Terry McMahon's Awesome Blog

In the spirit of making nonsensical, ranting posts on Hurricane Katrina, a friend of mine asked me recently what I thought would be the political fallout of Katrina and I thought I'd post my reply. This was written before the president said he would spend more money on Gulf Coast reconstruction than on the Iraq war, and pay for it by cutting federal spending. (Looks like there won't be money for Social Security after all!) Anyway, here's what I said:

anyway, you asked what I thought about the political fallout of katrina. I think it hit Bush and the Republicans immediately for about seven points in approval, and I suspect long-term it further erodes the idea that the Republicans in Washington can do anything right. (I think democrats running for congress should be saying stuff like, "look, I don't think they're bad people, they're just not any good at this.") unfortunately, I suspect democrats are getting nowhere on this, much like they get nowhere with every GOP fuckup from iraq to tom delay. for some reason, and I'm not sure what it is, the DC establishment filters certain things through the lens of "things democrats and liberals whine about," and it seems like every time the democrats try to make a new issue, within about a week no one takes them seriously. I mean, they're completely right to go after republicans on the terrible response to katrina, but now it just sounds like whining. is it because DC republicans are so much better at muddying the waters to make it a he-said/she-said deal? I suspect democrats need to get better at picking two or three clear, unassailable points, and not really talking about anything else. like the state-federal government issues of who needed whose permission to do what and where is complicated. how about, "george bush sealed the fate of new orleans when he made michael brown FEMA director" or "I don't care if there were limits on what the federal government could do, if they saw what was going on down there - and we could all see it on TV - they should have gone in, saved lives, and gotten permission later." wouldn't that be two great messages? I don't know why we can't go with that. we're right here; we just have to explain why.