The lowest of the low - Updated

With 80% of New Orleans still under water, and hundreds of thousands of people both in the City and the surrounding area trying to cope without food and water for days, unable to leave and in many cases unable to be reached by rescue personnel, what is the #1 issue on the minds of, what appear to be the majority of those on the Left? "How do we blame this on George Bush."

I've thought I had written enough in my previous Katrina post but since then so much has been said that I just had to write another one. It's hard to believe that there are people in the world that can look at the victims of Katrina and instead of seeing another human being, see political fodder instead. And I'm not talking just about the regular extremists at DU or DailyKos (although they have been hitting this subject hot and heavy). No. This seething hatred for the current US President is displayed in all it's glory right on the Democratic Parties own blogs.

Just try and find one article on there that does not mention the heartlessness of the administration and/or their inadequacies in handling the aftermath of Katrina. Please just one. Even things that are regular government business, and have absolutely nothing to do with the disaster, are tied into it just to try and make the GOP look bad. One of the worst examples, and this story seems to be a lefty favorite, is this post involving someone seeing Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, at a show and later shoe shopping in NYC. For one, she is Secretary of State, a position that has about as much to do with disaster recovery in the Southern States as does the White House Chef. There are departments within the government that are specifically tasked with handling national emergencies and she's not one of them. Secondly, no one on the left seems to get the irony of praising a women for confronting Secretary Rice for shopping while people are dying, who one can only assume, was doing the exact same thing. But that is a tendency with the left in general; never able to see the hypocrisy of their actions.

Then their the compassionate democrats like these people (linking through LGF just in case the articles 'disappear') who are actually advocating not helping people in distress simply because of their political leanings, real or imagined. If the question of whether or not a State was Red or Blue in the last election even enters your head when you think about giving them aid, there are no words to adequately describe how disgusting a human being you are. And these people have the gall to pat themselves on the back and call themselves 'compassionate'. It's easy to help someone you like but compassion is shown when you are willing to help anyone, regardless of your differences, a lesson that the left has never learned.

Then there's the 'celebrity' Dems who are coming out of the woodwork to jump on the Blame Bush bandwagon (always a safe stand to take amongst their circle of friends). Like Paul Krugman, who except for getting almost everything in his analysis wrong, as usual, is still one of the best experts that the left has to offer. Or Rhandi Rhodes, who sadly is not alone in her opinion that Bush is letting this happen because:

"This President is never gonna do the right thing. I think somewhere deep down inside him he takes a lot of joy about losing people, if he thinks they vote Democrat or if he thinks they're poor, or if he thinks they're in a blue state, whatever his reasons are not to rescue those people who are (planning?) for their safety."

I just can't comment any further on that without completely losing it.

Chrenkoff has a great collection of other comments from all over the Web and the world.

All you have to do to debunk most of the distortions, or outright lies, coming from the left is to use some common sense. Despite their need to make Bush and the GOP the bad guys in all this, the facts just do not support their arguments.

Argument #1: Bush caused the hurricane through environmental policies

1. No man can affect the weather to any significant degree in 5 years. Even the worst case scenarios of global warming are usually measured in decades.


2. Katrina actually follows the long standing cyclical pattern of hurricanes for the region, being that approximately every 10 years hurricanes tend to have a season where they are more frequent and more powerful.


3. Kyoto, if actually enacted on it's proposed schedule, in the best case scenario, would have had absolutely NO effect on today's climate. See point 1.

Argument #2: The National Guard was not available because of Iraq.

1. According to all reports from military personnel, they have more than enough National Guard members available to fulfill their needs.
   


2. See this National Review article for a great explaination of the National Guard situation and that is involved with getting them to where they're needed.

Argument #3: Bush could have done more beforehand and afterwards.

• It amazes me how one thing never fails to happen during disasters like this. People overlook all the safeguards built into the government, that while inconvenient at times of emergency, are vital for a well fundamental democracy. Bush, as President and essentially leader at the National level, has little authority to act on a State or Municipal level. That is why people elect Governors and Mayors. Until such time as a place is designated a National Disaster Area, there is really little a President can do. Even after the fact, he can really only offer federal aid, in the form of manpower and money, while much of the control still resides with the local authorities. It is called the United States of America for a reason. Pretty much all the pre-Katrina preparedness was the responsibility of the various Governors and Mayors, not the President.

Argument #4: Bush budget cuts weakened the levee system.

1. Bush, despite what many on the left would have you believe, does not actually control the purse strings of the United States. The current House and Senate, as well as all those that have gone before them, have set up the programs that are currently in place. History did not begin in November of the year 2000.


2. The spending on the levee system around New Orleans had been a heavily debated issue for the past 30 years, which each successive government (Federal and State, Republican and Democrat) spending less and less on the system.


3. The State government have repeated failed to pass the necessary financing to fund their portion of levee program, as they did not consider it a priority.


4. And oddly enough, the levee break that caused the actual flooding was not weak due to budget cuts. It was, in fact, one of the fully completed upgraded portions of the system that collapsed.

All I can say is that the type of people who look at this type of disaster and instead of a human suffering see a political tool are the lowest of the low. At times like this politics should be the last thing on anyone's mind. If there is a problem getting aid from point A to point B, fix that problem, do not spend valuable time and effort trying to make sure someone else takes the blame instead of you. The issue of how the entire hurricane Katrina situation was handled is something to debate after all the people in harms way are safe.

We all know there will be some group given the task of reviewing overtake that's happened to report on what was missed and what could have been done better. Until that time it is pointless to try and lay the blame on anyone. Maybe the evacuation should have been forced instead of semi-voluntary. Maybe agencies should have been stockpiling supplies in the days leading up to the storm. Maybe the National Guard and the Army could have been deployed faster. These are all valid questions that will be answered, in time. Until then, let the people who are needed do their job.

As usual, Michell Malkin has a good post on the subject of blaming Bush here, and Jeff at Protein Wisdom has a whole series of post breaking the situation down fro all angles.

Update:
Just adding this link to a recent LGF post.

Update II:
Chrenkoff has compiled more insane quotes from all over.