Who Is Responsible?

We are a country that is divided. We are divided by ideology: Republican versus Democrat, Conservative versus Liberal, Faith-based versus Reality-based. Some say that we are divided by values.

I don’t buy that. Values are a very amorphous term on the Right with Pro-Life blather it is okay as long as you talk stem cells and fetus, not to mention the death penalty, but not when you talk of our troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What exactly does the term “values” denote? Does it mean generosity, caring, understanding, walk a year in my shoes? I think not ! It surely doesn’t denote anything that is found coming from Jesus’s mouth in the bible. We have Pat Roberston calling for the assassination of Chavez . This strikes me as wholly unchristian.

So much for the values discussion!

This leads me to wonder: have we lost our minds? Is this the reality great divide?

Katrina has laid bare the divide. Reality versus Fantasy. The American Dream versus the American Reality.

There is no amount of Rove Spin that can change these facts.

Luckily, Leonard Ptts has a great column on this. So,with all disregard for copyright I am putting it all right here:

Posted on Fri, Sep. 16, 2005

IN MY OPINION

Katrina shows Bush jihadists have blind faith

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@herald.com

Apparently, Brownie wasn't doing such a good job after all. You remember Brownie: Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and, in that capacity, a focal point for mounting criticism of that agency's leisurely response to Hurricane Katrina. Brownie's qualifications for that job have since been revealed: He used to run horse shows and was a friend of a friend of the president. Last Friday, that president offered support for his beleaguered subordinate. ''Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job,'' said George W. Bush.

By Monday, Brownie was out of work. He resigned, having evidently read the writing on the wall.

The next day, having apparently seen that same graffiti, Bush himself said, ``To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.''

I found that shocking, but that's only because I had thought Bush physically incapable of taking responsibility. Having watched him brazen his way through successive botches and bungles here and abroad with an Alfred E. Neuman grin and a maddening insistence that botches and bungles were part of the master plan, I thought Bush's eyes would roll back if he even came close to saying, My bad.

QUESTION FOR BUSH JIHADISTS

So I have a question for the Bush jihadists, that shrinking but stubborn minority that still thinks Gee Dubya walks water and calls down rain. What's it going to take to make you folks stop sending me e-mails by the dozens railing at how the great and powerful Bush is being mistreated by that darned liberal media?

Take, for instance, Tom in Boynton Beach, who says criticism of Bush is a sop to the ''America-hating extreme left wing.'' Or Darwin -- I don't know where he's from -- who says liberals are playing ''the blame game.'' And on and on.

It is, of course, their standard defense, akin to a child sticking index fingers in her ears and shouting ''Lalalalala, I can't hear you!'' until you stop committing the sin of reason. In this case, the argument goes that Bush is being blamed for failures that should be assigned to state and local officials in Louisiana and Mississippi. It's their fault, not his.

So to recap: Media say Bush bears responsibility. Much of the American public says Bush bears responsibility. In an unprecedented show of lucidity, Bush takes responsibility.

Bush jihadists say Bush is not responsible.

Seldom has the intellectual bankruptcy, situational outrage and robotic partisanship of that stratum of the electorate been more apparent. I swear, if Bush blew up the White House, they'd praise him for creating construction jobs.

Yes, the apparent failures of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco are manifest and manifold. And people are right to criticize them.

HE IS THE PRESIDENT

But here's why Bush gets the lion's share of attention: He's the bleeping President of the United States. And the miserable performance of the government he captains speaks not simply to our immediate concerns about Louisiana and Mississippi but potentially to our future concerns about Florida, California or some other state that comes under terrorist attack.

Would you trust the gang that couldn't get water to Bogalusa for seven days to be in charge of rescuing you after a nuclear device went off in Los Angeles?

Would you feel secure in devastated, cut-off-from-the-outside-world Miami Beach knowing your salvation relied on some guy who got his job because he had connections?

More to the point, is incompetence so profound it causes actual death OK so long as the incompetents are of the right party, possessed of the right values? Apparently, for some of us, the answer is yes.

Never mind integrity, never mind objectivity, never mind simple enlightened self-interest.

Blue to the left, red to the right even now, even here. This is the nation we have become.

Anybody want to take responsibility for that?

As an optimist I am horrified to say , how late does it have to get before Armageddon?

And as Mr. Pitts has made the point, Ms. Sykes spells it out as to who is really responsible.

Wanda Sykes On Bush
by Michael in New York - 9/15/2005 12:58:00 AM

Wanda Sykes on Jay Leno (hey, I'll watch anything) was very funny about Katrina.

Jay: "But President Bush took responsibility."

Wanda: "I don't think the President should have taken responsibility.... I don't blame the President. I blame the American people. Y'all knew the man was slow when you voted him in. You can't blame the blind man for wrecking your car when you're the one who gave him the keys."

The woman said it all! Taking responsibility for your actions is a value!