But sometimes Michael Moore says it best:
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.
Posted by zippy at September 2, 2005 09:28 AMAlthough I think it's very important to question "the man" and actually use our brains rather than following the herd like sheeple, Michael Moore's blatantly subjective view is not exactly worthy of respect in any journalistic sense. Good thing he is in the entertainment industry, because I find much of his material highly entertaining... but I worry that that the same type of "America, FUCK YEAH!" sheeple mentality can be seen in deciples of Moore and their "America, FUCK BUSH!" logic. Let's use our brains to make the world a better place rather than pointing at a scapegoat.
By the way, I completely agree that the fucking job of the national government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. There are at least two strikes out of three going on here.
Posted by: Ryan at September 2, 2005 10:09 AMYes, I don't consider Michael Moore a journalist, I guess perhaps some ppl do. I mean, he makes movies, end of story. BTW, did you make up the word 'sheeple'? I like it (:
But he does have a talent for turning pissed-off blathering rage into a biting, sardonic portrait of a totally mixed-up government. How is it that nobody can mobilize and drop at the very least water bottles into NOLA? What is the fucking holdup? I would love to use my brains to fly a 'copter full of food, water & medicine down there but you know, I thought we had government personnel in place to do that if a national emergency happened.
So much for all that post-9/11 'readiness'.
Posted by: Me at September 2, 2005 10:19 AMMichael Moore as a repectable journalist? No. A respectable maker of informative documentaries? No. Michael Moore as someone who is able to get some messages and thoughts out to a wide audience, so that they can be discussed in a broader context? Sure. And that is good. Anything that Michael Moore says needs to be digested with more than a grain of salt - keep the whole darn can of morton's nearby if you can. He is out there. But moderates do not get thier voices heard. You do not see people who are moderately aligned on the conservative right - but feel that "women have a right to choose", for example. The people on the right that make the headlines are the religious fanatics with big signs that are screaming at the top of thier lungs. And as far as the left goes - you can't make the news as someone from the left unless you are a dyke dressed in clown-colored clothes making out with your significant other while breast feeding.
The thing that I love about Michael Moore is that he is just so darned normal looking. He is able to convey the hardline views of the left side without being a freak. One of these days, the conservative right is going to get themselves a televangelist that doesn't have some crazy make-up caked pink haired shoe loving whacko as their co-anchor. Then, and only then, the right will know what the left has known for the past several years. It is good to have Michael Moore.