It Gets Worse

So what are Bush administration officials doing with this crisis going on? We know Bush had time to play guitar, give speeches, eat cake (yes he really did, I’ll get you a photo later). Apparently Condoleeza Rice has time to take in a Broadway comedy and go shoe shopping.

CNN literally reports watching a baby die as they watched.

No Army. No National Guard. No FEMA. No Water. No Food. It has been four days.

Some more history on what is happening: There was a guy by the name of Mike Parker, former Republican Congressman from Mississippi who briefly served as head of the Army Corps of Engineers from late 2001 to early 2002. He is quoted in today’s Chicago Tribune as saying:

I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have."

What is he talking about? He is talking about the fact that the Bush administration fired him from the Army Corps of Engineers. Read on:

The assistant secretary of the Army, Mississippi's former U.S. Rep. Mike Parker, was forced out Wednesday after he criticized the Bush administration's proposed spending cuts on Army Corps of Engineers' water projects, members of Congress said.
"Apparently he was asked to resign," said U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a member of the House Appropriations Committee's energy and water development subcommittee that oversees the corps' budget… Parker earned the ire of administration officials when he questioned Bush's planned budget cuts for the corps, including two controversial Mississippi projects.

"I think he was fired for being too honest and not loyal enough to the president," said lobbyist Colin Bell, who represents communities with corps-funded projects.
The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, March 7th 2002

H/t to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.

So what does our administration have to say about this? Courtesy of Think Progress we get a snippet of today’s White House press briefing:

REPORTER: There’s a lot of discussion going on about the funding of projects prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans in particular were underfunded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons. Do you find any of this criticism legitimate? Do you think there is any second guessing to be done now about priorities given that [a disaster in] New Orleans was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts?

MCCLELLAN: As I have indicated, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for the nation to come together for those in the Gulf Coast region and that’s where our focus is. This is not a time for finger-pointing or politics. And I think the last thing that the people who have been displaced or the people who have been affected need is people seeking partisan gain in Washington.

Hey, Scotty: Fuck You.

Worst. President. Ever.

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