The storm that blew away a President.
It is a fairly popular misconception that people, parties or presidential candidates win elections. But this isn’t true. History demonstrates that where Western democracies are concerned, it is regimes who lose power, lose support and lose the confidence of the people. The
George W Bush was a man who won, because Al Gore was so stupid and arrogant that he firstly wasn’t prepared to take advantage of the democratic voters affinity for Bill Clinton and secondly that he was incapable of making his mind up. What were the democrats thinking supporting a preppy, money lawyer whose writings famously could not be distinguished from the Unabomber? What were the Democrats thinking when they put up that other guy against George? How could they imagine that the floating majority of the electorate would be engaged to vote for such a candidate? When the election was over, what were the democrats thinking pursuing him over the war in
How unfortunate it is then that Hurricanes are neither white or middle class. How unfortunate it is that almost everyone who was against George seemed to have forgotten that he was the accidental President, that he appeared to be the sort of man who didn’t respond terribly well in crisis, that he seemed to be the sort of man who had, as a result of the 9 11 attack, greatness thrust upon him.
How very unfortunate.
Sometime in the very near future a report will be published and it will condemn a collection of bumbling inadequate officials and politicians and show that the original evacuation order was too little to late and that no provision was made to take care of anyone who wasn’t white middle class with lots of insurance. It will show that in order to conceal the completely inadequate response of the wealthiest nation on Earth, to a natural disaster, the looters were held to blame. It will show that while George appeared on television rambling on about his pride, his gratitude and organisations of faith, two or possibly three helicopters were parked behind him doing nothing. It will ask the question how come the
Add to this, oil at $70 a barrel gas at §3-4 a (US) gallon and a fairly liberal US media who are this very moment gathering stories of such heart rending suffering and tragedy that people will talk about nothing else for the next few months. Every single person who feels that they have had a rough deal in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina will tell at least twenty other people of their negative experience and the storm of public opinion will roll on as the shame and astonishment that the US appears to respond to a natural disaster on a par less than that of a developing nation.
It only took one word from Spiro Agnew, “deadbeats” to turn a majority of Americans against the Vietnam War. In the next few weeks a few more Americans than usual could suddenly find themselves sharing an opinion with Michael Moore.
The effect of all this will be to tarnish the President in a way that no anti war campaign could. It exposes his southern political associates as either being incapable of running a state or defending civilisation or both. It exposes him as someone lacking the necessary abilities of a leader of a nation, and clearly unable or unwilling to use the power available to the chief executive to respond faster. None of this needs to be true. It simply has to look like that.
The mud which is only just beginning to fly in the
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