August 31, 2005

8/31: How High's The Water, Papa?

Although Pres. Bush had already been taking some criticism from liberal bloggers re: Hurricane Katrina since the time it hit, in the past 24 hours the floodgates (so to speak) opened wide and many assign him a great deal of blame for the flooding and slower-than-expected response efforts. But there is also a split among them, as some pointedly decline to add their voice to these claims. Conservatives defend him against the myriad charges. Beyond Bush, there is criticism of the media's coverage from both the right and left, plenty of discussion about the merits of looting.

In other news, bloggers are disagreeing about what an uptick in the poverty rate means, anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan's NPR interview raises eyebrows, and the Able Danger story continues to simmer.

KATRINA I: Twenty Feet High And Rising

Kevin Drum at Political Animal: "On Monday it looked like New Orleans had escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina. Now it looks like the worst just took an extra day to happen." Conservative Michelle Malkin has been covering Katrina non-stop (with a single detour for a post about Cindy Sheehan) and calls it the "worst natural disaster in American history."

Conservative Glenn Reynolds posts links to a number of charitable orgs. which are providing hurricane relief. Reynolds posts a reader suggestion: "I would suggest people donate through their companies whenever possible. Most major corporations offer matching funds to the dollar for charitable donations." Truth Laid Bear creates a page specifically for bloggers donating to charities, with a list of "suggested charities" and info about each. Volokh Conspiracy's Orin Kerr asks for a group of readers willing to match his donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1K.

Liberal Reed Hundt, at TPM Cafe: "The National Guard members from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq ought to be brought home immediately. That isn't a "cut and run" strategy: it is an act of necessity as well as compassion.

Times-Picayune-associated NOLA.com hosts a variety of amazing photos of the flooding and damage; its NOLA View blog is sharing readers' stories.

Libertarian Megan McArdle, on long-term effects: "The gulf area produces about 10% of our crude oil, and an even bigger percentage of our refined petroleum products. Right now, both are shut down. Expect $3 gas over labor day (urp . . . I just moved my holiday camping trip two extra hours away from the city) and if facilities are seriously damaged, a sizeable impact on consumer spending in the months ahead.

Ex-N.O. resident SobekPundit posts photos from his last visit to the city: "I'm glad I had a chance to see it when I did, because I may never again get a chance to see it like it was." N.O.-based Ernie The Attorney, who had written late 8/28 that he was going to ride out the storm in the city (see 8/29 Blogometer), eventually got out to Jennings, LA, and posts via e-mail: "Now I'm able to see TV and the devastation. I can't process this information. That's it. I'll try to figure out how to deal with this in the morning."

KATRINA II: Well, Don't We Feel A Little Silly For Complaining About The Slow August News ...

BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis asks in a headline: "Should New Orleans be rebuilt?" He writes: "Having visited the city often in my last job, I was always struck by its poverty and its lack of a workable economy. Tourism is pretty much the only industry. The food is great. The attitude is fun. But big companies had left." He suggests: "Perhaps it should go with its strengths and be rebuilt as a tourist destination before all its restaurants have branches in Vegas. Perhaps it should be smaller and rather than investing in rebuilding, the money should in some cases be spent on relocation."

L.A. Cowboy criticizes N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin: "We should all be asking -- after all this time -- why have buses and trucks not been commandeered to get the poor out of the city? Why are the residents of New Orleans not being told HOW to get out of the city instead of just being told that they must get out of the city? And when Mayor Nagin announced the new flooding of much of the rest of New Orleans in his latest interviews - why did he not offer any plan to get those with no resources of their own -- to get out of the city?"

A diarist at Daily Kos makes an alarming prediction: "What I am going to say now is that there are thousands who are dying and dead. There will be scandal and rioting and rightly so in my opinion as the "Negroes" of New Orleans and tourists were left to drown. And that's what happened to a lot of people but the news media and the public is slow to announce and realize the obvious." The title of the post -- "Put the Ni--ers in the Superdome: Part II" -- draws immediate criticism from some commenters, but others argue it's fitting: "Remember David Duke? Leave the title."

Liberal Eve's Apple quotes from a pro-life e-mail she received: "The image of the hurricane above with its eye already ashore at 12:32 PM Monday, August 29 looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation. ... Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers - FIVE are in New Orleans."

Right Wing News, in the 2nd of 2 posts about pro-looting liberals at Democratic Underground: "Just because I find this line of thinking to be surprisingly perverse, even for a bunch of liberals at the DU, here are more quotes from patrons of the Democratic Underground who've spoken out in favor of looting." He links to the relevant discussion threads, and quotes some of the more outrageous comment. Liberal Atrios: "New Orleans is being destroyed. Looting, especially by those who are obtaining food, water, and other necessities, is about number 589 on the list of things which matter right now." Conservative Instapundit: "[I]t's one thing for desperate people to help themselves to bottled water, food, or diapers from abandoned stores, and another to just sack those places for valuables. People doing the latter should be shot."

KATRINA III: Forget Plamegate -- Now There's Blamegate

Among Bush's critics, all on the left:

• Will Bunch at Philadelphia Daily News' Attytood collects reports which suggest the Bush admin. failed N.O., including a 9/04 report from the Times-Picayune, which states, "the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."
• Swing State Project: "Bush can't handle an unexpected event. After 9/11, he kept reading My Pet Goat and then hid on Air Force 1. After the Tsunami, he did almost nothing until the entire world community's outrage forced him to act. After the worst distaster ever, Bush took a break from his vacation to try and swindle seniors -- but not to help victims."
• Liberal Amanda Marcotte defends politicizing the hurricane: "I'm always puzzled by people who want to somehow depoliticize things because they are important -- politics are those things that are most important. Granted, the politics should be pertinent to the discussion at hand and not just tacking your pet project onto the latest story, like making a hurricane about abortion."
• Markos Moulitsas posts a photo of Bush holding a guitar with the presidential seal on it, and comments: "There will be a time for a full accounting of what went wrong, both preparing for this thing and relief efforts afterward. I don't know if the time is now or later. ... I just wish that the president gave a damn about what's happenend. Unfortunately, he's too busy playing 'country rock star.'"
• AMERICAblog: "People are trapped and dying, the president is still on vacation, and the Democratic party is silent about Bush's deadly vacuum of leadership during a time of crisis. Where the hell is the Democratic party?"

Among his defenders, all on the right:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole, at RedState: "So obvious was the need for immediate action that President Bush declared Louisiana a disaster area several days prior to the Hurricane hitting the region. ... Bush will eventually visit the region, when his presence will not be a distraction, just as he did in 2004 when Florida was ravaged by four hurricanes. Not that any of that matters to those who are motivated only by hatred for the man."
• At The Corner, Byron York responds to rumors, spread in part by Air America's Randi Rhodes, that Bush played golf yesterday: "The only problem is, according to the White House, the president didn't play golf yesterday. He took part in a Medicare event at" a country club in AZ "during which he made some remarks about the hurricane -- but there was no golf." Ankle Biting Pundits points out that Cindy Sheehan repeated this rumor as well.

Among those pursuing a third way, both from the left:

• Matt Yglesias reserves his finger-pointing for later: "Awful as this all it, it wasn't in any way unpredictable, and looking at what's going on it's hard to escape the conclusion that the relevant officials don't seem to have done the proper planning. I suppose the full-scale finger-pointing can wait for a while (I, for one, have no real idea who the relevant officials are)..."
• Kevin Drum: "At the risk of sounding overly righteous every time disaster strikes, can I please suggest that Katrina is really not an appropriate subject for partisan jabbing right now? That goes for both left and right."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: It's All Geraldo's Fault!

Righty Hugh Hewitt writes, TV coverage "can and does communicate invitations to lawlessness which are acted on by people who realize that there is no threat of police arriving and arrest." He argued this point during the '92 L.A. riots, and makes the point again. "The government cannot enforce such a ban, but it is very much in the interest of the people in the devastated region these media outlets purport to serve to downplay civil unrest." He adds, "moderators at bulletin boards have to be careful to avoid allowing fear mongers to post junk without any sources whatsoever," linking to a Free Republic post about 1000s of bodies discovered floating in Gulf Port, MS. Hewitt: "There's enough dire news as it is."

Lefty Duncan "Atrios" Black has another criticism of MSM coverage: "It's a shame that from what I've seen in the media they don't seem to understand the importance of maps. Disaster footage is flashed randomly on the screen, devoid of any genuine geographic context. Maps appropriately scaled for the location of the footage would provide actual useful information. Otherwise, it's mostly just disaster porn."

TV Newser posts the transcript and a link to video of CNN meteorologist Chad Myers flipping out at anchor Carol Costello, throwing his papers to the floor.

SHEEHAN: NPR Move

A number of conservative bloggers are talking about Sheehan's NPR interview, in which she hung up on NPR's Neal Conan. At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg reported hearing that "when the questions got a bit pointed -- not hostile, but not catering to her publicity script for upcoming events -- she basically bailed on the interview." PoliPundit's Lorie Byrd: "I have read many of the outrageous Sheehan quotes, but had not heard them come out of her mouth. I heard it in this interview, though, and it was not pretty. Listen for yourself."

According to a release, declared Iraq vet/WV SEN candidate Hiram Lewis (R) has said he "will travel to Crawford, Texas, to demand a meeting with Cindy Sheehan. 'If she refuses to meet with me there, I will follow her on her bus tour and continue to demand a meeting until she agrees to talk with me face-to-face.'" Blogcritics: "[T]his charade takes Mr. Lewis out of serious contention for the US Senate."

RedState: "Cindy Sheehan is going to protest the performance of the Blue Angels at the Brunswick, Maine, Airshow on September 10. I really don't what more to add to this. I don't know that it is even possible to add anything to it."

NRO's Eric Pfeiffer reports that Gary Qualls, father of a soldier killed in Iraq, is upset with Sheehan's supporters for putting his son's name on a cross: "Some of Sheehan's supporters claim they only created one cross, like they have for all the other fallen soldiers in Iraq. However, Qualls told me that in fact three crosses and one Texas flag 'memorials' were created. He's taken back each one and continues to hold them in his possession." Qualls: "It's disrespectful. They have these crosses is a ditch. That is not honoring fallen soldiers."

SENATE '06: Get Bucked

Swing State Project's Tim Tagaris is quite impressed that the 1st e-mail he's received from MT SEN candidate Jon Tester (D) is a call to help victims of the hurricane. MT-based liberal Spun and Spinning posts a photo of Tester moving hay bales: "When I see some one pick up a bale, I can tell ya right away if'n they have moved a little hay before. This guy has bucked a few in his day....right hand back, left hand forward."

ABLE DANGER: John Q. Dangerously

Captain's Quarters picks up on an AP story indicating that data-mining programs have run afoul of privacy laws, and comments: "Without a doubt, data mining will cause problems with privacy, but rather than toss out the technique -- which appeared to work pretty well for the Able Danger team -- we should instead move to limit its application." A report from DC's WTOP station suggests Able Danger may have been similarly problematic: "A Pentagon spokesman now says 'there's no reason to doubt the specific recollections' of the growing number of team members" who said they had identified several eventual 9/11 hijackers in '00. JustOneMinute: "I can not find an actual Pentagon statement. And it is certainly possible that WTOP is hyping an out of context quote. For example, a spokesperson may have said "there's no reason to doubt the specific recollections... but we can't find any support for it."

BOLTON: Not Making Amends By Making Amendments

Left-leaning Democracy Arsenal criticizes U.N. Amb. John Bolton's move to add hundreds of pages of amendments to the mostly-completed U.N. Millennium Development Goals: "If his goal was to build support for American positions, Bolton would have worked to quietly build consensus around a handful of the issues considered most important. Instead he's launched a broadside against the whole enterprise of reform, targeting head-on matters that are hot-buttons to most of the membership."

ECONOMY: Poor, Poor Pitiful Us

AP reports: "Even with a robust economy that was adding jobs last year, the number of Americans who fell into poverty rose" to 12.7%, or 37M, up 1.1M from '03.

• Right-leaning ParaPundit, in a post titled "It's The Immigration, Stupid": "Lower class whites are getting their incomes kept down by the Hispanic influx. Plus, the number of Hispanics is growing and their poverty rate is much higher than the white poverty rate. So even if the Hispanic poverty rate does not grow the growth of the Hispanics as a percentage of the total populaton increases the percentage of the total population living in poverty. One cause of rising poverty is therefore obvious."
• Conservative Jayson Javitz: "The poverty meme. Ah, yeah, that annual rite of passage -- when Republicans occupy the White House, that is."
• The Left Coaster's Steve Soto: "Congratulations George W. Bush: under your watch, and with your recipe of three rounds of upper income and corporate tax cuts to spur along a pathetic number of new jobs over the last four years, the poverty level has now gone up all four years you have been in office."
• Liberal Newshog: "That George is sure good for us po'folks ain't he?"

NAM exec Pat Cleary, blogging at RedState: " On the eve of Labor Day 2005, organized labor has sunk to a new low. Last week, two workers were shot in a Wal-Mart parking lot," and in response, the union-run Wake-Up Wal-Mart blog asked readers: "Have any of you experienced any problems in Wal-Mart parking lots?" Cleary: "In other words, we are very sorry for these people who were shot -- but hey, if it helps further our own ends, what the hey?"

OBIT: Hey Jude

Reason's Jeff Taylor eulogizes "supply-side economics" coiner Jude Wanniski, who died 8/29 "The popularizer of supply-side economics, and to hear him tell it, a great many other things as well, has died suddenly of a heart attack. Jude Wanniski was an idea man to his core. Big ideas, small ideas, brilliant ideas, silly ideas. Talking to him, or better still watching him work a room of power brokers, was a series of declarations and questions. "You should do this," "have you tried that?" Ideas careened out of the man."

IN THE STATES: Is Meat What's For Dinner?

Conservative South Dakota Politics highlights a minor controversy about how the SD Dems' comm. dir. is a vegetarian, considering the state is heavily agriculture-based: "Everyone can eat whatever they want, there should be no debate on that issue. The issue is whether this is smart in terms of politics given the facts of our state." Both parties have issued statements about the flap. From the Rapid City Journal's Mount Blogmore sorts it out: "Some GOP bloggers learned that one of the new hires might be a practicing vegetarian -- one who questioned an anti-animal-activist billboard -- and devoted some space to that, er, situation. Then the official SD Repub Party joined the act, although they could only muster that the new Dem staffer 'implied' a position."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Upon Review

Mickey Kaus: "I just installed the highly-touted Google Desktop search engine because a friend of mine told me that it will change my life. It will. My computer is now running about half the speed it used to and I'm going to lose my job! I think I will now uninstall Google Desktop."

LEST WE FORGET: Zombies Who Need Robots

The Poor Man presents: "Barbra's All-Star Tribute to New Media."

Posted by at August 31, 2005 12:12 PM