Call Me Pollyanna If You Must But...

This morning I am skimmed salon.com and came across this article by Sidney Blumenthal. He talks about the repetitiveness of President Bush's responses to the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. Here's an excerpt:

Sept. 22, 2005 | "Even the words are the same. On Iraq, President Bush declared on Feb. 4, 2004, "We will do what it takes. We will not leave until the job is done." On post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, on Sept. 15, he eerily echoed, "We will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes." It was reassuring for the nation to be told by the president in his televised address that he intends to "stay" in the United States and not cut and run. Perhaps a White House speechwriter hit the copy-and-paste function on his computer or the word "stay" simply popped into the president's mind as he contemplated the crisis, straying into improvisation."

Okayyyyy... And while I can't believe I'm actually defending the president here, I'm not sure what else he could say! Well, maybe he could go on TV and just come clean about all of it. Reveal all the lies and cover ups and have a "Dr. Phil" style turning point moment where Dr. Phil asks "And how's this working for ya?", and the President says "Not very well". But that's not gonna happen. So, just trying to reassure the nation with promises not to leave anybody in the lurch again seems to be the most soothing approach. It works for a lot of people. People like my mother.

However, I have a skeptic view of this next sentence in the article:

"Similarly, Bush, still on his monthlong vacation in August, during which he devoted press availabilities to explaining why he would not meet with Gold Star Families for Peace mother Cindy Sheehan ("I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life"), greeted Katrina as a cakewalk. "When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew. There was a sense of relaxation," he said. The record, however, reveals Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana frantically and unsuccessfully attempting to reach him or his chief of staff, and the levees being breached before Katrina's eye passed over New Orleans. Four days afterward, Bush's staff considered him so ill-informed on the basic facts that they prepared a video of network news reports for him to watch as Air Force One carried him back to Washington."

See, we (and when I say "we" I mean liberals) get mad when we think that conservatives are skewing the info to fit their agenda, but I think that when Mr. Blumenthal says that the President was so "ill-informed" he had to watch a video on Air Force One, that might be stretching it a little bit. Because there are so many news outlets out there like CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and of course The Weather Channel (and these are just the ones I get on my TV, here in podunkville) telling the same story, with the same main characters, it's the finer details that differ. If you had to get up in front of the nation and address them about it, wouldn't YOU want to know what each one of the news channels were saying? You can't watch all of them at once! You have your people do that and put it together in a nice little package for you. What's so wrong with that shit? What do they pay those people for? Call me Pollyanna who listened to her mother too much while growing up if you must, but I find it hard to believe that the President was "ill-informed". When all that went down, it was like "DID YOU JUST SEE THAT SHIT? PEOPLE DYING ON THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF THE CONVENTION CENTER?" I couldn't watch anything BUT CNN for about 10 days afterward. You can't tell me he didn't gawk at it just like you would a bad car wreck. In fact, I have CNN on right now. People are evacuating Houston and Galveston. There is another atrocious storm heading there right now. It could be just as bad if not worse than Katrina. GOD HELP US!!!!!!

My life is going OK. I am having short bursts of depression, yesterday I was feeling kinda shitty, but today I feel better. I signed some more paperwork for "The Home", so that's progressing along. I am still feeling the hatred for all nurses and social workers, but I must be getting used to it because I'm not as down today.

Best Movie I Saw This Week: Ladder 49. Why though, does a movie spend two hours really making you invest all your devotion to a great character and then he DIES in the end? Same thing with Cold Mountain. What I thought was interesting about the casting of characters in Ladder 49 was that John Travolta wasn't the Male Lead. Joaquin Phoenix was. Joaquin did a fantastic job of course, but Travolta stole every scene, even if it was a supporting role. I liked how the story was told over the course of a ten year span, and I think they captured the spirit and camraderie of a real firehouse. But then again, it would be unthinkable if Hollywood made a movie that made firemen look BAD. They can make movies that make cops look bad (Training Day, and about a thousand others) but everybody loves a fireman.

Best Album I Listened To: Thriller. I hate what Michael Jackson has become and I think he did everything they said he did and more, but this is one the best records ever produced. Period. In a few weeks on Halloween night when we get in the car to drive across town to trick or treat in other neighborhoods, we will blast Thriller over and over again until we get sick of it. Which will be NEVER because it is such a fabulous song!

Book I'm Reading This Week: Fire by Sebastian Junger. Sebastian Junger is hot by the way. The back cover photo makes him look totally doable and the fact that he went out west and fought forest fires, went to the front lines in the war in Bosnia and investigated the atrocities in Sierra Leone makes him seem even more delicious. I have already read excerpts of these stories in Vanity Fair, but I had to buy the book when I saw it in Dollar Tree for one dollar.

Top News Story: Hurricane Rita. It's the not knowing that makes it scary. But I have a sneaky suspicion that it's gonna be dreadfully awful. If everybody that's in New Orleans helping still needs to be there, who's gonna go help in Texas?