Playing Politics?

To answer the question above--YES!!!

I have heard the screech owls from the right object to "playing politics" (apparently this is a different game from the "Blame Game," should I check with Hoyle?) with this disaster. Should we “play politics?” Should we take advantage of a disaster? Should we “exploit” this tragedy?

The obvious response is YES!!!!

First of all, we have the oh so simplistic black pot and black kettle angle. Think about how the Republicans “exploited,” “played politics,” etc. with the attacks of September 11, 2001. They did so despite the whole “Bin Laden to attack in United States” memo, remember?

Honestly, I do not blame the administration for 9/11. Was there more they could have done? Certainly. Would it have been effective? Who knows, while well-planned, the attacks were fairly low-tech, a few guys you could fit in a phone booth and some box cutters. But in terms of playing politics? This administration parlayed a horrific attack and a national tragedy into an unrelated misbegotten war. And just think how they capitalized on that, from embedded reporters to questioning the patriotism of critics to Captain Codpiece and his Greatest American Hero flightsuit landing. They also played on that horrific image and the country’s fear of “terror” to “win” “re-election.” (Ohio and Florida, hello!)

But beyond the obvious pot and kettle stuff, there are legitimate reasons for running on this. First of all, it clearly demonstrates this party’s PRIORITIES. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, levees be damned!

Secondly, it deals with INTEGRITY. “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job?” This administration promoted a grotesquely incompetent man to a position of national importance based on cronyism? His superior had no experience in disaster management? Then factor in the lies and half-truths put forth by the administration to try and cover their failings and blame others.

But to my mind, the clincher as to why we not only can but MUST run on this is the question of COMPETENCE. This is a two-fold question. The first is an obvious attack on THIS administration, as they demonstrated their grotesque incompetence. Given that they ran on a platform of making us safer, it is absolutely fair to hold up their failings. Mismanagement, missed opportunities, lost lives and really bad air guitar!

I see, however, the incompetence not only of an administration but also that of an ideology. As Grover Norquist, an influential advisor of the president stated, their goal was to reduce the federal government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Well, they didn’t reduce the size of the federal government, as a quick look at the debt and deficit numbers will show. However, they did reduce its effectiveness, and when they dragged it into the bathroom, New Orleans drowned, and God only knows, that was no bathtub.