Mercury Rising

Some things are so outrageous they discredit themselves. The latest GOP e-mailer is based on the idea that the people of Louisiana deserved the suffering they endured from Katrina, and that Texans escaped suffering because they are Republicans. It ends with a photo of New Orleans under water, saying this is what you get when you elect Democrats. The word "scum" was tailor-made to describe the senders of this. Naturally, the mailer is full of disinformation. It fails to mention that Katrina was a Category 5 until just before it made landfall, at which point it was a strong 4, while Rita had diminished to a Category 3 before it made land and quickly ceased to be a hurricane at all. But if you're interested in politics first and saving lives second, that sort of pathological dishonesty comes naturally. But even in what the mailer does claim, it's false: "Texas: Residents take responsibility to protect and evacuate themselves. Louisiana: Residents wait for government to protect and evacuate them." Of course, no one who could leave New Orleans stayed-- except for the wealthy people who lived on higher ground. The reason there was such a difference in New Orleans was that there were far more poor people--and elderly, and ill, and handicapped-- who had no cars, no money, no way to get out. In Galveston, exactly the same thing happened! The sender flat out lied to score a political point. The whole piece, in fact, is lies wrapped within lies. Any fool knows one can extrapolate from one point to anywhere in the universe. Instead of comparing Louisiana to Texas on hurricane response, how about making a fair comparison? If you do, you will find that the loyal Republican state, Mississippi has a lower income, more high school dropouts, and fewer college grads than Louisiana (recovering from Republican rule). Texas, which just lost its Democratic legislature does better than Louisiana, but ranks far, far behind Massachusetts, where even the Republicans are half-Democrat. Contrary to the lying claims of the mailer, red states suck in more federal dollars than they pay in, while blue states are the indulgent sugar daddies who pay for the red states' social pathology. Examples of which include the extravagantly Gothic adultery of Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice. In Texas, the indictments of Tom DeLay and of Kenneth Lay are the normal result of the Republican crime culture. The falsifying of test scores under George W. Bush's governorship is another major scandal. As for Republican adultery vs. Democratic adultery, you want to go name for name, scumboy, just bring it on. Politics should not be played this way. George Bush was legally and morally responsible to care for the sick, the poor, the elderly of New Orleans and he failed. There were two paths for him to take. One was the honorable path of admitting fault. Despite many media outlets attempt to do this for him, he has not accepted real responsibility. The other choice was the scummy path of having his political hit people try to blame the sick, the poor, the elderly for suffering and dying. I suppose it is no suprise which path his operatives have taken. There is a story fictional story we have all read, Everett Edward Hale's The Man Without a Country. In it, a young lieutenant, Philip Nolan, caught at intriguing against the United States curses the nation and says he wishes he had never heard of it. The judge sentences him to travel forever on a ship, never able to claim any nation as his own. Whoever wrote this bit of propaganda, dishonest and heartless to the hole where his soul should be, has denied that these states are united in brotherhood and sisterhood, obligated to care for one another. He has cursed this nation by despising both the truth and the poor. Like Lieutenant Nolan, he deserves to be called a man without a country and suffer the same punishment, of never again hearing the name of or touching the soil of the United States.