I never feel comfortable writing about persons comments without proof. I wrote a previous post What's Going on where I attributed comments to Barbara Bush. Here are some of them. I will try to post a link to the whole interview if it is available.
Columns: It's finger-pointing time!: "It's finger-pointing time!
By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor
Published September 18, 2005
It's finger-pointing time!
By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor
Published September 18, 2005
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The Blame Game! (with apologies to Shirley Ellis)
Come on everybody!
I say now let's play a game.
I betcha I can lay blame onto anybody's name ...
Brownie!
Brownie, Brownie po' Brownie!
Banana fanna fo frowny
They finally ran you out of towny
You're so clowny -
Brownie!
Where do we even start with our hapless former FEMA director?
It's not just that Michael D. Brown had spent 10 years as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association before his old college roommate gave him a job in the Bush administration. It's that Brown apparently was a lousy commissioner. He got run out of that job, too.
It's not just that he padded his resume. He padded it by claiming to have served as assistant city manager of Edmond, Okla.
Couldn't President Bush at least have gotten the real assistant city manager of Edmond, Okla., to serve as FEMA director? Brown actually served only as an assistant to the city manager, "more like an intern," an Edmond spokesman told Time.
And it's not just that Brown kept saying really stupid, inaccurate and offensive things - such as claiming not to know that thousands of hurricane evacuees were stranded at the New Orleans convention center, when every American with a TV set had seen them there for a couple of days. It's that he said all those stupid things while staring at the camera like one of the vacant-eyed victims he was supposed to be helping. At least lupine Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff looks like he knows what he's talking about, even when he doesn't.
Brownie will be missed - especially by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who can no longer claim to be only the second most overmatched official in the recovery effort.
Bush!
Bush, Bush - yo, Bush!
Banana fanna faux Bush
We hate to push - there's no rush!
Trouble ya, Dubya? Thanks so much!
Bush!
Sure, the president blew it by dithering for days before and after Katrina hit, but now he seems determined to keep flying back down to the disaster zone over and over until he finally gets the photo op right.
To his credit, Bush finally took responsibility, more than two weeks after Katrina hit, "to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right." Until then, though, he produced more tone-deaf soundbites than Say Wha? could keep up with: "Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job." "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." "We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers."
And when he made his first belated visit to the area, he offered these inspirational words to lift the spirits of one especially hard-hit Mississippi victim of Katrina: "Out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast. ... Out of the rubbles of (U.S. Sen.) Trent Lott's house - the guy lost his entire house! - there's going to be a fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch."
Barbara!
Barbara, Barbara - whoa, Barbara!
Banana fanna - no, Barbara!
Not even crazy Joe Scarborough
Said anything quite so macabre
Barbara!
Actually, MSNBC's Scarborough, the former Republican congressman from Pensacola, has done some uncharacteristically straightforward Katrina reporting that cut through the usual cable blather. Similarly, Fox's Shepard Smith did such a compelling job of documenting the misery and bureaucratic incompetence in New Orleans that the Bush apologists back in Fox's studios were rendered temporarily speechless.
But Barbara Bush apparently didn't get the memo. The former first lady, who accompanied her husband and Bill Clinton to see the bedraggled hurricane evacuees who had been bused to Houston's Astrodome, had these words of empathy for the displaced poor people from New Orleans:
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program Marketplace. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
You're right, Mrs. Bush. That is sort of scary.
Most people attribute the special bond that has developed between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to their shared understanding of the lonely burdens of the presidency. I think it may have more to do with their shared understanding of the lonely burdens of each other's marriages.
Cheney!
Cheney, Cheney - so brainy!
Banana fanna no-brainy
He didn't notice it was rainy
Zany!
Cheney!
The vice president was even harder to roust from his vacation than the president was. And once Cheney finally showed up in Gulfport, Miss., 10 days after Katrina hit, he incurred the wrath of Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency-room physician whose home was destroyed in the storm. Blocked from reaching his home by the vice president's entourage, Marble was heard on live television shouting out, "Go ---- yourself, Mr. Cheney" - echoing Cheney's words to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., last year. Marble was briefly handcuffed for his trouble, but not before he became the Patrick Henry of Hurricane Katrina.
Kanye!
Kanye, Kanye bo Banye
Banana fanna fo Fanye ...
Oh, never mind. But no compendium of Katrina quotes would be complete without recounting rapper Kanye West's off-script soliloquy during a nationally televised concert for hurricane relief.
"I hate the way they portray us in the media," West said, as a terrified Mike Myers looked on. "If you see a black family, they say, "They're looting.' See a white family, it says, "They are looking for food.' ...
"We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way ... and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!
"George Bush doesn't care about black people ... "
And then panicked MSNBC president Rick Kaplan cut off West's microphone. But at least the Grammy winner wasn't handcuffed.
Special mention also should go to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which sent out letters criticizing the Bush administration's insensitive handling of the relief effort and soliciting donations to ... the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee!
Committee officials eventually were shamed into promising to send any funds they collected to hurricane relief efforts, but they'd already revealed their real priorities.
It was almost enough to make you think White House press secretary Scott (Scott! Scott! Robot! Banana fanna so squat!) McClellan had a point the other day when he accused - eight times in one press conference - the administration's critics of playing the "Blame Game."
[Last modified September 16, 2005, 18:51:02]