Saturday, September 03, 2005

Tweedle Frum

Here's David Frum complaining that Democrats are trying to get political mileage out of Hurricane Katrina and the shocking incompetance of the Bush administration in this situation.
Frum fumes:
"Good God, what is wrong with these people? Will they ever learn to see somebody else's misfortune as something more than their political opportunity?"

It's an interesting point, and one I usually agree with. I've argued fairly consistently that Bowling for Columbine, for example, (and actually most of Michael Moore's corpus) is grossly exploitive Phariseeism.. But, of course, it's hard not to think the same thing every time an administration member evokes 9-11 these days.

And I think Frum is wrong this time. Certainly, many of the attacks are totally invalid; I'm amazed at the assertion that Bush is responsible for the actual hurricane itself. But, we have the right to expect our elected officials to be able to handle a national emergency quickly and effectively. And they apparently cannot. What exactly have we been preparing for over the last four years if not a national emergency? What was the point of the Department of Homeland Security, if they can't handle such an emergency? Could we expect them to do any better if it was bin Laden that attacked New Orleans?

And I find it ridiculous that we're not supposed to criticize the administration for screwing up the things that they are directly responsible for. That they can hide behind this "Well, it's partisan if you criticize us!" bullshit to excuse the fact that they let a major American city descend into death and anarchy for days on end. To quote Frum: "What is wrong with these people?"

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