All problems in America are caused directly by George Bush

My friend Alec recently made this post on his blog. I feel it is need of a good fisking.

Something I've been saying to myself a lot lately is, "This can't be happening in my country". I'm sure we all have been saying things like this as we watch the news. How can our government be so inept at getting aide to our own people? Why didn't similar problems occur when hurricanes hit Jeb Bush's state of Florida? Is it really a matter of (as one musician put it) George Bush not caring about black people?

No, George Bush just cares about white Christian republicans. Writing this statement is like saying: “Mr. Bush, when did you stop beating your wife.”

When asked when New Orleans will be habitable again, or when the people can return to their homes, or when people will get food, water or medicine the government says that they can't come up with a schedule because of the instability of the area.

1) People who have left New Orleans are getting food, water, and medicine.
2) I’m sorry George Bush can’t personally pump the water out of New Orleans faster. Maybe you should go help him pump.

Which sounds a heck of a lot like the same tired speech they give us when we ask about our soldiers coming home.

I did take 50 years for us to “get our soldiers home” from Germany.

Al Gore, who isn't even a politician anymore, managed to personally evacuate 270 people from the dissaster area. Bush didn't even show up until a week after the event. Dick Cheney didn't even cancel his own fishing trip, and just managed to show up yesterday in Mississippi.

First, the statement above about Bush not showing up until a week later is wrong. Second, would the U.S. be better off is the president was personally fishing people out of New Orleans?

FEMA Chief Micheal Brown is on his way out. Probably the only two people who thought he was doing a good job are George Bush and Micheal Brown's own mother. Time Magazine discovered that the man completely lied about his qualifications. He claimed he was a college professor, and the college says he was only a student. He said he headed up emergency relief efforts for a community. That city says his job was administrative and really more of an internship.

So how did this man get to be the head of FEMA? Didn't anyone actually check his credentials? It wasn't like it was hard to do. Time Magazine did it one day with a couple phone calls. How difficult is that? According to Time Magazine, Michael Brown got the job because he was a college buddy of a member of Bush's cabinet. Brown then went on to replace all of the top-level staff of FEMA with his own friends. None of them are qualified to do the job either.

I won’t argue much here. It was a lousy appointment, but FEMA wasn’t that group that prevented supplies from getting to the people in New Orleans. That was clearly Kathleen Blanco who told the Red Cross not to bring suplies to the Superdome and kept the federal government from being able to use all of it's resources.

Before the hurricane struck, locals were told that anyone abandoning their pets would be charged with animal cruelty. Now that they've been removed from their homes by force, they're told that they can't stay in the refugee camps because they have animals with them. Others are being refused care simply because they have a criminal record. People who committed crimes 30 years ago are being denied food, water, shelter and medicine.

I don’t have any information on the Animal cruelty thing, but clearly that’s a local or state issue not related to the Bush administration. And I agree that our emergency shelters should not be taking care of pets. As for the last claim, I have not heard this claim. Who is running the shelters though? George Bush and his Brother Jeb and evil Dick Cheney or Texas and other states and the Red Cross?

Finally, we have the situation of the two open positions on the supreme court. Bush decides to move his nominee straight to the top and make him chief justice - despite having no experience in that court.

John Roberts is a very experienced judge. Roberts being the chief justice or not will not change the opinions the court renders, just potentially who writes the majority or minority opinions.

And now the word is that Bush wants Alberto Gonzales to be his second nomination.

So, it’s still possible that Bush could choose Gonzales, but as of the time of this article that’s speculation from the media. The statement above is incorrect, or at best misleading.

You may remember Alberto Gonzales from when Bush made him his Attorney general. The biggest stink about him is that he once told President Bush that it was totally legal to torture prisoners under his interpretations of the Geneva
rules.

Saying that you believe something is legal does not believe that you think something is moral or should be performed. Just because something is allowed under law, doesn’t mean it’s right. You shouldn’t have to change your opinion of what the law says because other people might not like you. In fact, a supreme court justice should try to interpret the law justly, not to be popular.

His findings have been linked to the actions at Abu Gharib. The enlisted men and women who followed those orders are going to jail or are already there.

This is downright untrue. First, the actions at Abu Gharib were illegal and the people who did it were or continue to be prosecuted. Second, they weren’t torture, it was embarrassment. A bunch or bad soldiers got drunk on exactly one night over a period of several hours, not even a day, and embarrassed a bunch or Iraqis in a very humiliating fashion of their own personal amusement. But, hey, no one really pays attention to what actually went on in Abu Gharib, so let’s prentend that someone really did get tortured for information on the personal orders of Alberto Gonzales.

The jerk who said it was ok to torture people ended up getting promoted to Attorney General of the United States... and now he may become the next judge in the highest court of the land!!?!

I am not a kook. I am not crazy. I am not a left-wing zealot. I do not say these words lightly or casually. This administration is evil. It may be evil only because of it's own ignorance, ineptness or stupidity... but it is still evil. While this man and his cronies are in office, I can not say that I am proud to be an American. He has shamed us all.

So, here’s what the administration did that was bad.

1) They hired an unqualified guy for FEMA head because the previous FEMA head, who was qualified, said he was good. They didn’t do their homework and neither did the Senate (including the Democrats) so the guy was in charge during a disaster that was total screwed up by the Louisiana state government.

2) They made John Roberts chief justice instead of a regular justice.

Wow, that’s a good argument to say Bush is evil. It may even be good enough for Michael Moore.