U.S. Gummint AWOL

It's been nearly six months since Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I have no idea how areas outside of New Orleans are faring, since the Corporate Media doesn't seem to want to say anything much about those po' folks out in Mississippi or along the coast in Cajun country, but from time to time, there's a bit here and there about NOLA. Mostly it's a few paragraphs here and there about how outside of the French Quarter and the majority of the Garden District, the city is struggling to recover. There was a bit of a brouhaha back around Thanksgiving time, when it became known that evacuees were about to be tossed from their hotel rooms and shelters, just in time for the holidays. Luckily someone was smart enough to want to avoid the PR associated with being a scrooge, and these hapless individuals and families were allowed to stay a bit longer. The new deadline's coming up any day now. Never mind the fact that FEMA had tons of trailers for use-- but instead of actually housing people, they've been sitting empty in Texarkana and in Hope, Arkansas. While part of the problem seems to be recalcitrance on the part of parishes and counties in Louisiana and Mississippi, it also doesn't seem like the gummint is getting overly involved in flexing some muscle to make things happen.

They also don't seem to be too helpful where the money is concerned, either. It was just announced that New Orleans will seek aid from outside the country, since our gummint doesn't seem too overly enthusiastic about repairing its own cities. I know Smirk will someday have an opportunity to have a nice afternoon lazing around on Trent Lott's rebuilt front porch, but one wonders how Lott's constituents feel about all this. Perhaps someone from the Corporate Media, or even better yet, our gummint, should go find out.

Now comes the most interesting (and frustrating, and sad, and crappy, and...) tidbit of all: Good ol' Brownie decided it was time for him to get his side of the story out, and according to him, our gummint, and more specifically, Smirk and Co. knew about the levee failures almost immediately. So where was Smirk? If you look at this timeline, you'll see he took his sweet time getting around to dealing with the situation. Let's see, both the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi declared states of emergency prior to landfall; a federal state of emergency was declared; the Mayor of New Orleans declared mandatory evacuations; and before Katrina fully arrived, Brownie, Smirk, and Chertoff were warned about levee failures by the National Hurricane Center. That was on Sunday, August 28th. It's not until September 1st that Smirk claimed no one could have foreseen the levees failing. In the meantime, he heads to Arizona to celebrate McCain's birthday (I think most of us could foresee Smirk being such a fool, but you have to wonder about John McCain-- what was he thinking??); goes to Coronado just south of here, where he strums a guitar (if you don't know what that is, it's a modern-era lyre); then he heads back to his "ranch" to finish his vacation. (I've spoken about Smirk's role as Nero, back when all this was happening)

Smirk's posse isn't much better. Scowl (aka Crashcart) is off on vacation somewhere in Wyoming; Scummy is attending a San Diego Padres game; and Lice is tripping the lights fantastic on the streets of New York. While none of the above are heads of FEMA, perceptions are just as important-- and in this case, the current bunch occupying DC has failed miserably. To me, our gummint went AWOL when Katrina landed, and so far, with the exception of Brownie, none has been fully taken to task.