Thursday, September 01, 2005

 

His eye is on the sparrow

As New Orleans undergoes a level of catastrophe straight out of the Old Testament, it's nice to know that the president is viewing the wreckage from the window of his plane. According to this AP dispatch by Jennifer Loven, Bush had the pilot of Air Force One take the aircraft down to 2,500 feet as it passed over the stricken city en route from Crawford to Washington. He then "surveyed the damage from a couch near the left front of the plane." Given W's typically tardy response to the flood--he sounded almost narcotized in his address today, perking up only when he got to mention faith-based relief efforts--it's surprising that his handlers let the press dwell on this presidential flyover. It sounds a little detached, doesn't it?

Comments:
Mr. Marcus,
I chanced across your page while perusing google's offerings on various renditions of His Eye is On the Sparrow, a song I've been asked to sing for a memorial service for a cousin by his wife in September.

I couldn't, however, ignore a chance to respond to your comments about Bush.

Have you any idea how much sleep he may have got (or lost) by the time that address was delivered that day? Of course you don't, but I'd ask you to give it some serious, honest and fair consideration.

Does it not, also, make some sense that a "fly-over" be done to allow "anyone" to see what the hell had happened to New Orleans?

It strikes me as somewhat unfair, and presumptious, of you to make an issue of the design of the floor plan of that plane. Would you have recommended a window be opened so he could hang his head out? Or should he have crowded into the cockpit to look out the front window?

And on what basis are you able to decide Mr. Bush's response was "tardy"? Would you have been happier and relieved that the people were "being cared for" if he had shown up before the storm hit, and stayed through it all, to "help New Orleans"?

Can you give me one thing that certainly would have been changed for the better if Bush had arrived a day earlier? Or would that have still been "typically tardy", as you put it?

Or take the greater challenge and tell me just what everyone, including the president, should have done to change one damned thing to change the impact point of Katrina, the exact results of its exact ferocity and duration, and add to that answer just what should have been done by all others in every position of authority and responsibility to "make things better" for New Orleans.

I would be interested to hear any resaonable and lucid discussion of the above. After all, if you are able to determine that "ther president of the USA" is tardy, you surely must have some really good ideas as to what have been different and, necessarily, better.

Give it a try---think about it, and respond.
Thanks.
 
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