Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A "response" to the SOTU address last night from Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, aired on ABC. It was much better than seeing the illustrious oaf pressing the flesh last night, as though he were running for office again. I much preferred watching Ratatouille for the umpteenth time with my son over watching Dubya throw New Orleans a bone and implore everyone in a highly unconvincing manner to trust him.

She mentions, in her speech, that the city manager of Greensburg, Kansas, was there on the dais behind the Rampart monkey. Anybody remember Greensburg?

more awful pictures of the May 4, 2007 tornado's aftermath can be seen here

Sebelius had a prime opportunity to really skewer the lame schmuck currently in the White House. And she had all the ammunition with which to do so. In the aftermath of the EF-5 tornado that wiped out most of the city, Sebelius expressed her concern that recovery efforts were being hampered by the fact that much of the equipment needed was in Iraq:
"When the troops get deployed, the equipment goes with them. So here in Kansas about 50 percent of our trucks are gone. We need trucks. We are missing Humvees, we're missing all kinds of equipment that could help us respond in this kind of emergency," she said.
She is the one Democratic leader left of a state hit by catastrophic disaster that saw with Greensburg some similar things to what Kathleen Blanco saw with 8-29 and after. Jindal, our newly inaugurated Republican governor, cannot do this and won't even try.

I keep listening to her speech over and over, trying to decipher it. It is a wimpy, wispy piece of retort, there's no question. She sounds as tired as I am of all the crap that's been going on. She is quite concerned for the well-being of the entire country, for certain, but she's got her own problems. All she could do was implore Dubya to get off his duff and start working with the Democratic Congress to make things better for ourselves and for future "greatest generations". She offered up Greensburg as a model for "green living" when she could have taken some time to discuss how the infrastructure of the entire country needs some serious help of a different sort of green. Maybe it's the name "Kathleen" that's the problem...note to parents of a future greatest generation: stay away from that name if you want your daughters to go far in politics.

Kathleen, honey, if this is what you mean by "bipartisan action", well, I think you need to get more specific in order to distance yourself, and help distance your party, from these kinds of actions. And our illustrious oaf of a prez has had eight years to work with Congress and has squandered every opportunity to do so. You sound like a tired, civilized lady - but divisive politics are unfortunately the order of the day.

God bless, and sleep well, and in the morning, let's get to work.

For some people, that work will be business as usual.

And, in American politics today, that is a sad, sad thing.

6 comments:

mominem said...

Leigh, Greenberg is hardly comparable. According to Wikipedia;

"As of the U.S. Census in 2000,GR2 there were 1,574 people, 730 households, and 453 families residing in the city."

The tornado was gone in minute. I was kept form my house for weeks. Something like 200,000 houses were damaged in New Orleans. The number of deaths in New Orleans almost equaled the entire population of Greenberg.

Most people can't tell the difference on TV.

Leigh C. said...

I realize it is teensy in comparison, and that the situations are not exactly the same. I still think Sebelius was in a good position to call out the president on some of his bull. Not that it was gonna happen in ten minutes, mind you. I just think there was an opportunity there to try to better articulate the malaise that the Democrats could be capitalizing on more fully in this important election.

I guess it was too much to ask.

New Orleans Ladder said...

I had left this comment over on Thinkfish but only because my list isn't alphabetized...it is mo'betta here.

In the SOTU address last night, the presidente used the word “trust” 19 times, a nice round number:
(14)–nearly consecutive paragraph ledes previous (leading to) the paragraph on New Orleans (no trust words there, here we have compassion for the problem child). Then next from New Orleans we go to a paragraph about entitlements and illegal immigration…next:
(1)-in the opening senetence to the blood & guts of foreign policy-war-on-terror-build-up, the Bhutto assassination, a couple of 9/11s then to his meat and potatoes–The War On Terror, Afghanistan the next stage on the war in Iraq.
{Though he does say to ‘verify’ in Iran mangled with ‘transparency’ in emergent democracy and ‘responsibility’ in homeland security, we know that for Bush these words are not quite on the same brain-page as “Trust”.} No Trust for the War on Terror. No more “Trust” for entire rest of the speach–until…finally BANG BANG BANG 3 IN A ROW!!!
(3)- 1 “Trust” for each sentence of the the laaast, closing paragraph.
1- Closing sentence.
So, (to the tune “T for Texas”) ‘Got a T for Trust Us’,
to abbreviate:
T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T
NEW ORLEANS(no Trust there but Armies of Compassion)
T
——————————————–
——————————————–
——————————————–
TTT
T

Ta’da!

Stang'em High Hornets!

Anonymous said...

she sounded drugged,,,

seev said...

Jon Stuart did an unkind job on her on the Daily Show, I thought. Something about the voice and appearance. I would have thought issues might have taken precedence, or at least he might have worked them in somehow. But I guess image is all.

Leigh C. said...

Image is getting to be too much, especially in this election...