10:24 AM

  36. Count me among the Bérubé Greens.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/03  at  10:50 AM

  37. Denver votes Democratic, and anglos, as they are known out here (the word ‘anglo’ can carry respect or disdain or simply describe, much like ‘Mexican’, depending on how you use it) are in the minority.  The southern suburbs are a different story, Tancredo country, although the water supply there will run out there in ten or twenty years and Colordo will create another run of ghost towns.
    This is why Nussbaum is right.  The intelligent and accomplished, the academics and ideaworkers in America can’t survive, and I mean this literally, they cannot make it through the week, without the truck drivers and the grocery store stockers and utility workers.  If we are in this together, then commit to it.  Gregorio.

    Posted by  on  09/03  at  11:03 AM

  38. Chris, Chris, I thought you were with me in the Red Party.  After all, it was you who penned the Ballad of the Hemp Beret, which has rightly been called the single best blog comment ever written.

    Don’t think the Red Party has folded its (very small) tent just yet, people.

    Posted by  on  09/03  at  11:26 AM

  39. So you’ve changed your mind about that splinter caucus, then?

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/03  at  11:34 AM

  40. On the Halliburton gig:

    http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685

    What’s David Brooks gonna’ do:

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html

    As for myself, I am deeply saddened by these events. 

    The way I see it, the nation—considered as an abstract geopolitical entity responsible for the welfare of its citizens—has failed. Just how that failure is to be apportioned among individuals and organizations of all kinds, that is a difficult matter to figure out. But the fact of national failure is obvious.

    This should not have happened. It was preventable given our expertise, knowledge, and resources. This failure is evidence that we are not ready for life in the 21st century.

    Had the nation been healthy, the soul searching and reorganization in the wake of 9/11, would have made us less vulnerable to a natural force like that embodied in Katrina. Instead, it looks like that exercise had all the effectiveness of a Keystone Cops routine.

    As for New Orleans looking like a third-world disaster area.  That’s the ugly truth about structural poverty in this country.  Our geo-social fabric is riddled with third world enclaves while CEOs make 100s of times what their employees do and yet don’t have to deliver value to their shareholders.

    Will the Nation finally awaken to the fact that it is gravely ill?

    Posted by bill benzon  on  09/03  at  11:51 AM

  41. I want to comment that the Democrats (my party) are not too wonderful either. These politicians have all learned how to think and talk a certain way - and it looks like they have all gotten out of touch with what is right and wrong.

    Posted by  on  09/04  at  02:20 PM

  42. An excellent point, pwax.

    Others have noted that many on government assistance routinely run out of money in the last half of the month, as checks are disbursed on the first. The storm hit on the 29th. It’s likely that a few people who would have been able to leave before Cinton’s Welfare Reform package were not able to do so last month, for lack of the twenty bucks necessary to buy enough gas to get you past Baton Rouge.

    And that’s saying nothing of the people Welfare Reformers dumped unceremoniously from the rolls. It’s a good thing there was enough blood spilled on the Gulf to mark the hands of everyone that deserves it.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  09/04  at  02:41 PM

  43. The war part they do pretty well, given that all they do is point the armed services at the target and pull the metaphorical trigger

    Sorry, Jackd, but you’re wrong. 

    War is the pursuit of political goals by other means; it is the ability to use it to reach political objectives which determines effectiveness.  Blowing shit up and killing people as an end in itself is butchery.

    It’s like the difference between doing an operation on someone and just slicing away with a scalpel for the sheer fun of it..

    Posted by  on  09/04  at  09:21 PM

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