Comfortable Disappearance

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve made a political rant, but I can’t help myself this week…

Thomas Friedman wrote an interesting piece in the NY Times this week about how Osama and Katrina perfectly portray the bookends of the Presidency:

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush’s back, Katrina’s put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it’s exposed here at home.

And no, this is not about politicizing a disaster. It’s about pointing out the faults in an Administration’s policies. It is unfortunate that the situation has to coincide with the horrible situation in the Gulf States. My heart goes out to the individuals there suffering from Katrina’s wrath. However, that does not mean that this situation should not be a learning experience for Americans. The mainstream media does a good enough job of narrow their focus, and I think that everyone needs to remember that human beings has the capability to focus on multiple things at a time. Although, it appears the Bush Administration cannot utilize the full range of human emotion. As Friedman says:

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending “intelligent design” as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

I think a great companion piece after reading Friedman’s article, is a piece by his colleague Paul Krugman, also, yes, of the NY Times. His piece points out yet more similarities between the two unfortunate situations, and says:

(a)ll that’s missing from the Katrina story is an expensive reconstruction effort, with lucrative deals for politically connected companies

Well, unfortunately, it appears that deals for politically connected companies have already occured. Many of you will recall that Cheney was CEO of Halliburton.

I wish I could say that Cheney’s governmental relationship with Halliburton ended there…You may also recall that Cheney was Defense Secretary under the Bush 41. In that position Cheney:

chose Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to study the cost effectiveness of outsourcing some military operations to private contractors. Based on the results of the study, the Pentagon hired Brown & Root to implement an outsourcing plan.

I bet you’ll never guess when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton…yup, after leaving the Pentagon.

Well, there ya have it. It frustrates me to no end that people do not admit this is a ridiculous situation. The impropriety is clearly evident, at least to me.

Thanks for listening, until next time…