Yesterday the Heritage Foundation came out and essentially suggested that “President Obama should reach out to a senior republican official. Perhaps former President George W Bush to lead the bipartisan effort.”
Now Bill Clinton has been the UN special envoy or whatever the official title is, to Haiti for some time now. He already held that role. And so you know his jumping in and leading this thing both within the United Nations and within the United States and worldwide makes perfect sense.
But George W Bush? Isn’t this a little bit like inviting the underwear bomber to lead a campaign to raise money for airport security? I don’t get it. I know that the media is going to do their best to play this as 'isn’t this wonderful and bipartisan', you know, both sides are coming together on this. And, you know, I know the television right now is showing footage of Bush and Clinton walking together, yes we will do this together, isn’t this great, and maybe it will be a chance for George to redeem himself in the eyes of some people. He can do some nice humanitarian thing. Although there is that little sibling rivalry thing he’s gonna have with Bill Clinton since Clinton was sort of adopted by Bush’s father, HW as his surrogate son, you’ll recall, during the W presidency.
But consider the contrast. I mean this is one of the reasons why, frankly, as much as you will hear me and will continue to hear me share concerns with you about the Rahm Emanuel’s of the world in the White House and the Lawrence Summers’s of the world in the White House and the Tim Geithners of the world in the cabinet and things like that in the Obama administration, that I’m still very grateful that our President is not John McCain and our vice president, god forbid, is not Sarah Palin, that we have George W Bush, that George W Bush is out of the White House, and that we have Barack Obama in the White House.
Consider that on Friday August 26th of, oh what was the year of Katrina? I, you know that’s the one thing that’s missing from my timeline here. I’m sure somebody in the chat room will throw that at me, my recollection is it was 2005. But in any case on Friday August 26th that was the day that the governor, Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, declared a state of emergency. She saw Katrina coming. And on Friday she declares an emergency.
On Saturday Mississippi, that governor, Haley Barbour, declares an emergency. And Governor Blanco asks Bush to declare a federal state of emergency in Louisiana. On Saturday Katrina’s upgraded to a category 4 at 2 am and then at 7 am to a category 5 and that morning the newspapers in Louisiana say 'the levees are gonna go, look out'. This is Saturday August 28th.
On that afternoon Bush, Brown and Chertoff were all personally warned that the levees would probably fail by the director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Max Mayfield. So this is Sunday. 30,000. Now the storm is hitting. 30,000 people have gathered at the Superdome.
On Monday the Bush Administration is notified that the levees have been breached. We’re now what, 4 days into this? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, 4 days into it. Bush administration notified of the levee breach. Brown sends an email to the President saying ‘this is to put it mildly the big one I think.’ Mayfield, the guy from the National Hurricane Center, says ‘the levees are being topped’ and what does George W Bush do? He hops on a plane and flies to Arizona and has a birthday lunch with John McCain, cutting the cake with him as, you know, celebrating his birthday, gives a fundraising speech, and at 11am Michael Brown that day, finally requests, 4 days into this, that the Department of Homeland Security dispatch a thousand employees to the region of south Louisiana. And he says, 'but you have 48 hours to get there'. People are already dying.
After leaving John McCain’s place, George Bush goes to promote Medicare drug benefit at an Arizona resort telling all the people how this Medicare drug benefit that’s gonna benefit the insurance companies, United Healthcare in particular has made a fortune off this thing along with the AARP with the donut hole. He’s telling them, 'oh it’s a wonderful thing, look what I did for you'. 4:30 that afternoon he goes to California. Flies over to California, goes to a senior center to promote his Medicare drug benefit and then he goes to the San Padre’s baseball game that night. At 8pm that night Governor Blanco again, now this is Monday, she first requested an emergency and help on Friday then Saturday then Sunday this is Monday. She again formally requests, says, “Mr. President, we need your help, we need everything you’ve got.” That evening Bush goes to bed without responding to the governor.
Tuesday. Bush speaks on Iraq at the naval base in, he’s still in California, gives a speech on how Iraq is going well. The USS Bataan by the way is offshore New Orleans. As people are dying and drowning and does nothing. A 844-foot ship designed to dispatch U.S. Marines, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It can make up to a 100 gallons a day of its own water. It is not, the President does not request it to do anything. Instead that day, now we’re at Tuesday, 2 o’clock President Bush goes and plays guitar with country singer Mike Willis. And then that night he returns to Crawford for his vacation in Texas. He has still done nothing.
Wednesday, now we’re, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. People are still dying in New Orleans. You know over 1800 people officially died in New Orleans. More people died in this hurricane than died in 9/11. Wednesday FEMA requests ambulances that don’t exist. FEMA staff formally warns Brown that people are dying in the super dome. Tens of thousands of people are trapped there. And Bush decides that he should probably do a fly over, so he does his famous fly over. Right. This is the guy that’s gonna help us with Haiti?
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
