Schlomo Here!

I received a rebuttal to my entry Why BushCo is Responsible. Rather than enter it as a comment on the site this Neo-Con apologist sent it to me directly.

The rebuttal actually helped to gel some of my earlier thoughts. So if you're interested I present them after the jump.

I wrote:

The President is mandated, it could be argued it is his sole duty, to protect America and it's citizens.

The Neo-Con Asked:

Where did this come from? It's not in his oath of office or the constitution.
Here you commit the fallacy of assuming what you're trying to prove, also called "Begging the question" or "Circular reasoning."
Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so.

My response:

The only ill logic here is your claim of circular arguments. Try again.

Presidential Oath of Office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Preamble of the Constitution
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Constitution, a document for the people by the people, is a roadmap for protecting the people. The Presidents oath is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

What part of promoting general welfare, insuring domestic tranquility and providing for the common defence etc do you fail to understand?

Or are you going to argue that it's the president's job to just preserve, protect and defend a piece of parchment?

As part of a private back and forth I referred to BushCo as a "cult of personality" This apparently struck a nerve.

Neo-Con:

In general, you use "mandated" as carelessly as you use "cult" and that's not conducive to reasonable discourse.

My response:

I initially referred to Neo-Cons and other followers of Dubya as a "cult of personality." You went off on some other tangent trying to get me to define cult. But for the purposes of discourse I give you the definition of a cult.

cult ( P ) Pronunciation Key (klt) n.

1. A religion or religious sect generally considered
to be extremist or false, with its followers often living
in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an
authoritarian, charismatic leader.

2. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its
originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing
a particular disease.

3. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for
a person, principle, or thing.

4. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually
artistic or intellectual interest.

That pretty much sums it up. I will be glad to explain the application of the definition to the Dubya cult of personality if you need help.

Now this is where it got really good and lots of concepts sort of gelled in my mind.

Now I could go and refute your arguments point by point but since Dubya's admission of responsibility today there is no point. He knows his government fucked up and, for a pleasant change, admitted the mistake.

However, there are a few things you should be aware of.   It's amazing what you can find if you go to the source and avoid the spin.

Gov Blanco and Mayor Nagin did beg for help. Repeatedly. Starting on August 26 with phone calls to Bush and a declaration of emergency from Gov Blanco and a voluntary evacuation order from the Mayor. There were additional pleas for assistance to Bush on August 28 and Sept 2.

I refer you to Gov Blanco's office

Guard Troops were called up on Aug 26 as confirmed by this transcript of a Defense Department briefing

In my opinion, The locals did their job to the best of their ability. But as I stated you can't rely on the victims to provide their own support. That's why FEMA exists. FEMA failed.  The scope of the disaster was accurately predicted by Operation Pam which was conducted by

And for the following reasons you can't remove FEMA from the equation that ultimately finds President Bush at fault.

Bush is responsible because there was a massive failure of the beuracracy that Dubya, and his neo-con advisors, set up. Bush established the Dept of Homeland Security. Bush put FEMA under DHS control. This isn't some lingering problem from a former Democrat administration.

EVERYTHING was re-written after 9/11.  Hurricane Katrina was the first test of the massive department Bush established to handle securing the homeland and managing disasters.

The President's plan failed. Miserably.  Where does the buck stop?

Even by your "powerless" definition Bush is hardly a leader. Being dogmatic, unilateralist and unwavering do not make a leader.  If you think that it was appropriate for Bush to stay on vacation for 6 days, or play guitar with a country music star, while bodies were floating in the streets you are delusional. He is divisive, unaware, uninformed and un-inspirational. A leader makes you want to stand up. He doesn't have many people standing with him at the moment. Check out Pat Buchanan's latest ramblings. He thinks Bush should be impeached.

A leader brings people together. Bringing people together requires building a coalition. You can't do that with recess appointments of ambassadors that failed to make it out of committee. You can't do that with messing around with senate traditions like the filibuster. You can't do that when you ignore over 50% of the public. You can't do that when you support one religion over another. You can't do that when you occupy sovereign nations under false pretenses. You can't do that when you play cowboy while people are dying.

Even if you agree with his ideas, his success rate is miserable. Despite the Republican dominated congress and courts, He has been given everything he asked for and still can't get anything done.  Bush has not succeeded in Iraq or Afghanistan...Neo-Cons don't understand you can't dictate democracy. He hasn't grown the economy. He hasn't stopped terrorism or captured Bin Laden. He hasn't taken care of health care or welfare. He hasn't delivered substantive tax cuts, only rebates. He did take a budget surplus and turn it into the largest deficit in history. He has managed to create the largest federal government in history. He has managed to squander international goodwill through his inept unilateralist foreign policy.

Despite my naysaying I am fully aware that the Republic will stand. However, your granddaughter will be taught Intelligent Design. Your granddaughter will be forced to pay for the massive federal deficit. Your granddaughter will lose her choice (I hope she's smarter than that). Your granddaughter won't be any safer from a terrorist threat. She will have to fight someone from Bangladesh for a job. And if she is ever caught in a natural disaster she has little hope of being rescued.

I love you too, Dad, despite your obvious early-onset dementia.