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Unpopular Ideas

Ramblings and Digressions from out of left field, and beyond....

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Location: Piedmont of Virginia, United States

All human history, and just about everything else as well, consists of a never-ending struggle against ignorance.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Watchful Waiting

It strikes me that lately I've mentioned GW Bush in almost every post. I'm not comfortable with that, but if someone and his gang have taken over your house, you must keep an eye on them while looking for ways to hasten the moment when they will inevitably shoot themselves in the behind.

Recently GW Bush hasn't spent much time in his usual haunts. Instead he has made no less than five trips to the Gulf Coast since Katrina hit. It wasn't enough that Ray Nagin has had to fight to keep Bush's surrogate, Vice Admiral Allen, from usurping his position as mayor of New Orleans. Now Nagin has to deal with fending off the Big Cheese himself, who could have the same goal in mind. On Bush's latest excursion he and the mayor enjoyed a buddy-buddy photo op together, though I assume that Nagin is on his guard. But he doesn't have to be too watchful, because I doubt that Bush is slick enough to be effective in that kind of game for long, and that's not all bad.

All along I've been waiting to see how Bush's people would try to turn the Katrina tragedy to their advantage. Till now I thought it would mostly involve heaping all the fault they could find on the heads of Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. But now a new presence may be changing the scenario. The 17th named hurricane of this busy season has followed Katrina in taking over the Gulf of Mexico and, using those waters that are so warm that it's not even enjoyable to take a dip in them, Hurricane Rita has whipped itself up into Category 5, the baddest of the bad. As of right now the projected track has it hitting much of the coast of GW Bush's home state, Texas, with maybe a side swipe at Louisiana's west. But it wouldn't take much for Rita to dump enough water in and near New Orleans to test its levees again.

So what is the Oval Office strategy now? Too bad that valor has never been detected in their makeup -- recall GW Bush's movements in the hours after the planes struck the WTC towers -- else his people could dream of having him stay in the area or make a sixth quick trip from D.C. at the climactic moment, position himself squarely on a beach, and, like the commissars in Stalingrad at the height of the Nazis' attack, shake his fist in the face of the storm, and say grimly, "Only this far and no farther (goddammit)!"

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