Posted on 09/10/2005 10:29:49 AM PDT by veronica
Hurricane Katrina was not quite the Asian tsunami from last December, yet the wreckage left behind where she landed in Louisiana and Mississippi was a reminder of how brittle the human condition is when nature unleashes its fury.
We forget -- perhaps forgetfulness saves us our sanity -- how fragile is our civility, which can readily snap when a mighty storm blows.
It snapped, just as the winds and water breached the levees protecting New Orleans, revealing for a brief passing moment the lurking beasts of looters and rapists beneath our tamed skins.
I was reminded of Shakespeare's Lear, the king unhinged by grief and exposed to the storm around him, who rages, "unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art."
Katrina exposed the human fragility of those in her path. But it also exposed the shamelessly crass politics of those who, form a safe distance, insisted on faulting someone, anyone, for nature's rage.
Katrina had barely made landfall when Robert Kennedy Jr., (a Democrat) launched the blame game by accusing Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (a Republican) of responsibility, since he opposed the Kyoto Protocol and thereby contributed to global warming that caused the hurricane.
In recent American politics, the lib-left's venom exceeds Katrina's fury. It was unleashed against President George Bush for deliberately failing to provide New Orleans' citizens, mostly black and poor, with federal resources to move to shelter ahead of the hurricane.
Al Sharpton, the race-baiting Democrat from New York City, rose to his reputation as he slammed Bush on MSNBC: "I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner."
Race and resentment lurk beneath the skin of American society for political charlatans to exploit in disregard of facts and circumstances. Katrina's wreckage was plainly evident, but the hyperbole of race-baiters exploiting the agony of victims exceeded even the boundaries of broken civility.
Randall Robinson, former president of Transafrica, reported in The Huffington Post online that "black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive." He apparently did not reflect on his words and ask why only "black victims" would turn to cannibalism.
Resentment's toxin has so corrupted people who think like Robinson that they readily spit upon the weakest victims just to score points against Bush. When his statement could not be verified, he posted a retraction but no apology.
Since the 2000 cliffhanger presidential election, lib-left partisans in American politics have steadily gone berserk in their hatred for Bush.
There is no fury in politics like the spitefulness of sore losers. Republicans have won seven of the last 10 presidential elections, control both Houses of the U.S. Congress, and will soon have a commanding majority in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The mainstream left-leaning media have also contributed to the Democrats' disorder -- Dan Rather of CBS News, for instance, using documents about Bush's war record that turned out to have been forged (he apologized) -- making the party one that serious Americans are reluctant to take seriously.
While Katrina's fury was elemental, the Democrats seem increasingly unhinged by the politics of race and resentment. America's Gulf coast will certainly recover from Katrina. The same cannot be said of the once-formidable party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy recovering soon from the lunacy of those who have made it a frat house of juvenile mudslingers.
Great column. Bookmarked. Thank you.
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After the 2002 election, I wrote, “Remind me never to complain about ‘liberal media bias’ again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.”The media and the Democrats sustain each other's make-believe land. Dan Rather tells his staff, “Kerry's told me there's nothing to this Swiftvet thing.” Kerry tells his, “Rather's assured me this Swiftvet story's going nowhere.”
George W. Bush ought to wake up every morning and thank the Lord the media aren't on his side.
-- Mark Steyn.
ping
I remember the Clinton years where the Right was disparaged as mean-spirited "Clinton-haters". Amazing how much the Left looks like mean-spirited Bush-haters now. Only the Left has no media buffers to challenge their hatred. They freely spout their venom without ever being called on it.
Even the Canadians say that the Dems are over the top. That's pretty bad.
Conservative do, liberals blame.
ROFLMAO
Resentment's toxin has so corrupted people who think like Robinson that they readily spit upon the weakest victims just to score points against Bush. When his statement could not be verified, he posted a retraction but no apology.
The wacky left screams made-up stupidity like this at full volume, then can't figure out why they're losing.
Unbelievable!
LOL... As tight as Pelosi's skin is pulled, she may be scratching her bum now, we just don't know it.
Very good article and nice to see it is from one of 'us'. Sometimes it seems like rational voices in the print and broadcast media are all too rare in Canada and the US. Most are caught up in this blame-Bush hatred. How can sane people blame him for the hurricane, for example? It makes absolutely no sense.
Liberals: Repeat after me: I Am We Tall Did
The only reason such animals are "beneath our tamed skins" is because the Democrats who have been running New Orleans and Louisiana for generations can't bear the thought of throwing them in jail where they belong, lest they lose their right to vote.
Speaking of unhinged....
"Now, for people who are saying, 'Well, stop pointing fingers at the president, uh, the left-wing media's being too hard': No. Shut up. No. This is inarguably -- INARGUABLY -- a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government.....And I will say this: Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky. The only difference is this: That tens of thousands of people weren't stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina."
Jon Stewart, "The Daily Show"
Whatthe Dem party needs is a major house cleaning! Maybe their unhinging will provide it.
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