Bush: Race Not Factor in Katrina Response (Don't call me a racist)

[deminks]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_interview

WASHINGTON -President Bush said Monday the federal government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina was appalling, but was not the result of racial indifference to blacks hard-hit by the storm. "You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a racist," Bush said.

In an interview with "NBC Nightly News," Bush said he saw televised pictures showing the government's faltering response to Katrina, and that his first thought was that there was a breakdown of communications between all levels of government after the Aug. 29 hurricane.

"I heard, you know, a couple of people say ... `Bush didn't respond because of race_ because he's a racist,' or alleged that," Bush said. "That is absolutely wrong. And I — I reject that.'

"You can call me anything you want, but do not call me a racist. Secondly, this storm hit — all up and down (the Gulf). It hit New Orleans. It hit Mississippi, too."


Oh my god.

[elehhhhna]

1. thus spake Condi's "husba..."

[David Zephyr]

2. Look in this "Magic Mirror," George: You are a racist.

[AspenRose]

15. EXCELLENT

:applause:

[President Kerry]

3. Ok. I'll call you an incompetent dictator. n/t

[VegasWolf]

4. That's true! Bush is a class racist, not a skin color racist.

[Angry Girl]

6. You're right. He likes Ken Blackwell well enough....

:puke:

[Supersedeas]

43. Don't ya love the way he talks....sounds like money

[Canuckistanian]

18. Ah, so that's it

If they're black, but hadn't worked as a General or for an oil company, they're invisible to him.

It's not ALL black people, just the poor ones.

[niceypoo]

30. New orleans voted dem

[tuvor]

5. "I reject that." It's like a magic spell for him.

Poof!

[truthisfreedom]

19. reject, deny, blast, downplay, diminish, rove is full of that sh*t. it's

all about *POOF!* as you say.

[Al-CIAda]

7. -President Bush said Monday the federal government's reaction to Hurricane

-"President Bush said Monday the federal government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina was appalling"

Er, what was the 'heckuva job Brownie' bullshit about then?

Lying sack of shit.

[Lisa]

8. here's a link to Roget's Thesaurus online ...

http://thesaurus.reference.com/

We don't have to call him a "racist" -- looks like there are a whole bunch of other expressions (crosslisted under "bigot", "intolerant", and "extremist") which work just as well!

Examples ....

"Main Entry: bigot
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: persecutor
Synonyms: bug, crank, diehard, doctrinaire, dogmatist, enthusiast, extremist, fanatic, fideist, fiend, flag-waver, freak, jingoist, maniac, monomaniac, mule, no-neck, nut, opinionated person, partisan, persecutor, pig, puritan, racist, red-neck, relisher, sectarian, segregationist, sexist person, stickler, superpatriot, zealot
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1)
Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved."

[ismnotwasm]

9. Call me anything you want?

Bloody idiot then. His own mother made what amounted to a racist comment. He let a great American city drown. On his watch. In front of the whole world. I have my nursing magazine in front of me full of articles detailing some of the horrors the volunteers saw down there. There is NO excuse, none, none none.

He's a racist, if it was a bunch of rich or even working class white folks he would have personally brought Air Force 1 to lead the evacuations. Probably all dressed up in a flight suit. Asshole.

[maxsolomon]

10. its true because i said so

now shut up hippie.

i'm wondering if he will ever explain, beyond the most simplistic tautology, one reason for any decision or statement in 8 fucking years of our empire's collapse & ruin.

[Selteri]

11. Much as I hate to say it

but the real racism is that there were so many Latinos in NO as well, Carlos Mencia even pointed it out that they didn't even get a mention.

[intheflow]

42. Not to mention a huge Vietnamese population.

Nobody's talking about them, either. :(

[SammyWinstonJack]

54. It's the poor that he hates. It's the poor that he refuses to see. It's

the poor that he has great disdain for, well actually anyone who isn't the "haves and have mores" isn't even on his radar. Pretty much all Americans, that is.

[gizmo1979]

12. He's an elitest not a racist

It wouldn't have mattered what color those people were,just the fact that they were poor is what mattered.Look at their war on any class but the upper 3%class and that tells you everything you need to know.

[jbnow]

40. You're right

red, yellow, blue, green, white, black...
If you are poor he doesn't care.

BUT...if they were white help would have gotten there faster. Not because HE cares more but because he'd think it would be less tolerated by Americans in general. He figures we are racist.

[mantis49]

53. My thought exactly.

I really don't think he is a racist. That's probably the only good thing I could say about him. But, since the majority of the poor are minorities, it looks that way.

I remember seeing poor white people in that hell, too.

[area51]

13. Bush: "but do not call me a racist."

Hey Bush: YOU'RE A RACIST!

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck....

[neuvocat]

14. Ok, George, we won't call you a racist.

We'll call you a "lying racist" instead.

[Seabiscuit]

16. Hey, Shrub, if I can call you anything I want, I'll call you what you are:

a racist!

As if that were the worst of your traits you murderous, lying fascist pig puppet!

[AspenRose]

17. "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Say it loud, speak truth to power.

[Skittles]

20. Mr. West spoke for me

he did indeed

[Gemini Cat]

21. Oh right. He's not a racist!

He just likes to go to birthday parties and eat cake or sleep in fancy west coast hotels and simply play a guitar when NOLA drowns!!!

George fucking "Brownie you're doing a heck of a job" bush, you are a racist!

:mad:

[fooj]

22. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree...

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005

Right, Georgie.

[pagandem4justice]

23. "Not just..."

"Secondly, this storm hit — all up and down (the Gulf). It hit New Orleans. It hit Mississippi, too."

WTF?! To me, this sounds like repug-racist-codespeak for, "remember, Katrina didn't just hit black people, but white folks too."

"But I'm not a racist. (smirk, snicker)"


:wtf: :wow: :grr: :nuke:

[Up2Late]

24. "I heard, you know, a couple of people say...NO YOU DIDN'T Vacation Boy!

:wtf:WTF is this? Looks like their rolling out the new "Product" before Christmas, YOU HEARD NOTHING! You were on VACATION for 3 days before you heard ANYTHING!

"I heard, you know, a couple of people say ... `Bush didn't respond because of race_ because he's a racist,' or alleged that," Bush said. "That is absolutely wrong. And I — I reject that.'

Check out this from Reuters! I have to say, I'm getting physically sick from the gall of these lies! :banghead::mad:

Bush says appalled by Katrina response

Mon Dec 12, 2005 08:13 PM ET

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Monday he was appalled by the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, acknowledging his own responsibility. "I was appalled that a nation as wealthy as ours was not able to respond as effectively as we should have and took blame for it," Bush said. "I mean, to the extent that the federal government was ineffective, I'm responsible. And I understand that. And now the question is how do we learn lessons from the response."

Speaking in an interview with NBC Nightly News, Bush urged patience amid criticism that the reconstruction has slowed. "The devastation is so big, it's going to take a while to rebuild," he said. In his harshest critique yet of the response to the August 29 storm, Bush said federal authorities and other levels of the government "fell down on the job."

He said he was "disturbed" by the lack of communications immediately after the storm hit. "My reaction was, where's the communications?" Bush said, adding that officials on the scene should have been able to relay information back to Washington to coordinate an appropriate response. Bush had promised to do "whatever it takes" to restore New Orleans and the Gulf coast during a visit two weeks after the storm. But Louisiana officials and evacuees have questioned that pledge.

Bush said rebuilding was underway and federal resources were in place. "I think it's very important for people to not focus on politics but focus on how we work together to achieve what we all want, which is a Louisiana that's vibrant and New Orleans that's a shining, shining light down there and a Gulf Coast of Mississippi that's been rebuilt and is vibrant and thriving," Bush said.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=10564344&src=rss/topNews>
(more at link above)

[entanglement]

25. I don't think Bush is a racist

However, the same cannot be said for many of his supporters

[Hekate]

26. Okay. W is a classist, an elitist, an oligarch, a Marie Antoinette....

It's all about money and power and social class, and who will be the most useful vassal. Skin color actually may be secondary to all of that, to his and his family's way of thinking. Given how close the Bushes have been to the Saudi Royals, I'm surprised they didn't exchange some daughters long ago, the way real royals used to do, sealing a pact with a marriage.

However, that said, by a quirk of the past five centuries' history those who disproportionately have the least money, power, and social status are .... (think hard, Georgie)... black and brown people.

So what we ALL saw at the Super Dome and the convention center was mostly (but not entirely) black people in the worst nightmare of their lives. I mean, we SAW that. It's on FILM, Georgie, miles and miles of film.

Shortly after the Drowning of New Orleans I traveled from Calif to DC, and let me tell you that in random conversations with other white people in airports, they were reeling with the shock of the event and how BLACK it was.

The shock of this Third World Nation event in America, and the shock of what looked very much like the evidence of hard core racism in 2005, were palpable.

If I were a black person anywhere in this country, much less New Orleans, I would be hard put to dispassionately discuss socioeconomic factors etc etc without spewing fury over what happened to my brothers and sisters.

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are home to people of many races, and they all got hurt to one degree or another. And yet, if I were a politician listening to black New Orleanians in their anguish, I would not have the gall to dispute their feelings. Not after the Drowning of New Orleans, film live.

Hekate

[greyl]

36. Yes, classist at the very least. nt

[Hello_Kitty]

27. All the racists voted for you, though. Coincidence? n/t

[Bridget Burke]

28. Well--he probably doesn't care more for poor whites than poor blacks.

And some well-off black Republicans can be quite useful.

But he'll gladly use the racism of others.

[Orsino]

29. Bush isn't principled enough to be a racist.

He whores for Big Money only.

[bullwinkle428]

31. So does this mean it's finally okay to start playing

THE BLAME GAME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? :argh:

[sonias]

32. Bush is a racist

But as some have mentioned above, it's more class related. He hates poor people of all colors. I'm sure he hates poor white people too. There is no doubt in my mind however, that the response to the Katrina in New Orleans was racist. This administration failed the citizens of this country miserably and brought out long suppressed feelings of racism and shame.

Sonia

[superconnected]

33. If Bush says he's not a racist, then he's a racist.

[confludemocrat]

51. Agree. And I'm close to making an obvious extension of that point here,

if you know what I mean.

[Mark E. Smith]

34. Racist.

And an asshole to boot.

[Hyernel]

35. Yeah! Some of Bush's most dependable drug dealers were black!!

:evilgrin:

[Javaman]

37. colossal racist failure*.

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. I kinda believe Bush.

He was too stupid to know that Brazil had a large percentage of black people so why should we be surprised to learn that he was ignorant about New Orleans too?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

39. Racist, raaaaaaciiiiist, raaaaaciiiiist. There, what's up now bitch. n/t

[Az_lefty]

41. SO now the chimp doesn't like name calling?

he doesn't mind it when it servers his purposes.
FU bush!
:grr:

[Vanje]

44. Allright then.

You're a fucking racist.

[ananda]

45. I want to call you both a racist..

.. and a classist.

Get over it.

Bring it on.

[tgnyc]

46. Cracker-ass cracker! Is that better?

[ddeclue]

47. Actually, George Bush is an unintentional racist.

He's just totally oblivious to the ordinary everyday lives of everyday regular people and that includes black people. He doesn't see them. They really aren't a part of his privileged life so he was just totally unaware that poor black people in New Orleans didn't own cars and had no way to leave town.

I found his speech in Jackson Square after the hurricane a disturbing acknowledgement of this fact. It was as if Mr. Bush were Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" except that instead of "seeing dead people", George W. Bush had been given the power to see black people for the first time ever.

What happened in New Orleans is by no means unique. Every major coastal city from Baltimore to Charleston to Miami to Mobile to New Orleans to Houston has neighborhoods just like the 9th Ward.

Where will the hurricane hit next year Mr. President?

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[Ganja Ninja]

48. He's an equal opportunity oppressor.

:shrug:

[DemGa]

49. The remark from Bush was a diversion

A classic frame the issue, then argue against it.

[confludemocrat]

50. Bush is a GD racist. Astounding what I read here that glosses that over.

And how do you explain his obvious approval of the tactics against John McCain, his alignment with Bob jones University, his hamstringing of renewal the voting rights act? His use of Katherine Harris to delete blacks off the voter rolls in 2000 and after, his employment of the tactics in Ohio to disenfranchise african americans in 2004? What the fuck is wrong with some of you people? What does it take for you not to be in denial about this? A hood and a cape? The virulently callous actions he takes time after goddamn time is right in line w his handling of NO.

[Maggie_May]

52. No he isn't a racist he just don't give a shit about the poor.

Black white red yellow if you are poor he doesn't give a shit about you.