September 20, 2005
President Bush: We will rebuild New Orleans
Here's a link to the text and video of the President's speech on Hurricane Katrina rebuilding which he gave last Thursday night:
President Discusses Hurricane Relief in Address to the Nation
I watched most of it and listened to the rest sitting at the computer;
my favorite parts were his reminder that we all have a home in "the house not made with hands" (with God) and his description of a New Orleans jazz funeral.
For some reason, that recalled N.O. to me so strongly that I could only respond to the issue of whether or not we should rebuild the Crescent City with a hearty, "Of course, we must!"
Afterwards, the Dhimmicrat pundits couldn't decide if the speech and the programs it outlined were more like LBJ's "Great Society" or FDR's when he dealt with the ravages of the Great Depression-Wow.
Damning with faint praise, indeed, by comparing Bush to those giant architects of liberalistic American society!
Former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile said that she was enthusiastically on board after the speech (she has close family in the affected area), as were a group of Katrina evacuees gathered at Houston's Astrodome, to the surprise of ABC!
(They were so hoping for some primo Bush-bashing and got a group of new Bushies instead!)
There are now some Republicans (!) whining about the cost of project (and granted, they did sound expensive), but President Bush did say that some of it would be funded by private sector initiatives and/or programs that had individual incentives like property ownership, rather than just give-a-ways.
The U.S. is a very wealthy country and really has to include New Orleans in its future, but let's build it higher or at least above sea level this time, whaddya say?
MSNBC's lone Conservative Tucker Carlson commented that when Bush talked about the poor, black victims of Katrina as being the product of "racial discrimination," it was the first time a Republican (President) had ever admitted this publicly...maybe so, but I'm sure they knew it existed.
With the horrors brought by Katrina, it may be a good thing for us all: we comfortable "rich, white" people have to face the fact that there are still others in our country who suffer just because of their skin color, while it may also be the push up and out they need for the poverty-stricken black Katrina victims who were blasted out of their go-nowhere, welfare existence.
I hope and pray that the blessing that comes out of this storm is new opportunities for us all, for them to make a new start and for the rest of us to give them a hand up.
We can only hope and pray that the New New Orleans won't have so many poor, such bad public schools, so many gang murders or so many drugs and that any remnants of the Old South or slavery are merely anecdotes, recipes or old tunes, not today's impoverished, needy citizens.
When Bush said, at the end of his speech, "...the street cars will once again rumble down St. Charles," I believed him and I'll bet you did, too.
I've ridden that street car and I'd love to be able to do it again some day soon.
Once again, President Bush rides to the rescue at America's time of need.
A great American President, as Bush is, would do no less.
And when the Commander-in-Chief says "Rebuild," can private enterprise be far behind?
