Update: Atrios links to the audio.

I keep reading this over to see if there’s something I’m missing, but there isn’t.

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out “Very Well” for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

By E&P Staff

Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET updated 8:00 PM

NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”

[..]

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”

Then she added: “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them.”

My last post was entitled ‘Goddamn the Fucking GOP.’ And I meant it. I (inexpertly) addressed the class differences brought to light by what has happened on the Gulf coast, and (inexpertly) illustrated that the Republicans are now trying to make that gulf wider (the class difference gulf, not the Gulf of Mexico) by trying to pass some legislation under the political cover of complete and utter tragedy.

And, like I said, I meant it. God damn them.

And here’s another choice piece for your reading pleasure: We Told You So.

I’m so pissed. I’m pissed beyond belief. I’m pissed in ways that I didn’t realize I could be pissed. Not just over the estate tax thing, but over the whole mismanagement of the government thing. The whole ‘let’s restructure the government so that there will be plenty of money flowing to fund anti-terrorism measures so that our corporate campaign donors can drink up those funds so fast that their head freezes like when you suck in a Slurpee but then not actually do any work so that the country is demonstrably less safe than it was before we did any of this bullshit’ thing.

Right wingers out there are saying…. Well, fuck. I’m not going to repeat it. I just can’t summarize it without going insane. One wonders how they can call themselves human, some of the things they’re saying.

But. I’m going to Houston and I’m going to get sore feet working in a soup line or something.

Goddamn the fucking GOP.

They’re sneaking the estate tax ‘reform’ through congress under cover of the utter destruction of New Orleans which was a direct result of their previous tax reforms and restructuring of the government.

I mean, if the class issue weren’t completely on the surface here… Bush flies around in a jet and looks out the window at the devastation below and does a dutiful job of looking concerned, despite having spent two days on vacation while people were dying.

And five days later some National Guard units finally show up to help out, despite the availability of many hundreds previous to the hurricane even hitting. The problem? Paperwork. No one at FEMA or DHS had the foresight to authorize any of this stuff, despite a DHS report listing a hurricane strike to New Orleans as the number three threat to national security.

DHS. The federal organization designed to provide efficiency in a situation like this. Led by the finest political appointments money can buy (amongst Republicans…), they’ve had four years to address this very issue, coming up with a plan. Except there wasn’t a plan. Despite, as I mentioned, being specifically warned that this exact thing was the third biggest threat to national security.

So now, while poor people die in New Orleans, rich people in DC use the news cycle cover to pass their legislation to turn America into even more of an aristocracy.

‘Katrina’ means ‘purity.’ Pure what?

I agree with Rude Pundit: WE HAVE NO PRESIDENT.

(Rude Pundit, by the way, has a very very coarse way of expressing himself, and that’s fine with me. Your mileage may vary, however.)

I can imagine Bush right now playing ‘shoot a paperclip from a rubber band, through Scooter Libby’s hands, which are arranged to look like a football goalpost’ in the Oval Office, while waiting for the next interview with some bubbleheaded TV personality, whom he’ll inform that things are… like… BAD. But one day, one day New Orleans will rebuild and things will be better. Watch this drive.

Read about rebuilding after the 1900 hurricane in Galveston. Here’s the WikiPedia telling.

It took years. What they did was to raise the island by dredging the shipping lanes. Every building in Galveston had to either be jacked up, or else be buried up to 17 feet. Some historical buildings in Galveston have a ‘ground’ floor that is buried in this way.

A seawall was also installed around the island at huge expense. It’s a giant concrete barrier to prevent waves from flowing over the island. It works, too.

The city never fully rebounded economically. Houston’s ship channel, dredged in 1909, and its inland location made it a more desirable port. Now Galveston is a resort and tourism-oriented community.

Is this New Orleans’ fate?