I’d be interested to hear where that came from. That sounds like one of those folk jokes that rise up from the people and put us professional comedy writers to shame. I thought Letterman’s writers came on strong with, “FEMA Director Mike Brown has resigned. He now wants to spend more time not responding to his family.” Leno used two of mine last night including, “President Bush has had a personal breakthrough. He’s taken responsibility for the federal response to Katrina. He also hinted that he might have had something to do with the war in Iraq, too.” The real comedy was David Reinhard’s column in today’s Oregonian. He’s still defending President Bush by focusing on the school busses that weren’t used. Meanwhile even the President has admitted he screwed up. Priceless. Thank God, the Oregonian hired David Reinhard. There’s no way I could compete with a comedian like that.

Oh my god, that is absolutely hilarious.

its funny cause its true...

I first heard (saw) the joke in a comment thread yesterday to the "Responsibility Missing from Gulf Coast, Bush Took It" entry on Scrappleface:

http://www.scrappleface.com/

Hey Bill, what's it like to be so completly blinded by liberal ideology?

We’ve all had the experience in high school of watching a teenage girl fall for the wrong guy. He may be cute to her, but the rest of us can instantly see the flakiness, the irresponsible behavior, the stunning shallowness; the lack of any drive to better himself. He’s irresponsible, reckless with money, and emotionally dishonest. His parents are always getting him out of trouble. It’s frustrating because while she’s going on about how wonderful he is, we know the real story. The guy is bad news. Sure, someday she’ll realize this too, but nothing anyone can possibly say will dissuade her from throwing herself at him. I believe this describes most Republican supporters of President Bush. In the face of repeated, overwhelmingly shabby behavior, they insist President Bush is wonderful. It’s sad. They’re acting like teenage girls in the midst of puppy love. Grow up and help save America.

Bill Mac, I'm confused. You started off talking about Slick and ended with GW. Which is it.

Cute Bill, but you should save your elementary generalizations for another blog.

The feds blew it on many fronts and Bush took responsibility. Nagin however, neglected to follow his own city's evacuation plan and transport refugees via school and transit buses. He left the buses to flood and citizens to fend for themselves. What leadership! What compassion! Nagin doesn't even have the cajones to admit he dropped the ball.

Obviously, since Nagin/Blanco are Democrats, you've decided to marginalize their culpability.

How nauseating… and pathetic.

Nagin is a Democrat? Could've fooled me.

I count about $11,400 in political donations from Nagin since 1990. Bio at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Nagin

$3,000 Republican
$5,900 Democrat
$2,500 special interest
total: $11,400

Uh, Yeah.

"Nagin, a Democrat and former top executive..."
http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher073102.asp

"Nagin the Republican repositioned himself as Nagin the Democrat..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4229812.stm

"Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who like Nagin is a Democrat, was less confrontational than the mayor..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_re_us/katrina_angry_mayor_hk1

Whatev. He was a Republican until he decided to run for mayor. I think he's more about himself than he is about any political party.

I don't have to live with Nagin or Blanco, and for all I know they may be hacks. But I do have to live under W, and I know what we have there. It ain't good.

I bet you won't be chanting "Stay the course" come the '08 convention. The theme will be something more like, "Condition still red -- Hillary will be too soft on terror, and she's part of the culture of death."

The feds blew it on many fronts and Bush took responsibility.

Did he have to ask Condi for permission, like he did when he had to make wee-wee at the UN yesterday?

Chris, we gave the president a blank check to make our country safe. He's spent hundreds of billions to do that, and what result? We should all be wary of a president who is so comfortable with apocolypse.

Don’t worry too much about 2008:

RUPERT CORNWELL, INDEPENDENT - The Pentagon has drawn up a new strategy, built on the 2002 "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive military strikes, that would allow the United States to make first use of nuclear weapons to thwart an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the country. Under the scheme, developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff but yet to be ratified by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, commanders would be able to request permission from the President to use nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios. According to The Washington Post, one scenario is of an enemy that is using, or "is about to use", WMD against US military forces or the civilian population. Another is where nuclear weapons could be used against biological weapons that an enemy was close
to using, and which could only be safely destroyed by nuclear weapons.

Jack, you're generalizing, just like Bill did. I'm no fan of Bush and I was no fan of Clinton, either.

AAMOF, I'm not much of a fan of anyone in congress. Do you really think Kerry, Hillary, DeLay or Lott give two-s**ts about the common people?

Maybe, when things get bad enough, Americans will drop their petty partisan bickering and actually support politicians who'll challenge the status quo and actually work 'for the people.'

Until then, we'll continue down this path of divisiveness and rancor.

Agreed. They love Rush and Franken and all the rest -- keep the common folk screaming at each other while the rich just quietly keep on getting richer.

[Hoisting a cold one] Cheers to the truth in that!

>Agreed. They love Rush and Franken and all the rest -- keep the common folk sceaming at each other while the rich just quietly keep on getting richer.

Nagin however, neglected to follow his own city's evacuation plan and transport refugees via school and transit buses.

Actually, an article in the NOLA Times-Picayune form a few years ago said that the evacuation plan called for using the city and school buses to evacuate residents by bringing them to the superdome, which is what they did. From there they would be transported out. See here for info on the plan and here for the status as of Sunday August 28.

In an evacuation, buses would be dispatched along their regular routes throughout the city to pick up people and go to the Superdome, which would be used as a staging area. From there, people would be taken out of the city to shelters to the north.

Some experts familiar with the plans say they won't work.

"That's never going to happen because there's not enough buses in the city," said Charley Ireland, who retired as deputy director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness in 2000. "Between the RTA and the school buses, you've got maybe 500 buses, and they hold maybe 40 people each. It ain't going to happen."

There never were enough buses to carry out a full evacuation in the time available. We shouldn't pretend that the school buses would have gotten everyone out.