Bush, Big Oil, Save Texas From Rita

I often bash the AP. I feel much better about it now.

Newsview: In Two Storms, Two Worlds Seen

…residents of heavily Republican Texas seemed to get better treatment from the government during Hurricane Rita than the mostly black, poor and Democratic victims of Katrina in Louisiana.

Rita was second. Rita was smaller. Rita didn’t hit a metropolitan area. Texas is above sea level. Texas has a competent governor. If you have considered the AP a fair arbiter of information in the past, take a close look at this silliness.

Texas is the president's home state, has a Republican governor and is the home of big oil. New Orleans before Katrina was heavily populated by poor blacks who vote Democratic.

I knew 'big oil' was responsible for all of this! How long before we connect the dots to Karl Rove?

"poor folks were told to evacuate and they had no means to do it. In Texas, we had a different type of situation. But even there, the local, state and government failed those people," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. "Not to the extent they did with Katrina. But there's no question that affluency made a heck of a difference."

I didn’t realize the rural Texas had become so affluent. Rangel often speaks from ignorance, but you would think he would make the effort to refrain from it. Then again, he’s speaking to the home team, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

President Bush...was a whirlwind of activity this time. He bounded from one command post to another over the weekend to monitor Rita, first to Colorado, then to Texas and then to Louisiana. He went to the Energy Department on Monday for a briefing, and planned to visit storm-affected areas in Texas on Tuesday.

Having just suffered blistering criticism following Katrina, I can’t believe that Bush didn’t encourage residents of Texas to stay put and drown. Anything short certainly gives the impression of bias.

In an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month, three-fourths of blacks surveyed felt the government would have responded faster if the victims of Katrina weren't poor and mostly black…

The AP must feel the need to encourage that incorrect view.

Suggesting inflated rhetoric on both sides, Earl Black, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, said: "My view is that it's probably not wise for anybody to make too much partisan hay out of tragedies."

That is politics 101. The rhetoric is coming from only one side. I haven’t seen anything inflated in the comments from the White House. Democrats are making a typical mistake. Regardless of what blacks think, without some plurality of whites, elections will continue to be lost. Proposing unfounded racial accusations is not likely to gain any votes for Democrats, yet could, in fact, send voters the other way.

One major point continues to be lost on both Democrats and the press. Bush isn’t on the 2008 ticket! I guess I should thank the AP for encouraging Democratic failure, but reading articles like this still irritates me greatly, if only on the grounds that I would like to have a responsible press.

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