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Of Politics!

Gay marriage in CA?

I had a lot on my political slate last week and just couldn't get it organized into a cohesive bundle. I even started on two posts that never made it. I'll mention them in a nutshell but try instead to focus on the nice things happening around the country--things like the above article, and like the great hospitality and generosity that so many have extended to the victims of Ms. Katrina.

Nutshells:
1) An interesting take on Iraq.
2) Sean Hannity first claimed this statement to be a liberal press indictment of President Bush:

Not since he sat in a Florida classroom as the World Trade Center burned a thousand miles away has President George W. Bush faced a test quite like the one he has now returned to Washington to confront.

(Note that it could actually be interpreted as sympathetic to the President to anyone not crying wolf about the liberalism of the press).
Sean Hannity then called out New Orleans Mayor Nagin for these remarks, claiming the mayor was trying to shift blame, and acting very un-Giuliani-like. I intended to point out that the Mayor's blame was correctly placed, given that the Governor did not call in the federal government nor take significant steps to aid New Orleans on time to save quite a few lives, that the federal government did not take the prerogative to provide aid without first getting the Governor's permission despite the crisis situation, that the aid provided by the federal government was poorly executed and likely cost quite a few lives, and still furthermore that some blame may be laid correctly on the President himself:

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

This is not "politicizing" the disaster for liberal gain; this is placing blame squarely on the shoulders that deserve it, perhaps for the benefit of other likely disaster sites which might have had their funding slashed to make room for the war. I feel Mayor Nagin has done an impressive job handling a situation involving likely 2-3 times the deaths of 9/11, without any appropriately patriotic channel for his anger (i.e. damn those terrorists and liberals!), and in which he had basically no resources with which to help his constituents until the highers-up heeded his calls for help.
3) Whoa. Rehnquist died and Roberts is likely to replace him as Chief Justice. I don't even know what to think of this yet.
4) But in related news, I
a) hope that Alberto Gonzales is not the next Supreme Court appointee. I tend to be anti-torture.
b) am curious whether the race angle of the federal government's failure to respond promptly to the situation in New Orleans (or "George Bush doesn’t care about black people," as Kanye West so delicately put it) will factor into this next appointment. That would make Gonzales an obvious choice, albeit one I (again) would pretty clearly oppose. But at any rate, it's an interesting political angle to consider. I wonder whether RWU will be abuzz with this latest development...
5) Mr. Slabaugh has a few more valuable links for your consideration.

So that was a little more extensive than I intended this time around, but less than I originally intended, so I guess it all averages out. I am particularly curious about how the President deals with all these intertwining situations in the coming days. I have heard plenty of talk about how he has expended way too much political capital in his failed Social Security reform and the ever-less-popular war in Iraq, and so the nation's position on Iraq (which have become remarkably more difficult to read up on in light of the events surrounding the hurricane and the Supreme Court) might even be affected by the President's drop in approval rating after the hurricane, and his other judicial appointee might have more trouble passing, or might have an easier time if liberal interest groups spend too much money fighting Roberts--ah the excitement of politics!

As for me, vacation's over and it's back to class tomorrow. Summer and Petey are well, and you'll likely be hearing more on the personal front soon. 'Til then, peace. And don't forget to read about gay marriage.