OUTRAGEOUS!


I grew up there...I went to Tulane...my family is from there...


Dennis Hastert pisses on a 300 year old city

Nice going Hastert. You show the Republican Party's true colors. It really shows Republican courage and resolve in the face of adversity. But even better it means that Bush's legacy will be that he would become the first president to stand by and allow a major city to die. Now that's what I call a Republican!!!

Are we watching 50 years of conservative movement being undone by one disaster?  Bush is looking not up to the task, Hastert and others are revealing their shallowness and lack of compassion, and the whole thing underscores just how important government is to the lives of Americans.  It's the sort of thing that can shift the whole tone of national debate when it comes to the role government plays in our lives.  Dem leadership, are you seeing this?  What will you do?

As insular as Republican attitudes are, this comment will carry absolutely no weight, but consider how it would be received if one of the very top people in the Italian government were to say, "Parts of Venice are flooded every single year, and it's suffered major floods in the past. It's time to give up." People wouldn't just talk about such a decision in barebones cost-benefit terms--there'd be outrage that someone could consider giving up the culture, art, architecture, and so forth that the city represents. He'd become a posterboy for duncehood. Not that Republicans are lacking candidates for the job.

It may not be the most rational choice to rebuild New Orleans, but it's something that needs to be done. Think about saying, twenty years from now, "Oh, the birthplace of jazz? That was New Orleans, but it's gone now." Or "Those were the days. . .remember the Berlin Wall? The Great Barrier Reef? The French Quarter in New Orleans?" Talking about giving up on New Orleans now is like buying a gravestone for a sick relative, a gravestone that will be prominently visible to everyone for the rest of our lives.

Your comment brings to mind the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. How, many people asked at the time, could God destroy one of the most pious cities in all of Europe? Is there a God? Are we somehow missing something? The quake became a major catalyst for the questioning of Christian dogma that swept Europe over the next ninety-or-so years.

I hope this horrific event wakens some conservative voters to the unbelievable incompetence and sheer misanthropy of this alleged administration.

It may need to be rebuilt in a way that better deals with the conditions, but the Port of New Orleans needs to exist or the economy of probably everything east of the Rockies needs to be restructured.

I hope this horrific event wakens some conservative voters to the unbelievable incompetence and sheer misanthropy of this alleged administration.

It's not about Bush.  It's about conservatism itself, the notion that government screws everything up, that the market is the source of all things good in society, and everything else is an evil that at times, one must hold one's nose and tolerate because there's no other way to do it.  It's Reagan with his sarcastic joke about, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."  And yes, to a degree, it's about our own Bill Clinton saying, "The era of big government is over."

Is it now politically safe to abandon those attitudes, to turn around the whole "tax and spend liberal" thing that has dogged Democrats for 25 years?  Bush is a nothing, an embarrassing footnote in the history book of our country.  The enemy here is conservatism, and this event demonstrates one of the key weaknesses of the conservative ideology.  If you are accustomed to thinking of the government as the enemy, then you are likely to be ill-equipped to make use of the government when it is necessary, and to keep the government in the state of readiness it requires if it is to remain effective.  To quote Bill Clinton again, this from his 1992 campaign: "If you aren't going to use the power of the government, let me."  It's more than a rallying cry; it's a mantra, and Dems should start chanting it with a religious fervor.      

Is it really worthwhile to continue to feed Denny Hastert?  

Comparing New Orleans to tornado alley or the west coast is plainly ignorant. Yes, the same kind of disasters are possible, but not in the same degree, not as likely.  Earthquakes are sensational, but those of us who understand them know that, by comparison, very little damage is done every 100 years.  Same goes for tornadoes -- when has one EVER destroyed a whole city.

 As for Breaux's comparison to the Chicago fire, all you have to do is not build the houses out of wood so close together.  Is there a magic bullet for NO? Nope. Sorry. One day, one way or another, that place is doomed. So, I ask, really, what's more compassionate? Telling people to face reality and move somewhere safer, or giving them false hope that they are safe somewhere they aren't?

 P.S. Maybe there will never be another hurricane like this in 100 years and Rush Limbaugh is right about global warming.  But, it sure seems like terrorists just learned something about levees. How easy it would be...

But, whatever, again, go ahead people milk it to hurt Hastert. 

Libertine: 

          &nbsp ;   >> as God is my witness

I am not God but I am your witness. Yes, Michael Brown said just that!

Not only they're incompetent, but they lie, too!

It's utterly sick.

I am not God but I am your witness. Yes, Michael Brown said just that!

Not only they're incompetent, but they lie, too!

It's utterly sick.

Thanks for assuring me I wasn't hearing things noblesseoblige.  They are pathological...I agree, utterly sick!!!

that Orleans Parish voted overwhelmingly against Bush in 2000 and '04?  Most of the rest of the state is reliably Red -- Orleans is Blue to the core.  I just wonder if Bush's and Hastert's nonchalance might be related to that fact?

If only to develop a consensus around a rebuilding plan that will protect the city from future hurricanes.

But abandoning the city is not an option.  Turn it into "New Venice" before trying to move this historic and cultural center.

Hastert is a prick, but I think he brings up a fair point.  New Orleans is located in an area which is under a persistent threat of such disasters.  People were earlier loving the article by, I believe it was Mooney over at American Prospect, predicting that such a disaster could take place and blaming Bush for not following through on such recomendations.  Well, if the area really is under such a threat, how much sense does it make to invest an incredible amount of taxpayer money to rebuild a city that has a higher than ordinary chance of having to be similarly aided in the future.  It may be insensitive to bring this point up during such a disaster, but it is in times like these that people are moved by appeals to emotion to make unreasonable decisions.  At the very least there should be a civil discussion.

 And the compariosn of New Orleans to Chicago, on the basis of the Chicago fire, is completely ridiculous.  I won't speak to the comparison of NO to certain areas in California, but the Chicago comparison is intellectually dishonest.
 

 Most of the rest of the state is reliably Red -- Orleans is Blue to the core.

 Sort of gives gerrymandering and redistricting a new meaning.

Hastert shouldn't have said it while New Orleans is in the condition it is in. There is no doubt it was tremendously insensitive and downright creepy.

Nonetheless, when we actually do get down to the issue of whether to rebuild, I do think that people should not underestimate what the problems are actually going to be. First, nobody seems to know exactly how to drain the city.  Second, even after the city is drained, we are talking about a city covered in a toxic, disease-ridden muck, where just about all the buildings are now potentially structurally compromised. There is probably a substantial amount of toxic wastes in the soil as well, and there's no way to get them out except the passage of time. And, of course, there's the issue of how to protect any rebuilt city against future floods.

The point is, it may very well turn out-- terrible as this is to contemplate-- that the right decision is NOT to rebuild. But this is something to consider in the future, after we have taken care of the (considerable) problems at hand.

Once again, the left-leaning bloggers are full of connections to Bush policy and the scale of disaster in NO, but most papers around the country are focusing on gas prices and looters now...

Imagine if Kerry had gone to NO on Tuesday and offered to help out...the Republicans are bad, but the Demos are totally incompetent when it comes to understanding what gets  into the news most Americans see.

To hear Hastert coolly contemplating their future in terms of economics is beyond insulting -- beyond disgusting.

I agree. You have this sinking feeling that next he's going to say that the economic costs and risk to rescue personnel of going into New Orleans to get people out immediately are just too high, and that hurricane victims should be patient--we rescue people with the National Guard we have, not what we would like. Okay, maybe even Hastert wouldn't be so callous, but his talking about cutting New Orleans loose while people are sitting in befouled water contemplating their personal and economic ruin. . .it's too much.

Either way, the South won't soon forget how its government abandoned it during this moment of crisis.  urizon