Pure speculation here...

what if Bush is looking for a "way out of the mess we're in" both in Iraq and in the hurricane disaster area... what if he realizes that he can come off looking like a hero after having screwed everything up... what if he pulls the troops out of Iraq, not because we "won" but because "we need our troops at home"

... it could happen, couldn't it?

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but not a snowballs chance in hell.

oh, i love your world, Wyldflower.....please keep working to manifest it ......
.....what i'm seeing is an unbelievable ignoring of suffering and death.....crazy price gouging in oil and gas....enough to distract alot of folks....from the we- will -never -know -how many-deaths from starvation and dehydration in survivors....mostly poor and mostly black....can you imagine for even 2 seconds how quickly water and food would arrive had that hurricane happened in say.....Beverly Hills??....
....the media is finally bringing enough pressure to bring some federal help....but it's taken too long.....it's not accidental.....it's not concidental.....it's intentional negligence........and if Bush isn't to blame...he certainly is responsible...bring troops home???...to help with what????.....

Wyld, you're brilliant! Have you suggested that to the Bush camp?

Here's something my sister Ellen sent to me today... I think it's terrific:

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

The Bush response to this disaster is nothing short than the most disgraceful episode in our history. Poor Americans left to die in the street while Bush appears for his scripted press conferences, and waits days before mustering the proper response. People who continue to support this administration after this are daft. Kudos to one Republican (David Brooks) for saying it like it is:

DAVID BROOKS: This is -- first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.

Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years -- this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You've seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

President Bush promised to take care of the "good folks" and that e did, the rest an rot in Hell......just don't say that Gerge did not do what he said