Title: Former President Clinton bashes Bush
Description: On Katrina relief efforts
Scrooge McSuck - September 19, 2005 04:03 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
Clinton Assails Bush's Hurricane Relief Effort
WASHINGTON (Sept. 18) - Former President Bill Clinton, asked by President Bush to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offered harsh criticism of the administration's disaster-relief effort on Sunday, saying "you can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up."
Mr. Clinton's comments in an interview on the ABC News program "This Week" could prove awkward for the White House, given President Bush's eagerness to involve his Democratic predecessor in a high-profile role to raise money for the hurricane's victims. His remarks came days after the president gave a televised speech from New Orleans, trying to seize the momentum amid other attacks on the administration's performance.
The White House has been under siege from critics, assailed first for the effectiveness of its response to the storm, and challenged more recently by questions about the long-term fiscal implications of its plans for rebuilding in the Gulf states.
Mr. Clinton argued that lower-income Americans had done better under the economic policies of his administration than they are doing now, saying the storm highlighted class divisions in the country that often played out along racial lines.
"It's like when they issued the evacuation order," he said. "That affects poor people differently. A lot of them in New Orleans didn't have cars. A lot of them who had cars had kinfolk they had to take care of. They didn't have cars, so they couldn't take them out."
"This is a matter of public policy," he said. "And whether it's race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects black and brown people, that's a consequence of the action made. That's what they did in the 80's; that's what they've done in this decade. In the middle, we had a different policy."
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, did not respond directly to Mr. Clinton's remarks about the hurricane-relief effort or mention the former president by name. But in a statement on Sunday, Mr. McClellan suggested it was unfair to link the plight of low-income victims of the hurricane to the economic policies of the Bush administration.
"There is a deep history of injustice that has led to poverty and inequality, and it will not be overcome instantly," he said, adding that President Bush "from Day 1 has been acting boldly to achieve real results for all Americans."
He added, "Do we think in new and bold ways by focusing on innovative programs that work for all Americans, or do we embrace failed policies of the past which have resulted in too many being left behind?"
Throughout Mr. Bush's presidency, Mr. Clinton has often been critical of his successor, and he repeated many of those criticisms in the Sunday interview in discussing the invasion of Iraq, the growing federal deficit and other issues. But it was the directness of his criticism of President Bush's policies related to domestic disaster relief that appeared most likely to cause aggravation at the White House.
Noting statistics that showed a significant drop in poverty during his presidency, Mr. Clinton said, "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up, and when you tell people to go do something they don't have the means to do, you're going to leave the poor out."
Mr. Clinton has reunited with President Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, in a fund-raising campaign for Katrina victims, much as they worked together to raise millions of dollars for relief efforts after the Asian tsunami last year. Mr. Clinton said the two had raised $90 million to $100 million so far for hurricane victims.
Mr. Clinton drew a sharp distinction between the performance of the government's disaster-relief agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in his administration and today. "I think we did a good job of disaster management," he said.
While not using the name of Michael D. Brown, the FEMA director who resigned last Monday after criticism of his performance in the Katrina disaster, Mr. Clinton praised the performance of his FEMA director, James Lee Witt, and said Mr. Witt had been especially sensitive to the needs of low-income people because "both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."
Mr. Clinton said he was especially disturbed that many of the people who lost homes in the hurricane had no property insurance.
"Everything they owned was in their little home," he said. "And if we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out and also lots of empty vans" to save the belongings of those with no home or flood insurance. |
dynamite kido - September 19, 2005 01:09 PM (GMT)
I'll let this one go, but if gets into political fighting..........I'm locking this one pronto.
Scrooge McSuck - September 19, 2005 03:48 PM (GMT)
My only politics is that when Clinton was president, he was always on top of things (:lol:), never pissed anyone off enough to do "terrorist" acts, and he was President for the common man.*
* - For some reason I feel like typing like I'm talking like Dusty Rhodes.
eStragand - September 19, 2005 06:44 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Scrooge McSuck @ Sep 19 2005, 09:48 AM) |
... and he was President for the common man.*
* - For some reason I feel like typing like I'm talking like Dusty Rhodes. |
Which proves that the New Breed was right.... Dusty Rhodes really WAS the president in 1999!
Scrooge McSuck - September 19, 2005 06:56 PM (GMT)
Blech... thanks for the image. I'm sure Rhodes would declare war on every country and have all of them end with a Dusty Finish.
SamoaRowe - September 19, 2005 07:03 PM (GMT)
Clinton as president > Bush as president
I won't get into any political battles, I'll just use good old fashioned subliminal messages.
SMOKE!
prof_plague - September 19, 2005 11:14 PM (GMT)
I have the sudden urge for cigarettes now. ...Anyone else?
Scrooge McSuck - September 19, 2005 11:30 PM (GMT)
I'll flush your cancer carrying sin sticks down to hell where they belong.
The Last Free Voice - September 19, 2005 11:44 PM (GMT)
I think I'll just say that all politicians are retarded and that the system doesn't work. Katrina just proved it.
dynamite kido - September 20, 2005 12:06 AM (GMT)
Ahhhh, good old LFV and his anarchy punk attitude. You bloody wanker.
The Last Free Voice - September 20, 2005 12:08 AM (GMT)
Oh yes, any kid who doesn't think the system works is "just trying to rebel". I'm not really an Anarchist in the proper sense of the term. I'm more of an anarcho-socialist, in that I think we'd be best served by governing ourselvs in small groups that have direct control over thier day to day affairs, and no centralized government.
Scrooge McSuck - September 20, 2005 12:09 AM (GMT)
Is anyone surprised? We all know LFV's people hate everything to do with the government.
The Last Free Voice - September 20, 2005 12:13 AM (GMT)
Who exactly are "My people" there Scrooge? The ones who want to think for themselvs?
Scrooge McSuck - September 20, 2005 12:22 AM (GMT)
You made your post last post while I was typing up mine, so I didn't see it. I meant you people as in... I hate this word, I really do.
Emos. :(
The Last Free Voice - September 20, 2005 12:29 AM (GMT)
I don't hate the world. I don't hate America. I just think that things can and should be done so much better,and I'm not content just to accept those faults because "it's all we have and still better than the rest of the world". (Can you tell I've had this conversation a tonne recently? Fucking Government Class...)
Scrooge McSuck - September 20, 2005 12:37 AM (GMT)
Big F'N Swigg - September 20, 2005 01:06 AM (GMT)
I watched that interview. I kept wondering "Why didn't I appreciate him more when he was president?"
The answer being that I was under my parents "Conservative Christian" influence. Whereas now I'm a "Liberal Socialist Christian." See what happens when you think for yourself?
Geez, I could use a smoke.
The Last Free Voice - September 20, 2005 01:40 AM (GMT)
That's one of my big problems with the way things work. People vote for parties, not people or issues. That's why partisan politics shouldn't be around. All they do is create conformity.
Scrooge McSuck - September 20, 2005 02:34 AM (GMT)
I hated Bush and Kerry, so I voted for neither. Simple as that.
SamoaRowe - September 20, 2005 03:05 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Scrooge McSuck @ Sep 19 2005, 08:34 PM) |
| I hated Bush and Kerry, so I voted for neither. Simple as that. |
I voted for Kerry.
There, I said it. I voted for the turd sandwhich.
ARE YOU SMOKING YET?
Scrooge McSuck - September 20, 2005 03:07 AM (GMT)
You're subliminal message doesn't work on me.
[sucks television remote]
eStragand - September 20, 2005 06:21 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE (The Last Free Voice @ Sep 19 2005, 06:08 PM) |
| I'm more of an anarcho-socialist, in that I think we'd be best served by governing ourselvs in small groups that have direct control over thier day to day affairs, and no centralized government. |
We call those "hippie communes", out here.
They don't have running water.
Mad Dog - September 20, 2005 09:50 AM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
| I'm more of an anarcho-socialist, in that I think we'd be best served by governing ourselvs in small groups that have direct control over thier day to day affairs, and no centralized government. |
:rolleyes:
Yeah, history's proven that this is SUCH a great idea. Without a centralized government you tend not to have roads. Scientific advancement also seems to make great leaps with strong governments in place. Also in the place of centralized government religions tend to fill the void and that gets really ugly. Trade also suffers greatly without centralized government.
The pre Constitution era in the U.S. proved that a weak central government leads to massive headaches.
The tribal thing you discuss tends to lead to genocides and a lot of war.
| QUOTE |
| I think I'll just say that all politicians are retarded and that the system doesn't work. Katrina just proved it. |
The government is in the process of fixing one of the worst national natural disasters in our countries history. The damage was in the size of Great Britian. You can't just wave a wand and have manpower and equipment there overnight. 3-5 days is not a long time and is the standard for the feds coming in. The response wasn't slow at all but people expect everything NOW NOW NOW. Also how would your tribal system manage to work in this system?
dynamite kido - September 20, 2005 06:45 PM (GMT)
LFV just turned 17. I totally see why he thinks the way he does. He has yet to venture into the REAL world yet.
TheGreatWhiteChoate - September 20, 2005 07:22 PM (GMT)
Let's face it. Every system of government has inherent heavy flaws. They may be great in theory, but none of them work like we would like them to. It's when the government is overly bashed or overly praised that I get angry.
Mad Dog - September 20, 2005 08:26 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (dynamite kido @ Sep 20 2005, 02:45 PM) |
| LFV just turned 17. I totally see why he thinks the way he does. He has yet to venture into the REAL world yet. |
Yeah, I was going to save that for my second post.
whitemilesdavis - September 20, 2005 08:33 PM (GMT)
Honestly, and I've said this for years, Clinton will go down as the finest president in American history.
Big F'N Swigg - September 20, 2005 10:51 PM (GMT)
I would just like to say I find it funny that it takes the US govt. as much time to respond to a disaster in the Near East as it does to respond on it's own soil.
The Last Free Voice - September 22, 2005 02:05 AM (GMT)
I just don't like the fact that sooner or later all facits of our lives will be controled by a government in which we have no real voice.
Big F'N Swigg - September 23, 2005 01:59 AM (GMT)
dynamite kido - September 23, 2005 12:48 PM (GMT)
It's pretty much true already....