Robert S. Rivkin on what BushCO should be saying right now:

In his weekly radio address to the nation Saturday, President George W. Bush attempted to sanitize the blistering criticism from virtually all shades of the political spectrum that his administration had received for its handling of the tragic (and partly avoidable) Hurricane Katrina calamity. Words like “death,” “chaos,” “anarchy,” “squalor,” “incompetence” and “national disgrace” — among the most descriptive and emotive ones uttered last week by thousands of people — were omitted from the president’s speech. So, I am offering here a straightforward address to the nation that President Bush could give next Saturday. This speech might restore his credibility as a leader:

My fellow Americans: First, I want to apologize to you, and particularly to the citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana, for my administration’s failure to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. I apologize for our excruciating slowness in getting life-supporting essentials — food, clean water and medicine — to the flood victims in New Orleans. Sadly, I realize that the federal government’s inexcusable delay of at least two days in providing these essential items caused many unnecessary deaths, and unnecessarily prolonged the agony for thousands of mostly poor, black citizens of the United States, who were barely surviving in disgusting conditions. For that I am truly sorry.

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You know, way back in the days of a newsgroup called alt.showbiz.gossip, I used to get in regular fights with this guy. He gives quality rant, but had a tendency to get on the wrong side of a fight and keep fighting hard when he was clearly beaten.

He’s come a ways since then; his rants are better, and in this case, he fuckin’ nails it hard.

Read Steve Gilliard’s rant – We Told You So

Choice quotes:

(use of the N word is Steve’s, not mine)

You say this isn’t about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn’t an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox’s talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

And:

Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question. Rick Perry is trying to save his ass, but it ain’t working. NOLA looks like ANGOLA and that ain’t flying.

Say 9/11 changed everything now, motherfuckers. Ooops, 9/11, 9/11. 9/11. Doesn’t work anymore? Gee, maybe the sea of alligator MRE’s once known as the citizens of New Orleans has something to do with that. Now you can shut the fuck up about 9/11. Bush just proved what would happen with another 9/11. Dead Americans as far as the nose can smell.

And my favorite:

The most dangerous thing to average Americans is not some mullah in Iraq, not even Osama Bin Laden, but George Bush. If he doesn’t get you killed in Iraq, he’ll fuck up saving your city so it turns into Escape from New Orleans. Armed junkies roaming the streets, looking for a fix, robbing and looting like Serb paramilitaries and about as sober.

George Bush’s ineptitude has killed far more Americans than Osama could have dreamed of.

Keep it on, Steve. Truth.

The question is always this when there’s a disaster on the scale of a huricane katrina; what can those of us far away do to help?

In many ways, the answre is not fucking much.

But there are a couple ways we can help out – money, and time.

I’m no expert on this. So I’ll point to someone who is – go read Doxy’s entry on helping 101. (EDIT – that’s a new link, she just updated)

These are the people who’re gonna be there, with time and bodies and money, helping those who lost everything, sheltering them, feeding them, getting them clean water to drink and medical attention.

So what do you do, where do you go?

You can start with www.redcross.org, though that server is being hit hard. You can call – 1-800-HELP-NOW.

You can also give time, if you have some. It’s all volunteers, taking calls, processing donations, shipping supplies to the disaster zone, or out there slogging through the mud helping the cleanup.

redcross.org/donate/volunteer/

You can even give blood. As always, blood supplies are short. http://www.redcross.org/donate/give/.

It’s something, for those of us too far to do anything useful to help all these poor bastards.