It is thought crass to talk openly of the political implications of the New Orleans disaster--unless you are bashing Bush--but sooner or later someone is going to notice that it is the Democrats who face the greatest peril in the aftermath: they may very well lose a Senate seat next year.
Both Mary Landreau in 2000, and Gov. Blanco in 2002, owed their small margin of victory to large turnout from New Orleans. Now probably 200,000 or more of those Democratic voters have been relocated out of state. It is doubtful many of them will be back in New Orleans by election day next year. Some may never return. An absentee voting effort might work, but it will be hard to reach and mobilize that large a diaspora. If the Bush administration can do a decent job of throwing money at the reconstruction (how hard is that?), they may be able to cover up the black eye they got for the chaotic and ineffective response of last week.
I can’t want to read the MoveOn and DU posts about how this was part of a Karl Rove plot to disperse Democratic voters so that the GOP can steal another Senate seat.
Steve, you won’t have long to wait. It all starts with Kyoto...Karl Rove and his idiot/savant Bush actually have a complex formula for predicting extreme weather (taken from a brilliant Hungarian scientist who they killed for the secret). Step one was waiting for the right storm. Step two, weakening the levees. Step three, using their newly-acquired "mind ray" to convince only blacks to stay in New Orleans.
Wouldn’t surprise me one damned bit if we see something like this in the DU or Kos today or tomorrow. The looney-tune Left can always be counted on to lend an ear to the most appalling drivel.
Yup, Dain, you nailed it. Mickey Kaus has the details (scroll down).
Perhaps FEMA should distribute tinfoil hats along with food and water.
Sen. Landrieu’s seat is not up until 2008, but beyond that I concur with your comments
Fung, I swear you’re bipolar. Sometimes you’re playfully stupid (and entertaining), but at other times you are mean, bitter and crazed. This is one of those times. How anyone could make the comments you’ve just made while ignoring the dog-piling Bush has been forced to endure from the Left over this tragedy...well, you must be blind as well as stupid.
Good riddance, jackass. I won’t miss your "projections" one bit.
I think the Democrats will find a way for these people to vote in Louisiana if they say they plan to return. Democrats have a way of screaming and getting what they want. The thing to watch is how many have permanently relocated outside Louisiana by 2007.
To Mr. or Ms. "Fung," lose the self-righteousness. The Katrina aftermath is political because it is a massive public event involving public authority and its use or abuse. It is impossible to understand certain aspects of this without getting into politics.
As far as I’m concerned, Democratic local and state officials have failed, and have been trying to point the finger at Bush and his administration -- a bad habit that’s at least as hard to break as smoking, or junk.
Fung: I’m not sure what blog you’re reading, but we’ll miss you anyway.
Now, remember, this is Louisiana, and we are talking about Democrats. If those people are on the voting rolls now, you can be sure they will be voting in the next state election, regardless if they have "relocated" to another state or another level of being. Heck, I’d bet a goodly portion of the registered Democrats in New Orleans weren’t even aware of Hurricane Katrina until the flooding hit the cemetaries.
Hey Dain, I guess you didn’t have an agreement with Fung as well, huh?
Fung, I don’t know if you’ll read this or not, (since you’ve apparently sworn off NLT), but I don’t think you should quit. While I certainly don’t blame you for feeling the way you do, you must admit that debating with these guys can be kind of entertaining. Take a few days off and reconsider- you’re a good ally and we’d hate to lose you.
That’s right, Phil, I DIDN’T have an agreement with Fung. I expect he’ll be back...if not, I expect we can live without his pontification.
As with 9/11, the Dems are viewing the aftermath of Katrina as just another subplot to the larger exercise of "What can we do or say this week to destroy George W. Bush?"--a game they’ve been playing (mainly to their own detriment) ever since the spring of 2000. Hillary is already bleating about oversight hearings. But that’s not playing politics with human tragedy, right? She’s all about selfless truth-seeking I suppose, and in between her sniping at FEMA she’ll be asking a lot of tough questions about the disaster-planning and emergency-preparedness efficacy of the corrupt Democratic political machine that’s been running south Louisiana as a one-party fiefdom for the last century or so. Right . . . and as Wayne Campbell would say, "Monkey’s might fly outta my butt, too."
"Louisiana and New Orleans have received a total of about $750 million in federal emergency and terrorism preparedness grants in the last four years, Homeland Security Department officials said."- from PJC’s post regarding Mark Steyn’s article.
Now Mayor Nagin, Guvner Blanco and Sen. Landreau where did all that cash go? H’mmmmm?
If Fung somehow thinks we’re extreme or unreasonable, he should see this piece, by Steve Sailer, which is guaranteed to send him into orbit.
Like Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and JPod at The Corner, this strikes me as a rather irresponsible piece.
As Fung stalks off in a hissy fit, I recall his recent deluded attempts to defend Cindy Sheehan as some kind of Mother Courage truth-teller.
I myself had been inclined to excuse Sheehan herself as deranged by grief. Now I’m not so sure. This John Leo column has chapter and verse on Sheehan’s poisonous and quite deliberate leftist ideological extremism (she even calls the terrorists who killed her son "freedom fighters"), and the lamestream media’s persistent cover-up of same:
https://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/printjl20050906.shtml
Sheehan is "inexcusable" whether she is deranged or not.
To me, there’s a very fine line between genuine derangement and ideological derangement with some of these lefties. She’s certainly one or the other, and certainly an utter disgrace.
"Some may never return." Especially if what mayor what’shisname said is true. He claims he couldn’t use those buses in AP photo to evacuate people out of NO because other LA cities wouldn’t accept the evacuees.
The truth about NOLA is that it is a relatively compact working port and historic tourist attraction surrounded by what amounts to a vast, welfare-subsidized North American version of a bidonville.
Many of the residents of that bidonville will probably never go back. What little they had has been destroyed, and many of them live on the dole, meaning that there are no businesses or careers or even self-owned homes for them to rebuild or resume. They will be enrolled for welfare benefits in or relatively near the various places where they have wound up, and will prefer life on the dole in this or that above-sea-level locale to life on the dole in a place where they might have to face floodwaters again. Who can blame them, given what they’ve been through? Besides, given what the insurance ramifications of such a massively catastrophic event in such a concentrated area must be (how many of the buildings we’ve seen sunk to the rafters this past week will be salvageable?) one wonders if landlords will even reconstruct much of the rental-housing stock where these poor folks once lived.
Since the votes to be harvested (or manufactured) in the bidonville part of NOLA were basically what was keeping the Democratic Party alive as a going state-level concern in Louisiana, this is not good news for the Democrats.
According to John Barry’s book "Rising Tide," the great lower Mississippi River Valley flood of 1927 robbed NOLA of much of its vitality and turned it into something of a backwater. This latest catastrophe may intensify and extend essentially the same effect on the city. Whole American towns, albeit smaller than NOLA, have in effect been wiped out by flooding never to really recover: Harper’s Ferry, WV, being one example.
Especially if what mayor what’shisname said is true. He claims he couldn’t use those buses in AP photo to evacuate people out of NO because other LA cities wouldn’t accept the evacuees.
Anyone who actually believes this guy is hopeless. I highly doubt it is true, but even if it was it still does not explain why he didn’t move the bus to higher ground so the evacuation could start immediately (moments) after the hurricane went through. This just all goes back to the mayor’s inability to lead trying to point the finger at someone else.
Furthermore, if it is true why is he not on T.V. saying that Baton Rouge.. etc. (run by democrats) were the one who refused. He wants to point the blame elsewhere but won’t name anyone becuase he has none or was instructed (by the DNC) to be vague and not to point the finger at anyone except Bush (the only one who has actually done something)
Lets notice the correlation here. Everyone I am sure is thinking it so I will say it.
9/11 happens. The city is in chaos, but the leadership of the mayor and the governor shine through and you see the smoothest possible evacuation handling of the situation. Both the mayor and governor are Republicans.
New Orleans has several days notice that a category 5 storm is heading its way. The mayor and governor do nothing. Then, Bush calls the mayor and governor personally to persuade them to order a mandatory evacuation. The mandatory evacuation is called and the mayor takes his own advice and leaves the city. He does not stay to oversee the evacuation of thousands (which his own plans call for)and they suffer because of it. The governor, refuses to ask for the assistance of the regular army (which could have arrived in a mere hours to evacuate people.) and to this day is still on standby because the governor refuses to ask. Both the mayor and governor are Democrats.
Need I say more?
NRO has a story almost identical to the point I was trying to make in comment #20.
Once again, "....," you have only a foggy grasp of reality. Mayor Nagin WAS in New Orleans during the hurricane. Where was Dubya? Oh, that’s right, he was off in California doing important business! And was this guy a Democrat? Aren’t Republicans the ones whining about how we shouldn’t politicize such a tragedy, blah blah blah?
Nagin was in Baton Rouge during the storm. He went back to NO after the storm stopped. You need a grip of reality Phil. Furthermore, FEMA did send out people before and after the realization came that it was going to worse they asked for 1,000 more Homeland Security officials. It should be noted to that the FEMA documents clearly state the additional support they would supply if and only if asked.
Phil, if I have a foggy grasp of reality maybe you should look in the mirror because it almost seem like you are defending this guy. Furthermore, did you even read the piece I posted.
I should also note Phil that you dodged away from orginal point. The point was about the local officials and governors who are the ONES PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE for relief. The federal governments response should be assistance to the mayor and governors plans. Plans which they had but unfortuantely did not follow. Leaving the federal gov’t to do everything because the leaders of the area who KNOW THE CITY BEST failed to lead and failed to follow even though own plans.
failed to follow even though own plans.
should read as follows: failed to follow even their own plans.
Setting aside the question of whom the public blames for the handling of the disaster, this also has to be considered a deep blow to the corrupt Democrat political machine in LA.
This is obvious and there is nothing wrong with mentioning it as a fact. No one is gloating over this fact. At the national level this has only marginal significance.
Well, I suppose a Level 4 or 5 hurricane coming off Lake Michigan isn’t likely...darn.
Dain, I suppose comment 27 is another of your hilarious jokes! "Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if all those stupid liberals in Chicago would get wiped out by a hurricane so then everyone would think just like me and the world would be perfect?" Now go ahead and spout your usual blather about how I need to get a sense of humor.
Phil...you need to go buy a sense of humor. I get the distinct feeling that you just don’t have "the right stuff" to develop one on your own.
RE: Comment 14
"a rather irresponsible piece"??? You don’t say!! Disgusting. I bet VDare is a secret pleasure for you (and plenty of NLT readers as well).
RE: Comments 27& 28.
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t Dain making a joke about cleaning up the corrupt city of Chicago NOT about getting rid of people that don’t agree with him?
"...." I didn’t ask you, but if you want to poke you nose in, then can you kindly explain to me how it’s ever funny (but especially right after a terrible hurricane) to joke about a hurricane hitting a big city? Even if he meant that it would "clean up the corrupt (which I suppose means "liberal" in this case) city of Chicago?"
Yea, you’re right, Phil. Nuthin’ funny about it at all. Nuthin’ funny about M.A.S.H., or Hogan’s Heros, or any of those dark comedies where people use horrible backdrops to entertain (e.g., Return of the Living Dead). Yep, I gotta hand it to you, Phil...your sense of the comedic is superbly fine-tuned!
In all seriousness, as Robert Heinlein pointed out in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, we laugh at things that are too painful to cry about. Comedy and tragedy are linked at the hip, as the Greeks understood. So, Phil, lighten up, will ya?
Phil,
In case you didn’t realize it you are on A BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t need nor care for your permission. FURTHERMORE, I NEVER said it was appropriate. I was pointing out that what you wrote in your response to Dain about his comment was incorrect. Once again it was a joke about the corruption not people who don’t agree with him.
Well,
Now the Mayor, Mary Landreau and Gov. Blanco really need those buses. How are the folks supposed to vote if they are living in Texas and elsewhere?
Can’t find the link, but it seems Senator Mary got out the buses in 96 when she was way behind in the polls.
Vote early and vote often, the democrat way.