Can't I get a break?

Or how to get the Presidents Goat

In CNN's The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty used the hurricane as an excuse to trash President Bush for being on vacation, as if the location of Bush, who already authorized federal action, has any impact on that federal response to the devastation. Cafferty asked host Wolf Blitzer: “Where's President Bush? Is he still on vacation?” Blitzer answered that “he's cut short his vacation. He's coming back to Washington tomorrow.” Cafferty snidely contended: “Well, that would be a good idea. He was out in San Diego, I think, at a Naval air station giving a speech on Japan and the war in Iraq today. Based on his approval rating in the latest polls, my guess is getting back to work might not be a terrible idea.”
Poor, poor boy.
It's really unfair that his every move is scrutinized like he was some sort of public figure. We all know he's a recluse. Why, he never even mingles with the press if he doesn't have to.
And yet they are always tracking him down pestering him. Why are you on vacation? There is a war. Why are you on vacation? There is a disaster. Why are you still reading? The OTHER tower just blew up. I mean give the guy a break would you? He took some time out of his vacation to pump up the American public about the war. Don't we all feel better? Some may argue that it would have taken less time to meet with that Sheehan person but I doubt it would have had the same impact, reached the same people. Besides he needed a month off.
Thank goodness for leadership by example though.
Fortunately G.W's "I can do what ever I want" attitude is catching on. Maybe THIS is the trickle down effect Reagan was talking about.

tourists and looters

On Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.

"This is for the sick," Officer Jeff Jacob said. "We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law."

Another office, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.

From war to looting. As for me I don't care what they were taking. I can't see how they can conscientiously charge any of the profiteers. *Yes profiteers, like war profiteer Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. Even tho' G.W. says "I think there ought to be **zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency..."
When you have leadership like this. Where do we start? The flood victims. the police, the executive branch?
Aren't you glad he's back from vacation?

*How do I know? See the story of Bunny...NY Times or Finer point on it


** Very tired of this phrase. Even more so that it means nothing.
zero tolerance policies in schools

"zero tolerance" for Saddam Hussein violating a tough new U.N. resolution sought by the United States

zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters.
Why then has the Republican Party quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire?

North Korea, Iran and Iraq of having clandestine nuke programs and warned them he would "not tolerate" their having the nuke programs he accused them of having.
Why, then, is Bush so insouciant about North Korea's seeking to manufacture bomb-grade material on its own?
Bush's thinking as follows: The North Koreans, Bush told him, "are looking to get us excited, to make us issue declarations." Bush's response to this pressure, the official said, is, "You're hungry, and you can't eat plutonium."