GOP Desperately Trying To Re-Write This Last Week's History

Senator Trent Lott has been dispatched by the Radical Right to dispel the now universally-accepted notion that the Federal Government screwed the pooch in its response to the Katrina disaster. Lott was undoubtedly chosen for this role because he lost a home to the storm and therefore might not incur as much wrath from reporters who want some serious questions answered. He spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper today, who informed him that there are a lot of angry people on the Gulf Coast right now:

COOPER: I asked someone here -- I told them I was going to be talking to you tonight -- they wanted to ask, was part of the problem that a lot of these national guard troops are in Iraq or overseas -- I mean are the forces so depleted? Is that an issue?

LOTT: Anderson, only the news media is asking that question.

To his credit, Cooper -- who has been in the trenches for the last few days reporting on this disaster -- wasn't going to put up with Trent Lott's "blame the Liberal media" bullshit:

COOPER: Sir, I can guarantee you that that is not true. Sir, a man who lives right here on that corner was asking me that question.

Cooper and Lott continued to spar over the general quality of the Federal Government's response, and Lott responded by quoting from Republican talking points:

COOPER: You're pleased with the Federal Government's response?

LOTT: I am pleased with the federal government's response. And by the way, while they are hurting and I understand that, this is not the time for complaining. This is a time for specifying what help we need and let's make sure we get it in there. I'm, I'm, I'm really shocked at some of these comments that are coming, you know, if, you know, a day or two or three, a week from now, uh -- look, if they're not doing the job, I will be the first guy to complain.

Yeah, right. As I was listening to Lott try to compare Katrina to other American disasters, all I could think about were all the babies who died from dehydration and all the older folks who died out in the open while waiting for help to arrive. I don't remember seeing that happen in the aftermath of any previous U.S. disaster, Trent.

To Lott's credit, he did admit it was a mistake to cut the spending for the flood control programs. But then again, how could anyone ever assert with a straight face that those cuts were proper and were the result of good Republican decision-making.

I think the GOP is scrambling to answer the critics because the Radical Right is terrified that the Reagan Revolution may be coming to an end. Chief GOP Propagandist Grover Norquist is clearly worried about it. Norquist is that piece of shit who took Reagan's "government is the enemy" argument to its illogical extreme when he declared that his goal was "to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bath tub."

Well, Grover, thanks to you and scumbags like you, lots of folks drowned in New Orleans this past week who did not have to drown, and I can tell you are really bothered by this. As Kos reported, Norquist's main concern these days is that Katrina may derail his goal of permanently repealing the estate tax. In fact, Norquist is so fearful of this possibility that he actually argued today that passage of the estate tax repeal is (are you ready for this?) exactly what "residents of the Gulf Region need at this time to start the rebuilding process for their neighborhoods and more importantly for their lives."

In other words, Norquist feels that Congress should respond to what will undoubtedly be the most expensive natural disaster in American history by . . . passing yet another tax cut for the extremely wealthy! I think Norquist just took the lead in the race for Asshole of the Year, particularly given that the GOP's pet name for the Estate Tax is "the Death Tax." Although I have no evidence of this, I'd be willing to bet that Katrina did not claim the lives of very many millionaires and billionaires.

As my friend Slick said today, the Extreme Right is somewhat at a loss here because it can't blame Clinton for this disaster, at least not in the same way it tried to blame him for 9-11. That's one of the drawbacks of being in total power over every branch of government for an appreciable amount of time -- eventually there is no one left to blame but yourself.