Today not starting out better

Read the Molly Ivins piece that BUB posted. She nails this. Bush obviously can't be blamed that Katrina hit New Orleans, and we will never really know for sure that his actions made it worse, but they obviously didn't improve the odds that people there would survive or the city would survive. Perhaps this will make people recognize that some environmental questions are not about saving some creature you have never heard about, but are closely connected to saving a creature you care very much about--you.

I can hear the Bush people now, however. "Look at Streak, blaming Bush for the Hurricane. Bush could cure cancer and liberals like him would still bash Bush." Perhaps. That is a charge that I do fear and want to guard against. I don't want to be irrational about this man and his administration. And I don't think I am. I believe firmly that we have a serious philosophical breach between the Bush administration and the people (or at least, most of the people). I don't really believe that most people want to kill the government and gut it. But I think many in his administration do. I think that is why they push for tax cuts and cut programs and underfund even the war effort. Ultimately, government gets blamed when it fails--even when the funding choices were made by Republicans. I have been saying forever that Bush doesn't actually share your values. And we see that now.

Josh Marshall wrote on this too:

We're hearing again and again now that there just wasn't enough money for a lot of this stuff. Terrorism was our big focus. Some kinds of preparedness aren't simply a question of funds. They turn on less elastic resources. But most of what we're hearing about is dollars and planning. So when we hear, 'well, there just wasn't enough for this and terrorism', or 'we needed the money for Iraq', the real answer is 'nice try'.

The president cut taxes every year of his first term in office. He's trying to push through a major tax cut right now. So it's not terrorism that took away the money. It was tax cuts. And to a degree, same thing for Iraq.

Choices have consequences. And bad consequences require accountability.

I couldn't agree more.