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Ben Stein's response to the "blame Bush for everything" camp
posted at 2:50 PM  
Via Snopes, I found the article "Get Off His Back", written by Ben Stein on September 2 and updated on the 4th. It was nice to see rational thinking getting some play on the Internet for a change.
4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.
5.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.
[...]
8.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization.
9.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.
10.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.
Comments
Well, honestly, it is quite a bit of Bush's responsibility -- notice that I didn't say fault. FEMA exists for just this sort of thing -- how can we expect a city and state to take care of the damage from a storm that is the size of an entire state and unleashes the power of nuclear weapons? Bush's FEMA appointment is a joke -- he's a good old boy who had no credentials, just needed a job that paid him $200,000 a year, and Bush was happy to supply. Three of the four top appointments at FEMA were similarly qualified persons.
Certainly Bush doesn't deserve even a majority of the blame. The city and state were notoriously incapable. When the storm briefly hit 180mph winds, even I knew that this was a perfect storm headed for just the wrong place. The authorities just sat back and said, "Surely it's not going to be THAT bad." Well, it was.
Another thing I don't appreciate about Bush is that he took a five week vacation, or 'working' vacation as his handlers called it. Most Americans don't get more than two weeks (max three weeks) vacation a year, and here our president was taking five weeks back-to-back. Not good. And he should have flown back to Washington BEFORE the storm hit.
In short, the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisianna are little people leading poor places. The President of the United States is the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. We CAN hold him and his people to a higher standard, and we should. If the mayor and governor drop the ball, it's the place of the federal authorities to pick up that ball. And it's dubious to argue that this wasn't the feds job in the first place. This was a 'once in 500-year storm' (watch there be another one within 5 years) and we can't expect that local authorities can deal with its consequences. We have FEMA for a reason.
I'd never argue that anyone is blameless (we all make decisions that affect others, and we all make mistakes), but I have been getting tired of all the "See? Bush is stupid/evil!" rants that are fueled by passion more than by fact.
Here's another good article, that AJ linked.
This event was not a spontaneous disaster. This response was simply not adequate. Speed is not the defining quality of adequate. An effective response would have assured that relief and supplies got to the dome or those people stranded on elevated roads for days. An effective response would have known that thousands were in the convention center. This entire mobilization of government lacks the hint of professionalism and preparedness.
I think John is agreeing with you arguably or something. He doesn't seem to dispute your point that demonizing Bush isn't proper given the situation, but he doesn't want to simply admit that and let it go.
Kind of like those "You know I didn't mean to offend you" sorts of apologies. ;>
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