I wish Kerry were president
Posted by casey at September 6th, 2005
Do you remember “Help is on the way?” Today on CSPAN I heard Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) describe how “help is on the way” to the Katrina victims. What about “Stronger at Home, Respected in the World,” another Kerry slogan? Maybe if Bush wouldn’t have cut the funding for the levies in New Orleans to pay for the Iraq war or appointed an unqualified FEMA head (Michael Brown) we might not be in the situation we are today. But through it all, let’s not forget that the buck does stop at the president.
And after all the reassuring that we are more secure and better prepared by the president and public officials, what have they been doing over the past four years? Where is the outrage that we aren’t better prepared? When it takes the 3rd Infantry Division four days to get within 50 miles of Baghdad under fire and in armored vehicals, why does it take the National Guard more than a week to get to a hotspot on our own soil?
This should have been a sweet exposition of just how prepared we are. FEMA, Homeland Security, the National Guard and the president all could have shone. Instead we get ineptness, lack of preparedness, and weakness. I really wish I could say we are “Stronger at Home, Respected in the World” and truly hope “Help is on the way!” — better late than never — maybe in ‘08.
One again Casey your twisted anger and hatred has made you attack without first thinking it through or researching. Since you are unaware of basic national laws that prohibit and strictly limit the use of soldiers in law enforcement roles, let me fill you in. There are two major laws: the Insurrection Act and the Posse Comitatus Act.
(See http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.factsheets&factsheet=5)
These laws allow the use of soldiers for law enforcement only in very certain circumstances and when requested by state authorities, only to combat an insurrection (I hardly think the rampant looting counts). Your deep-seeded desire to attack Bush no matter how or why is seemingly at odds with your own political viewpoints here. For someone afraid of fascism, it is odd you want troops used in such a one-armed manner. I would think violations of the Constitutuion and the use of troops as police would violate your opposition to the supposed “police-state” you think Bush is creating. But instead, you advocate a police state, especially if it were John Kerry giving the orders. Talk about hypocrisy.
I know you are a smart guy aware of the concept of Federalism, in which local governments have relative autonomy and are not directly controlled by the national government. Yet, you also refuse to put any blame on state and local officials, who in the state of Louisiana are overwhelmingly Democrat. Did you notice how everybody with any authority or responsibility in New Orleans got the fuck out, including the police and the mayor who was in Houston? To quote Pink Floyd, “Hello…is there anybody out there?” Have you seen the picture of the hundreds of flooded school buses? Was Bush also responsible for that, was he supposed to personally drive them to higher ground while the civil servants of Louisiana all skedaddled?
Your own dislike of Bush and Republicans clouds your mind and leaves you acting like a Sith lord, spitting acid on everything out of factional spite, not out of any higher ideology.
PS- You also forgot to mention the US Marines in the rapid advance on Baghdad…they were equally important if not more so than the 3rd Div. Go corps! Maybe you like to see them down in North Minneapolis taking a bite out of crime and randomly searching people. How could President Bush let our city get so bad! He is responsible for the crime there and should have acted sooner against the rampant violence and unsafe conditions!
Fitz
Casey, it’s “were”. I wish Kerry “were” president. Subjunctive case. You are talking about something that is not according to fact, so you use “were” not “was”. It seems like a nitpick, but it’s in your headline. Go ahead and delete this comment once you fix it. :)
Thanks Nick! My grammar is terrible.
Casey
Colonel Nikolai