I guess it's only wrong for the *other party* to play the blame game?
In case you had not heard, Michael Brown (professional fuck-up and former head of FEMA) now claims that all the problems in the Gulf Coast, post-Hurricane Katrina, were really the fault of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin. Sweet. Brown's only mistakes were, evidently, (and I paraphrase) failing to recognize the ineptitude of others AND not putting the right spin on things. (As he puts it, FEMA let the "media push the agenda" ... because, you know, things were MUCH BETTER when the media would just be the administration's lap dogs
).
We can read this event in one of two ways, neither looks good for Bush and Co.:
1. Bush & Brown wanted to avoid the blame game, legitimately. But once others started to play - they gave right in and started playing politics. In this scenario, Bush & his pals have zero backbone and integrigy. Way to stick by your principles!
2. Version two, and the truer one IMHO, is that this reveals how "avoiding the blame game" *itself* is just a political strategy. Duh.
None of this substantively changes anything in my view. I still support the blame game as a good way to clear the air and plan better in the future. Fuck, Brown might have have a few good points about how things were handled locally (though, he is a douche and/or moron - see his plan to not provide ice to sweltering disaster sites in the South).
Somehow, this whole little "testimony" feels strangely... vindicating.
(Yea, I guess we could say that "Brown" does not equal "Bush." In other words, Brown is playing the blame game, but *Bush* did not. That feels like a cop out. Brown was Bush's political appointee; Bush stood by Brown. This is a *highly* orchestrated and controlled administration. I don't want to venture too far into speculation or conspriracy theory ... But I would not be surprised if some of the "failures" that Brown pointed out were themselves not drummed by Republican strategists as part of damage control. No, as a member of the administration, I have no problem linking Brown and Bush at all. If nothing else, it's rhetorically interesting and worth pursuing.)
In case you had not heard, Michael Brown (professional fuck-up and former head of FEMA) now claims that all the problems in the Gulf Coast, post-Hurricane Katrina, were really the fault of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin. Sweet. Brown's only mistakes were, evidently, (and I paraphrase) failing to recognize the ineptitude of others AND not putting the right spin on things. (As he puts it, FEMA let the "media push the agenda" ... because, you know, things were MUCH BETTER when the media would just be the administration's lap dogs
).
We can read this event in one of two ways, neither looks good for Bush and Co.:
1. Bush & Brown wanted to avoid the blame game, legitimately. But once others started to play - they gave right in and started playing politics. In this scenario, Bush & his pals have zero backbone and integrigy. Way to stick by your principles!
2. Version two, and the truer one IMHO, is that this reveals how "avoiding the blame game" *itself* is just a political strategy. Duh.
None of this substantively changes anything in my view. I still support the blame game as a good way to clear the air and plan better in the future. Fuck, Brown might have have a few good points about how things were handled locally (though, he is a douche and/or moron - see his plan to not provide ice to sweltering disaster sites in the South).
Somehow, this whole little "testimony" feels strangely... vindicating.
(Yea, I guess we could say that "Brown" does not equal "Bush." In other words, Brown is playing the blame game, but *Bush* did not. That feels like a cop out. Brown was Bush's political appointee; Bush stood by Brown. This is a *highly* orchestrated and controlled administration. I don't want to venture too far into speculation or conspriracy theory ... But I would not be surprised if some of the "failures" that Brown pointed out were themselves not drummed by Republican strategists as part of damage control. No, as a member of the administration, I have no problem linking Brown and Bush at all. If nothing else, it's rhetorically interesting and worth pursuing.)