Bush and Katrina: The devastation I saw was very emotional

Bush can no longer, if he ever could, distinguish between the real world and what goes on inside his chimp-like head: “The devastation I saw was very emotional. It is so devastating it is hard to describe it.”

He said, “I just can’t imagine waving a sign that says ‘Come and get me now.’” Well he doesn’t need to: every time he gets that little pouty look like he’s about to cry, Dick Cheney comes running up to get him.

He wants “zero tolerance” for looting and insurance fraud, and suggests that citizens “take personal responsibility [advice from the master of personal responsibility] and assume a kind of a civic sense of responsibility so that the situation doesn’t get out of hand, so people don’t exploit the vulnerable.” Like Wal-Mart. So he wants vigilantism now. “Zero tolerance” (including the shifting of New Orleans police from rescue operations to anti-looting) privileges property over people.

(Update: a reporter asked McClellan if zero tolerance applies to the many people who have received no aid and are “looting” food and water. Scotty says yes, because he insists the relief effort is perfectly adequate and “There are ways for them to get that help. Looting is not the way for them to do it.” Basically, they’re too lazy to make their way to wherever the aid is and are just taking the easy way out, just like they were too lazy or stupid or stubborn to evacuate. Fucker.)

Or possibly the vulnerable person Bush didn’t want exploited was himself, as he fashioned the disaster into another shield behind which to hide from criticism: “I hope people don’t play politics at this time of a natural disaster”. Yes, let’s not mention the National Guard units sent to Iraq or the money shifted away from flood control projects to, again, Iraq, or the complete falsity of his claim that “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” (a sentence that would have been completely truthful had he just stopped after the third word). “And what we need to do as a nation is come together to solve the problem and not play politics. There’ll be ample time for politics.” Yeah and he’ll be sure to tell us when that time comes and it is okay to criticize him again.

Also, this is not a “problem” that can be “solved.” That phrasing suggests yet again Bush’s short attention span. He thinks this can be solved so he can move on to something else.

Showing a keen understanding and that incisive grasp of events that we all know and love, he points out, “Nine-eleven was a manmade attack, this was a natural disaster.” But he loves all his criticism-deflecting catastrophes equally.