Rita - Rehab for Bush?

In a word - Nope.

I submit to you two predictions:

1) You will NOT see the kind of chaos and misery in Texas that was seen in New Orleans.

You might be thinking, "That's a pretty bold statement. Are you crazy?" Well, yes, but that's beside the point. I feel totally comfortable and confident in making that assertion for a number of reasons but the main reason is because the feds won't be dealing with a bunch of incompetent buffoons at the state and local level. The President isn't having to beg the mayors of Galveston, Houston and other cities in Rita's path to evacuate. The mayors of those cities aren't waiting until the day before the storm hits to tell the inhabitants to evacuate. They aren't waiting for Greyhound busses to show up to take the elderly and poor to safety in style. The Governor of Texas isn't on TV crying and mumbling how they're just going to hope for the best without giving any clear instructions as to how he plans on dealing with the situation and what the people should do to protect themselves. The Governor of Texas isn't playing politics with the lives of the citizens he was elected to protect and serve by deciding not to do what is right and necessary to ensure the safety and well being of the most vulnerable in his state because Bush might gain a few political points and he (the governor) might not get all the glory if all went well. The Governor of Texas doesn't need "24 hours to think about it" when the people of his state are faced with death and mayhem so that he can secretly go hire a former Clinton crony as a PR rep to deflect and spin his inept bungling of the disaster.

2) Bush will be criticized for the lack of chaos and misery in Texas.

How can that be? Well it is very simple. The race-baiters, the Bush-haters and loonies in fever swamps of the Left, amplified in the MSM, will hold this out as proof that Bush DOES hate blacks and poor people, that he DOESN'T care about blacks and poor people and he DID want them to die in New Orleans. If this were not true, they will say, the federal response to Katrina (which mostly affected blacks and the poor) would have been as swift and well organized as I predict you will see in Texas following Rita (which will affect mostly whites and the affluent). Now any sane, rational person with even a fleeting knowledge of the facts will say that this argument is ridiculous. The fact is that Texas has an enormous Hispanic population. Are they going to skate through this storm unscathed while their white neighbors lose everything and start dropping like flies or vice versa? Of course not, that is absurd. And how about Florida? Florida was slammed with 4 hurricanes last year and being a former resident of south Florida I can attest to the fact that Florida has a massive minority population, largely immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica and other Caribbean islands who, by the way, happen to be black and quite poor. If Bush, the hater of blacks, wanted to rid the US of a massive black population, he could have lagged in his response to the 4 hurricanes of last year or any of the other hurricanes that hit south Florida since he became president. Of course the facts don't matter and these aren't sane or rational people.

Unfortunately the sad truth about politics and the MSM in America these days is that Bush can't win for losing. If the federal response is bungled in the aftermath of Rita, Bush will be blamed. If the federal response is a glorious success beyond anyone's wildest imagination, it will still be more cannon fodder for the Bush-haters.

Pathetic.