I hope for the sake of the beleaguered Gulf Coast that this doesn't come to pass -- but from a realpolitik point of view, there is a potential nightmare for the Republican Party swirling around the warm Caribbean waters right now.
His name is Gustav.
I already thought that the Republicans had unintentionally blundered in choosing St. Paul for its convention, first with the echoes of last year's tragic bridge collapse and the Bush administration's neglect of the nation's infrastructure, and then the moral hypocrisy of Larry Craig and his memorial stall.
But if there's anything about the last eight years that the GOP doesn't want to remind voters about, it's the one inarguably unmitigated disaster of this administration, and that is Katrina. The more than 1,400 who died in the floodwaters of New Orleans -- and the administration's dumbfoundingly slow and tepid response -- are a sad permanent memorial to misplaced priorities, not-always-so-benign neglect of the nation's poor, and the foolishness of a vow to shrink government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub.
So of course a giant new storm may be bearing down on New Orleans right as John McCain prepares to assume the Bushian mantle:
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Gustav is forecast to make landfall later today in Haiti and may enter the Gulf of Mexico, home to more than a fifth of U.S. oil production.
Gustav's sustained winds strengthened to 90 miles (145 kilometers) per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory just before 8 a.m. Miami time. The system, located 75 miles south-southeast of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, was heading northwest at 9 mph.
``This time next week it will be somewhere in the Gulf,'' said Eric Wilhelm, senior meteorologist at private forecaster AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. ``All the states lining the Gulf Coast of the U.S. will be on the lookout.''
In addition to the sad echoes of Hurricane Katrina, a hurricane in the Gulf -- and the threat of disruptions -- could send the price of oil and then gasoline at the pump back to the astronomical levels they're reached after eight years of two oilmen in the White House, another bad message for the GOP. If the networks are going to intersperse McCain's nomination with live shots of sandbags along the Mississippi, the party is in big, big trouble.
For one thing, you'll be sure to see this picture again...A LOT:
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Gibba that comment makes no sense, McCain very much so disagreed with the handling and if he were in charge we know it would be better handled, Obama unfortunately only has a history of saying how others handled things wrong but no example of how HE would have handled. You proved this one for McCain Gibba.— dan19148
Will, you do know that if you have nothing relevant to post, it's OK not to post at all.— jmc- If you're gonna use the quote, at least get it right.. "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"— Politburo
- Ummmdanny, that pic from the post is Bush and McCain celebrating McCain's b-day WHILE Katrina was happening. He said what he would have done, but unfortunately he preferred blowing out candles with a guy who slandered him in 2000 than actual action.— RG
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- "McCain very much so disagreed with the handling and if he were in charge we know it would be better handled" --- Everyone disagreed with the handling.. so what? How exactly do "we know it would be better handled"? The same question is valid for Obama, of course, but Obama does not hate government like the GOP does.— Politburo
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- "but Obama does not hate government like the GOP does." The GOP only hates certain kinds of government. They are fine with creating another cabinet level department in Homeland Security, whose main accomplishment was to create color coded threat levels. They are fine with trying to pass amendments to ban gay marriage or flag burning. But when it comes to regulation of business or properly funding federal agencis, heck no!— RG
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- Bush & McCain were eating cake while thousands more were busy looting flat screen televisions etc.— Yankee Air Pirate 12
- "Often wonder how FEMA performed so poorly in LA but so well in MS...I wonder what was different? In N.O. you had people so thoroughly destroyed by generations of government handouts they lost the basic instinct of self preservation." Talk about blaming the victim -- a "self-preservation instinct" only goes so far when you're poor and don't own a car and can't leave the area as more people in MS were able to do. Also, the devastation in MS was from the storm surge, while most deaths in NO were flooding from the failed levees.— will
dan, somehow your post makes perfect right wing sense. McCain "very much so" disagreed with the handling, but all Obama did was say others handled it wrong. Of course, we know intuitively that McCain would have done the right thing; if only he hadn't been a POW (Prisoner of "W") being tortured with Bush's diabolical "cake-boarding" technique.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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