Coincidentally, when I see that alligator picture from a few days back --

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/005796.php

-- I find myself longing for it to be at James Wolcott's front door.

Yes, it would fit right in with his cat-kids.

"Land shark!"

"Aw, come on, you're just kidding around!" (Opens door.) "Aieeeeee!!!"

I think you should have titled the post "Missing an Opportunity to Shut Up."

Works on all sorts of levels.

Done and done. Thanks.

My personal favorite Olbermann quote can be found here.

SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

Yes, that's right. A slip of the tongue by a tired, overworked man calls the entire federal response into doubt.

I watched the increasingly insane statements emanating from the party of reality coalesce into a full court press of blinding hate by mid-last week. I didn't figure out exactly what the driving PR objective was until Bill Whittle published "Tribes".

Remember that four or five week period right after 9/11? Establishment Democrats and liberals waited with dread the demand of a unified American public for retribution on those responsible for the attacks on our cities... and accountability from those who allowed the primary individual behind those attacks to have run free after so many ignored opportunities to apprehend or simply kill him.

We were one people there for a brief shining moment - excepting creatures like Sontag, Chomsky, Moore, McKinney, et al - and the potential for political backlash was so great that Patriot, DHS, and a land war in Afghanistan shot through both sides of congress without a blink.

By the time we actually got into the meat of removing the Taliban, we lost that unity of purpose. Media sniping, the realization that the core of the Democrat base is closer to al Qaeda than Al the union plumber in affection for democracy and defense of the country made it imperative for those who like DC jobs to say what that base wanted to hear.

With Katrina we had a chance to pull together again - but with a weather event there is no one behind the tragedy to seek vengence on, to focus on, but rather only the prospect of hard work and expensive effort ahead, as with all other historical natural disasters we have experienced as a nation.

We could dig in and do the right thing, and it would be good, and it would be a moment to be proud of. What's Left of the left still owns most of the cameras and barrels of ink, and that shit just wasn't going to be allowed to happen again.

Now our public view into the efforts to help the victims eerily parallels the coverage of the war in Iraq. Turn on any channel, read any column, and you'll wade through viscious second guessing tempered with editorial opinion purveyed as hard news long, long before you get any hard data on tons of supplies, numbers of rescuers, or restoration of services. Thank goodness for Blogs is all I can say.

A great city is on the cusp of destruction and many other smaller communities have been damaged or wiped out entirely. Hundreds of thousands of our citizens are displaced or are yet marooned and awaiting relief. Now is the time to get the job done as best we can, yet the focus of the left remains zeroed on destroying one man, regardless of the cost to the fabric of our society, to the victims on our Gulf shore, the lives of our troops engaged against the veil of evil that is fundamentalist Islam, or the fate of the mere chance of representative democracy rising from the barbarism that is the at rest state of most of the Muslim arc of nations.

I heard mentioned a Gallup poll today that noted that only 13% of the sample blamed bush for the disaster. Had to search out the report and read all the way to the bottom to find that stat, though.

I think thirteen percent would probably be the number for people who think the CIA piloted the 9/11 aircraft, too.

I hope the news cycle rolls over pretty quick; their best effort doesn't seem to be selling the product. Again. Still.

Carnival of the Inanities