George Bush in Jackson Square: "Opportunity" or Opportunist?

George (Bush) is now on his what, uh... 53rd(?) trip down to New Orleans & other parts of the stricken Gulf Coast. Of course George carries with him a few more crumbs to spread (kind of like something else), even as he and his posse pass an Estate Tax repeal to relieve the suffering of the Super-Rich (Bush's base) while screwing the rest of us (including Katrina and Ophelia victims) with a new bankruptcy law. In Jackson Square "George the un-frugal Conservative" proposes big spending to rebuild New Orleans & the Gulf. It was Republicans who used to call this "throwing money at" a problem. News commentators note Bush never mentions 'sacrifice', nor how we are going to repay Chinese or other international lenders - to whom we are in major hock already. Bush thinks he also wants to re-define 'credibility'. Good luck, George. Meanwhile Louisville Courier Post political cartoonist Nick Anderson skewers The Bushter with his "HURRICANE LATRINA" cartoon. I'm loving it. Oh, and by the way... more than a few people consider New Orleans' Jackson Square "unlucky" if not downright evil. It's named in honor of the same Andrew Jackson who inaugurated the US federal Indian Removal policy and infamous Trail of Tears. As with the siege of Iraq, Katrina is well on the way to becoming yet another Bush "adventure" not turning out quite as George would like.

Comments

[Ben G.]

Ray Nagin has not shown himself to be honest enough to do the right thing. He is in the pocket of the white business interests. He was already on board to sell out Black housing projects to unscrupulous redevelopment schemes, such as the one that destroyed the St. Thomas Project around 2001. To stop the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans there will have to be a concerted political movement, supporting local activists. Leaving it to Ray Nagin is not an option.

[anthony]

Clever cartoon but only insufferable partisans would care about poll numbers in this context. As a political animal, Bush is no Clinton...we get that. (Mind you, it was Clinton who flew to Africa to apologise for talking a good game but doing nothing to prevent the slaughter of almost a million blacks in Rwanda and Burundi.) But why not just accept Bush's mea culpa and pray that Nagin and others are savvy (and honest) enough to ensure that black contractors get as much of that $200+ billion allocated for rebuilding and that poor and displaced blacks get the lion's share of homeownerships and new businesses that have been promised? Please!