The Politics of Feeling Good

I haven't replied really, but for a comment or two, about Sim's post calling out the Bush Administration for it's tin ear. In part, I thought it in poor taste to say much while not knowing the status of his friend from the area. Now that it's clear that she is safe-and-sound in Texas, I feel a bit more comfortable addressing the issue of tone-deafness.

Put bluntly, I think this is arguing about style points. While people have been stranded in a city that's 80% or more under-water and people are dying from dehydration, the argument (and criticism of which there are plenty of valid ones to be made it appears) needs to be about the substance. How many supplies are being delivered? How effectively are they being delivered?, etc.

Intellectual honesty requires also that we take into account the mitigating circumstances that have hampered part of the relief effort; How many roads are passable? If they are passable, how many have bridges over the river that are still in tact and still safe? How many of the targeted areas aren't under water and accessible to relief workers?

As to the public face that any President puts on such a disaster, I do agree in principle it is important to encourage and address people in such a way that they are inspired and stay hopeful in a crisis. Having said that, emoting just for the sake of emoting in a situation like this makes no sesnse to me.

I have as little use for President Bush dropping everything to utter platitudes when he doesn't have concrete info. or status reports as I did for Bill Clinton's quivering-lipped response to the "worst economy in the last 50 years." The point is the response, not the rhetoric.

The post-mortem on this whole situation is going to be ugly. I tend to think, at this point anyway, that there will be plenty of blame to spread around amongst the municipal, state and Federal authorities involved. In the meantime, I also tend to think that the better focus for now is on the substance of the response, not the missing or inadequate rhetoric coming from the Bush Administration.