29 August 2005: Another reason why John McCain is WRONG for America
29 August 2005: President George W. Bush takes a break from his vacation to fly out to Phoenix for the birthday of his pal Senator John McCain.
Do you remember where you were, what you were doing, how you felt on August 29th 2005? If you live in a section of the USA about the size of Britain, stretching from the western Florida Panhandle to past Grand Isle Louisiana and a long bit inland, you probably remember it all too well.
If you lived in other parts of the country, you may have noticed something about it on the news. Hurricane Katrina.
In 1965 Hurricane Betsy, smaller than Katrina but still deadly, hit New Orleans. President Lyndon Johnson flew to New Orleans, drove to one of the worst hit neighborhoods and in the dark stood on a table, shone a flashlight on his face and announced, "I'm your President, and I'm here to help." I have friends who still remember the long lines of trucks carrying soldiers, food, medicine, and supplies that rolled into the disaster area afterwards.
Lyndon Johnson (Democrat) DEFENDED Americans in a time of crisis.
In 1969, when Hurricane Camille threatened the Mississippi Gulf Coast, President Nixon called out the National Guard BEFORE the storm hit to have them ready with to roll in with supplies as soon as possible afterwards.
Whatever his faults, President Richard Nixon (Republican) DEFENDED Americans in a time of crisis.
Hurricane Katrina, of course, was a natural disaster. In Greater New Orleans, an even greater disaster, unnatural and preventable, happened at the same time when the protection levees collapsed resulting in the catastrophic flooding of the city. President Bush had drastically cut funding for levee construction, maintenance, and repair every year since 2001. Dr. Ivor van Heerden estimated that 10 million dollars of better levees in New Orleans would have prevented over 30 BILLION dollars in property damage-- not to mention the human lives and suffering.
The last time an American city experienced destruction comparable to the levee failure disaster in New Orleans was 99 years earlier, with the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Theodore Roosevelt was president. William Howard Taft was Secretary of War. Taft telegraphed for the Armed Forces to bring in food and tents and authorized local commanders to use all resources available to help those in the disaster area as they saw fit.
Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft (Republicans) DEFENDED Americans in a time of crisis.
William Howard Taft is perhaps the epitome of the old style small government Republican. But he didn't let ideology stand in the way of helping citizens in time of great need due to unusual circumstances. In the days of the telegraph and steam locomotive, help got to San Francisco more quickly than it got the Gulf Coast 99 years later.
What happened to that Republican Party of earlier generations?
In 2005, when America faced the challenge of the biggest disaster to hit in a century, President George W. Bush... didn't even think it was worth interrupting his vacation to do anything.
He played some guitar, and flew out to Phoenix to share some birthday cake with John McCain.
John McCain could have told Bush something like, "Thanks George, but there are more important matters to worry about. Turn on a TV to any station. There's a huge disaster. Americans are suffering. Americans are dying. They need our help. The birthday party can wait; let's get to work." He might have said something like that. I wish he had. But he didn't.
George W. Bush and John McCain FAILED TO DEFEND Americans in a time of crisis.
And in our great nation, we saw our fellow citizens abandoned. The old, the sick, and young children dying of thirst, for no reason beyond that our leaders didn't think it worth their bother to send water.
Americans died in the streets and houses of their own home towns and cities, their corpses left for days and in some places weeks, to rot and be gnawed at by rats and stray dogs.
There are many reasons why John McCain is the wrong choice for America.
For some of us, 29 August 2005
Is reason enough.