Colin Powell struck me as a decent, principled, and extremely thoughtful man before his years in the Bush administration. Actually, even in the first half of the Bush administration I definitely had the sense that he provided a rare voice of reason and statesmanship in an administration by-and-large driven by domestic politics and ideology. For […]
Brad Plumer notes how the GOP wants to pay for the Katrina relief and not raises taxes now or in the future on wealth folks: It’s an old business myth that the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” It doesn’t. But I’m not sure anyone’s told the Bush administration, judging […]
Does Howard Fineman have even the most remote understanding of the issues surrounding the Katrina disaster? But Hurricane Katrina has thrown Hillary’s caution to the wind: she’s decided to made a federal case out of this one. Fineman is trying to say that the former First Lady was playing politics with this disaster. Maybe a […]
Ariana Huffington deserves a lot of praise as she notes: So the White House is for time management and against “finger-pointing” — a two-talking-points-for-the-price-of-one She continues by nailing Michael Chertoff. But finger pointing and shifting blame is the White House game as played over at the National Review. Blame local authorities, blame liberals but don’t […]
Edmund Andrews of the NYTimes writes about the impact that Katrina will have on Bush’s economic agenda. With estimates from Washington yesterday that Katrina may cost the federal government $100 billion or more, the fiscal picture certainly does look a bit darker than it did just two weeks ago. Assuming that about $75 billion of […]
I realize that this story is getting good play already, but I’m so stunned that I have to repeat it here. From yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune: ATLANTA – Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?” As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin […]
Nearly all of New Orleans’ 480,000 residents are now living elsewhere. Many of them will continue to live elsewhere for months. Many of them have already started renting apartments or even buying houses elsewhere. Many or most will begin looking for jobs in the towns in which they’ve temporarily relocated, and start sending their kids […]
Will Katrina really have a substantial negative impact on the US economy, or will its effects be minor and transitory? This week’s Buttonwood column gives both arguments: Supplies of oil and petrol are being released from emergency stocks, some limited refining is resuming in the Gulf of Mexico, and the price of crude has retreated […]
So I picked up The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time in the airport (it’s a story of the adventures of what to my inexperienced eye seems to be a high-functioning autistic teenager). Having enjoyed it thoroughly, I passed it on to Honey Bear, (btw, now my fiance’!). Her response, other than also […]
Lowry at first decries the finger-pointing: It is getting ugly. Not just in New Orleans, but in the debate over it. Take our poisonous partisan divide, add the finger-pointing that takes place after any calamity, then mix in noxious racial politics, and you have the formula for the coming Battle over New Orleans. But then […]