Another Scandal, Another Smoking Gun

So once again George W. Bush is exposed as being deliberately--and criminally--negligent.

Yesterday a video was released showing that Bush was indeed warned before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast last year that the levees would fail.

"federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage."

The mayor of New Orleans claimed to be shocked after perusing the video.

"New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Wednesday he was shocked by video showing U.S. President George W. Bush being told the day before Hurricane Katrina hit that the city's protective levees could fail.

The tape contradicts the president's statement four days after the hurricane struck: 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.'"

But none of this should be at all surprising; when Bush received the fateful August 6, 2001 PDB regarding the determination of Osama bin Laden to attack within the United States, his response was to sit on his ass and let the al-Qaeda attack happen. He didn't do a damned thing.

And when this was revealed during the 9/11 Commission hearings, that was the first official sign that protecting American lives is the farthest thing from what passes for Bush's mind.

So why be surprised that he didn't bat an eye or take action when he was told that the levees were inadequate to deal with the flooding that would inevitably follow a category 5 hurricane?

With the ineffectual Democrats and their rubber-stamping counterparts in the GOP asking tepid questions about the tape, and Bush setting record low approval ratings just about every day, the obvious questions are thus: What will it take before the American people rise up and hold this traitor and his cronies accountable? When, or will, Bush, Cheney and the rest of the regime be punished for their crimes? How many good people will have to die before enough is enough and the nightmare finally ends?

The sad, plain fact is that the Bush regime does not now, has not ever, nor will it ever, care what happens to America and its citizens; protecting us is the farthest thing from their minds. All they care about is seizing and maintaining power at any cost--as long as someone else pays the price for their ambitions.

That's a tough truth to accept, even for the most die-hard Bush-haters. But you know what? Tough. The truth is rarely, if ever, pleasant. Deal with it.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. lied to get us mired in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to us. Iraq had no WMDs. It had no operational ties to al-Qaeda. But the Bushites wanted their invasion, and they were prepared to tell any lie to get it. And they did. Now that country is collapsing into all-out civil war, as was predicted by every sane person both inside and outside the federal government who had any insight into the matter.

They put corporate cronies into high positions in government, in agencies that were designed to look out for our interests and protect us from harm. And as a result, those cronies systematically dismantled those agencies--from the EPA to FEMA.

And people are dead because of it, who didn't have to die. And they will continue to die, as long as the American people in general continue to throw up their hands and give up, telling themselves that there's nothing to be done about it.

It is this acceptance of, and surrender to governmental abuse that is killing this nation. Until we all become unified in our anger at the Bush regime and its enablers in government, until we rise off our couches and do something, then all we're stuck with is "another day, another scandal, and another smoking gun."