I've heard a lot of people complain about the lack of W's involvement and his apparent apathy for what's going on in Louisiana and Mississippi right now. Someone said to me the other day, "Why isn't he down here?" to which I responded, "Why, so he could screw things up even more?" Another friend of mine sent me this editorial from the NYT, which I think elegantly hits the nail right on the head.
We have a president who doesn’t care, and who actually has the nerve to say that this disaster will make us stronger as a country. No, W, that’s how out of touch with reality you are. Disasters like this take something out of you. There are going to be plenty of people for a long time coming who will be haunted by what has happened. Not that you have the capacity to care or understand.
I need to take a moment to skewer more than just George W. Bush. I expect this kind of loathsome behavior from him. He’s completely without merit. What is distressing to me is the apathy of the people I talk to on a daily basis. No one seems to care what’s going on in New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. They live their everyday bland lives, not giving a second thought about what it means to lose everything, and I mean, every single thing, and be faced with months of uncertainty, knowing you have to begin again from scratch. Can you imagine not knowing where your neighbors are or if they are alive, or your friends, or family? And what about all the pets that were left behind? If I had to leave my cat behind in a disaster, well, I wouldn’t. I would be lugging Sammy Davis, Jr. (my cat, not the deceased star) all over the place with me.
Throughout the day, I’m reminding people I know and work with that there are a lot of folks in our own backyard with some real problems. So I’m sorry if your work day is stressful, or if you have too much on your desk. At least you have a job and your boring existence has gone uninterrupted. For once, you have something to be grateful for.
