Rolling Right Along

I know... two in one week, but I couldn't resist. 

Any of you know who Andrew Sullivan is?  He's a walking oxymoron, a "gay Republican" who appears often on the Bill Maher show.  He's also the rare right-leaner who sees George W Bush for the hollow incompetent that he is. 

For some reason, I just decided to go look at Sullivan's blog and I note that he's keeping a pretty steady commentary on the Katrina situation, taking even-handed shots at people on both ends of the political spectrum.   

What I want to pass along from Sullivan's site is this little bit of Constitutionally-grounded "what went wrong in the Gulf" commentary from another writer, a "theocon" named Mark Shea:

"Doubtless certain of my readers will again leap to the tired claim that I "hate Bush". Sorry, but a quick read of my blog will not support that conversation-killing thesis. I don't hate Bush. I simply wish to hold him responsible to do his job. Do I deny that there is an entitlement mentality? Of course not. But it is not an expression of entitlement mentality to expect the state to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. It is not an entitlement mentality to expect to be safe from rape in emergency facilitiies provided by the state. It's not an entitlement mentality to think you shouldn't have to watch your baby die of hydration because the Feds couldn't figure out how to airlift water to helpless thirsty people for five frickin' days and, in their world-historical and criminal incompetence, actually turned offers of water away.

The Rush Limbaughs of the world will have ample opportunity to blame poor people for foolishly expecting the state to do what the Founders thought it should do: ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. We'll all be able to indulge ourselves in blaming the poor for being powerless, undereducated, frequently below average in IQ and all the rest of it. They have no access to the Golden EIB microphone. Likewise, nobody (including me) is going to spring to the defense of the state and local authorities in NOLA. They have no effective spin machine to shift the blame to somebody else and they deserve all the hell they will get.

But Bush does have a spin machine. And it's already swinging into high gear to sayi loudly, "Don't look at Bush! Look! Incompetent state and local guys! Look! Stupid poor people! Look! Thugs!"

So long as Bush remains the King of Massive Government Spending Coupled with the Promise of "Homeland Security", guys like Limbaugh are going to have a colossally difficult time shifting the blame for this debacle away from Bush. That's not "Bush hatred". That's cold logic. "

See, the government WAS supposed to do something!  "Ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense."  That's what Bush swore to do when we swore to "uphold the constitution."  Pretty simple when you look at it those terms.  Oops!

If you really have nothing better to do, then it's worthwhile to spend some time perusing Andrew Sullivan's blog for diverse points of view, and you can read the entire post that the above quote is lifted from at Mark Shea's blog.

This time, it's somebody else's opinion that should be yours, too.

-PS