Robert George offers up some thoughts on the reconstruction of NO.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?
The willow is too close to the house.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
Hot air and ill-informed banter
Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!
So many bastards, so little time.
Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.
The new temporary speaker of the house is a spiteful little shit.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.
“Squeaker” McCarthy
I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!
Chris
Good lord. How many different Robert Georges are there?
KC
Yeah, I didn’t see the speech, but was really concerned about what Josh Marshall posted on his site from it:
He’s already the strongest president we’ve had in a long time. He’s been given a free hand pretty much to do what he pleases in terms of reorganizing the executive branch, limiting the release of government information, and executing war powers. More to the point, we’ve spent billions getting the Dept. of Homeland Security going so we can deal with situations like what happened in LA. Unfortunately, by the looks of things, our billions didn’t do the trick, at least as far as leadership is concerned. Do his and other executive branch officials’ screwups really merit handing the president more power? Is this really what we want?
Moreover, I’m very concerned about the spending issue. Some conservatives took a beating for their unwillingness to vote for the extra 50 billion appropriated for the disaster. But, to some extent, I think their concerns about where the money was going and how it was going to be used was justified. I think on this next round of spending, Congress really needs to ask the president for some details about what’s going to go down with the money. They also need to set up independent auditors to watch how the money is being divied out. I’m just really reluctant to give this president a free hand in anything anymore.
Tim F
Similar to KC, I have two chief priorities for rebuilding Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi:
(1) Give the federal government easier access to martial law.
(2) Put a nasty political hack in charge of the reconstruction. The nastier and the hackier the better. If Norquist is busy then Karl Rove will do.
Give me those two things and we’ll be well on our way to a stronger, safer and more politically pure America. God bless the GOP.
Jeff Maier
I hate to inquire what you actually mean by this little tidbit?
KC
Tim F, I just noticed this. Yeah, it’s from a partisan source, but it appears legit. Sort of underscores the above points.
KC
Points above further underscored. How much will the DOJ waste on this kind stuff?
Tim F
Same thing as Santorum means with his K street project. If we’re going to create the vastest pile of spending cash in the history of piles of spending cash then we’d better make sure that it benefits the GOP. I’m a Republican now, by the way. Go us.
Brian Patterson
I agree with Tim F. and Nicolo Machiavelli, Sig Heil! (Mine Gott in himel!)
Conservative (but not insane)
Walker
This may sound flippant, but is everyone aware just how loaded the term Reconstruction is to the people Louisiana? Southerners still talk about it. It might be wise to use the term rebuilding instead.
KC
Walker, interesting point.
slide
Only one thing to say about the reconstruction and that is that Karl Rove was put in charge.
Need I say anything more?
Defense Guy
Nope, that’ll about cover it for the BDS crowd. You could throw a Halliburton reference in there if you wanted to be sure.
p.lukasiak
why does the phrase “Potemkin Metropolis” spring to mind?
slide
Defense Guy on the defense once again whines:
So you’re ok with that? That Rove, who is a strictly a political guy is in charge of the estimated $200 billion dollar reconstruction project of the gulf coast? lol… and his expertise for this is exactly what again?
So let me ask you straight DefenseGuy, do you think Rove should be in charge of the rennovation of the Gulf coast?
Tim F
Now that I’m a Republican I think it’s super that Rove is in charge of rebuilding NOLA. There’s no way that the cash windfall that this hurricane provided should help anybody but Republicans. Go team.
Tim F
Let me say one thing about patronage hiring. Most people misunderstand patronage hiring and think it’s bad for the country. That sort of “reality-based” mindset simply has no place in modern America.
Here’s why. What’s more dangerous than a disaster? People criticizing the president. Seriously, he’s our leader and if you hate him then you hate America. If that sort of thing catches on then we’d have anarchy. Some people think that you should fill important jobs with qualified professionals, but they’re completely missing the point. Qualified professionals might do the job, sure, but they have no loyalties. Any minute they could turn around and start criticizing the president. It might sound crazy but it’s happened before. Don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, Richard Clarke.
No, what you need to do is hire people who would never qualify for the job by merit alone. These guys know that if you go down, so do they. It creates instant loyalty. You can count on them to do whatever you tell thim to do, since they don’t know their job any better than you do. That’s something you can’t say about your average “experienced” “professional.”
Karl understands all that better than anyone, which is why as a Republican I’m glad that he’s in charge of the biggest financial kitty in the history of kitties.
Otto Man
Seriously, does anyone here want to defend the idea of putting Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction effort? Anyone?
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Hey, so how much will Soros and TH Kerry be ponying up for this?
I mean, after all, those 2 wonderful humans put up so much bread last year to make sure the party of the people was put into power. They must have some scraps left over, you know for all of LA’s wet and hungry children who go to bed every night with a nice big bowl of blackened nothing.
It just amazes me how the so-compassionate Left talks a good game about compassion, but the actual doing is ALWAYS left up to the taxpayer.
Tim F
I knew The Left was responsible for Katrina but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. Thank you, OBS, for making it so clear for me.
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Did you go to public school? Ask for a tax break or a Johnny Cochrane clone. You got ripped off and you need to sue someone.
Where did I say Soros and Ketchup Queen caused ‘Cane Katy?
Tim F
Don’t get mad at me sir, I’m only following orders. Most of us Republicans got the memo hours ago. It’s definitely The Left.
Jeez, I don’t know how I missed the memo that Soros was personally responsible for uplifting the suffering Katrina victims from their misery. The Darfur memo came through just fine, funny how that works. I haven’t hooked up with a local GOP chapter yet so nobody’s told me that I’m supposed to apply the same logic to every humanitarian crisis on the planet. Please forgive me.
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Stop it. I’m not blaming anyone – except for Michael Moore and Jane Fonda – for the Hurricane. I just wanna know why rich lefties and rich righties, too, don’t give away millions to help.
Don’t Frank Lautenberg and Bill Frist jointly own like 8% of all the wealth in the nation?
Boronx
Careful observation reveals a high correlation between presidential proximity and healthcare, fire, and electricity services.
Reason suggests, therefore, that an effective solution is to send Bush to live out the remainder of his term at the bottom of New Orleans.
DougJ
That’s about right. They’re worth about $500 billion put together.
Tim F
It could only be the beer talking, but the bipartisan nature of your criticism came through a bit less clearly in your first post.
Whether individual rich people give enough is something, who knows. I googled the answer and worked up a blistering answer and then decided that I didn’t care. Does Soros have more of a debt to society than Richard Mellon Scaife? If the answer is yes then the corollary must be true, that not caring about the poor makes you less culpable when you could help them but don’t. Sounds silly to me.
Ancient Purple
You mean The Left aren’t taxpayers??? Holy crap! Why have I been filling out those 1040 forms all these years?!?!?! WHY?!?!?!
How do you know they don’t?
Defense Guy
I think we should clone Rove, so that all Republican political operatives can carry around 1/8 size Rovettes in their pockets to advise them. Also, because the mere mention of the mans name sends many on the left into shrieking fits of lunacy. Oddly, I don’t remember that happening with Morris and they could be twins.
I think he is capable of handling the job. What’s more, the man is capable of trapping those who will seek to misuse the funds. That is if he wasn’t the devil.
Tim F
Def guy, I sense that you are using sarcasm again to avoid answering a simple question. Try again.
Com Con
If they don’t like it being called Reconstruction, then too bad. Maybe we shouldn’t help them at all. They got themselves into this mess, let’s seem them get out of it. I’m sick and tired of everyone time somebody screws up the federal government has to come and bail them out. President Bush made a good point, that this is probably in the best interests of the economy. But I’m sick and tired of people whining as they get help. If you’ve got your hand out, you’ve got no business criticizing.