Category: Old Dish

That seems to me to be the buried lede in the NYT poll today. The public is now evenly spit on that question – which may reflect the success of the recovery effort since the initial debacle. The CBS poll showed that a week ago, 58 percent disapproved. Today that number is 50 percent. More whites approve than disapprove now (49 to 46 percent), although the damage that Katrina has done to Bush’s attempt to win over blacks is probably permanent. Yes, Bush’s general numbers are still the lowest of his presidency. But if you can have his record on the Iraq occupation and Katrina response and still get 40 percent approval, you have a pretty solid floor. My own view is that 35 percent of Americans would support him whatever he actually does. That’s how polarized we are.

“I was there for the Hitchens-Galloway debate last night. I’m a moderate lefty with uncompromising pro-regime change sentiments. Hitch came out and was his dazzling self. There is no one alive with his talent for disputation. He hit masterfully all the blunt and subtle points of the the pro-regime change argument. In response, Mr. Galloway stirred up a pep rally with buzz words catering to the lowest common denominator and, tragically, elicted cheers and raves. A sad night indeed. I see now, for once and all, the “left” is truly not interested in reason, logic, or even humanity. It’s a self-sustaining mob mentality of Bush hate and free-floating paranoia. I’m deeply disturbed by the anti-war factions feverish embrace of a man such as Galloway. I see the writing on the wall. The left has already become the right. They do not care about internationalism, freedom, or just causes. They walk around in search of another reason to denounce Halliburton. Dark dark days.”

The DP, beagle and I crashed at a friend’s place in NYC two nights ago on the way home from the Cape. Our friend lives in an apartment building with a very strange problem. He just got a formal letter from the building manager:

I am writing because one tenant is creating a truly ridiculous problem. We have repeatedly found used toilet paper at the bottom of the air shaft outside the window of the lowest apartments in the line. The only logical explanation seems to be that someone is throwing this used toilet paper out of their window. Whoever is doing this please stop at once. Not only is this unfair to the building staff who then have to clean it up, this is a terrible health hazard that could easily cause your neighbors to become sick. If the problem is that someone’s plumbing is not working properly we would be happy to fix it if you inform me that there is a problem. But if this problem continues I will install a video camera looking down the shaft and have whoever is responsible evicted.

If you peer out the window into the courtyard in the middle of the building, it’s festooned with white paper blobs with brown streaks – the paper soon turns into mush with rain. Existential statement? A response to bad plumbing? Or New York City?

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: “Perhaps today’s astounding Tom DeLay quote … about how there’s no way to cut the federal budget will offer a useful reminder to conservatives that while they may be aligned with Republican Congressional politicians, Republican Congressional politicians are just that — politicians first. There is too often a rush on to defend any and every GOP pol by conservative bloggers and e-mailers on the grounds that if they’re being attacked by the MSM, they’re victims of injustice. Sometimes, though, they’re just … indefensible.” – John Podhoretz, National Review Online. Like, er, when they cannot cope with a major urban catastrophe four years after 9/11?

Oodles of it. Liposuction, please, Mr DeLay.

He needs to go.

I just got back from the last leg of the drive from Ptown to DC and find Glenn Reynolds has had a conniption. He seems to think I was implying that, after he already knew that there had been an awful massacre in Iraq, he approvingly quoted an emailer talking about the “smashing success” of Bush’s Iraq policy. No I’m really not that stupid; and neither is Glenn. I was simply juxtaposing a recent piece of Iraq triumphalism quoted on Instapundit with the grim reality on the web a mere fifteen hours later. That’s all I meant by “today,” which is a failure of editorial sloppiness on my part. My apologies. Blogging on the road can lead to sloppiness. I’ve now amended the post to say “yesterday” – something made perfectly clear if you read the link. The point I was trying to make remains exactly as I meant it. As for “cheap shots,” calling a classical liberal a “Kos diarist” strikes me as a little, well, excitable.

This Knight-Ridder piece seems to argue that. Money quote:

Chertoff – not Brown – was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.
But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn’t shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

The head of DHS confused about his duties in a major disaster? Ahem.

“Today, I am just staggered by the Catholic Church’s new policy on “homosexual seminarians.” For all of the reasons you cited, I was surprised with this new policy. Perhaps what is most surprising to me, however, is what this policy says about what the leadership of the Catholic Church believes about the work of Christ.
I have always believed that Christ’s redemption is for all of humanity and that all “who are in Christ are a new creation.” Inherent in this policy is a belief that God’s grace and sanctification is not fully redemptive for gay and lesbian persons, whether we are celibate or enter into committed monogamous life-long relationships. It is as if the Church is redacting gay and lesbian persons from the rest of humanity, for whom the Gospel is sufficient.
Strangely, this policy not only demeans gay and lesbian persons, it also diminishes God. This new policy suggests that the efficacy of Jesus’ death and resurrection, sufficient to cover all sins and to regenerate the most reprobate of souls, simply cannot reach gay and lesbian persons. It is a sad day when the Church is willing to opt for a diminished Gospel and a smaller God rather than accept the basic humanity of gay and lesbian persons.
Praying for a Church that fully grasps the breadth and the depth of God’s love.”

It is particularly heart-breaking when the Church has already forcefully asserted the equal humanity and dignity of homosexual persons; and was built and sustained by the work, sweat, faith and love of so many gay priests, nuns, monks, bishops and popes.

Since I’ve been hammering the president over Katrina, it behooves me to say what I think he’s not responsible for. He’s not responsible for hurricanes. He’s not responsible for short-changing Louisiana on federal funds for relevant construction. He’s been pouring money into Louisiana for years now. He’s not responsible for the inadequate evacuation plans of the mayor and the stonewalling of the governor in allowing federal troops to pour in on time. He is responsible for not having a national plan in place that works to cope with disasters that wipe out the capacities of first-responders. After 9/11, that’s inexcusable. This is the scenario that Dick Cheney envisaged minutes after he heard about 9/11: that terrorists could attack a major U.S. city with much more devastating weaponry. That’s why we went into Iraq. Four years later, no real plan is in place. We are still on our own. After all that money poured into homeland defense, we still have no capacity to act swiftly to save lives after a major attack. This is not only a betrayal of his campaign promises; it’s a betrayal of war leadership; and, much worse, it’s an invitation to our enemies to attack. That’s why I endorsed his opponent last November: demonstrated incompetence. Iran, unsurprisingly, has noticed. Money quote:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been following closely the way the United States government has been handling Hurricane Katrina, and drawing strategic conclusions from it.

In remarks that appeared on Ansar-e Hezbollah website on Sunday, a top official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the devastating hurricane had exposed America’s vulnerabilities.

“The mismanagement and the mishandling of the acute psychological problems brought about by Hurricane Katrina clearly showed that others can, at any given time, create a devastated war-zone in any part of the U.S.”, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the official spokesman of the IRGC, said.

“If the U.S. attacks Iran, each of America’s states will face a crisis the size of Katrina”, he said, referring to the massive hurricane which hit the southern coast of the United States. “The smallest mistake by America in this regard will result in every single state in that country turning into a disaster zone”.

“How could the White House, which is impotent in the face of a storm and a natural disaster, enter a military conflict with the powerful Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly with the precious experience that we gained in the eight-year war with Iraq?” he said.

Jazayeri said the hurricane havoc showed that “contrary to public perception, the strength of America’s leadership is like a balloon, which can easily burst”.

The Revolutionary Guards spokesman said the U.S. administration’s inability to end the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan showed the “weakness of America’s defence and state departments, as well as its intelligence and security apparatus”.

With his incompetent handling of the war in Iraq ande his bungling of the Katrina aftermath, this president has emboldened our enemies, eviscerated fear of the U.S., and made us more vulnerable if terror strikes.