W's on Vacation. Don't Bother Him. He' Busy Clearing Brush!!!

Well, George blew another chance to redeem himself and his administration. Three days after what is probably the worst natural disaster in modern times Bush is shamed into acknowledging it. Not only doesn't he interrupt his vacation in the face of this disaster he makes excuses for the minimum of interest and the minor amount of financial aid he offered.
This guy is the leader of the free world from the most powerful country in the world. Wouldn't it be his job to be the first to step up to the plate and take control of the relief effort. I mean, this is not the kind of thing that can wait until he finishes his sabatical in Crawford. Let's put this whole situation in perspective.
When 9/11 happened the world rallied around us. We heard from leaders of other countries immediately. This country grieved. I mean, even the late night shows like Leno and Letterman couldn't bring themselves to joke for about a week. That was a loss of about 3,000 people and two enormous buildings. To put this into context, the tsunami event killed, at this writing, approximately 120,000 people. Thousands are missing, thousands more are injured, tens of thousands more have no food, water or shelter. Most of the heavily devastated areas won't be rebuilt for a generation. So, George stays on his vacation and offers up $15,000,000 in aid -- raised to $35,000,000 after wind of his being stingy blew his way.
When he was accused of being stingy he starts coming up with his lame excuses. We put up the largest amount of money, we spent 2.4 billion in relief last year. There are absolute numbers and there are proportional numbers. Bush, being an MBA, knows you deal with proportional numbers. But he says 2.4 billion dollars like it's some huge amount, when that's what Iraq costs per week.
Consider the cost to be spent on his inaugural festivities -- a little more than 30 million. Consider Wall Street bonuses totalling $15.9 billion. An example of propotionate numbers -- We offer up $35,000,000 and Australia offers up $27,000,000. Absolute numbers show that we gave more. But proportional numbers read as follows: Australia -- $1.35 per person, U.S. -- $.09 per person.
He could have made a diplomatic gesture, that we need to mend our relations with Muslims, by making an emergency exit from Crawford and dealing with this head on. But the way he's dealing with this, it's as if he doesn't care because most affected are Muslims. When he had an election looming he high-tailed it down to Florida during it's hurricane seige to insure the votes he needed in his state. MORAL VALUES -- COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM or SELECTIVE VALUES -- SELECTIVE COMPASSION.
There are some people that say Bush could deal with this from Crawford -- with all the high tech services like the internet and other satellite communications. But consider the situation closer to home. You have a parent and a sibling living in a distant state. The sibling is having problems with the parent. Medical, emotional and financial. Which would be the better way of dealing with it. Mail out a couple of hundred bucks and make a few phone calls voicing your sympathy and support or would it be better to rally your family and deal with the situation in person. Seems to me the sacrifice of interrupting a vacation to deal with a disaster at your workplace might work wonders.
That's my opinion.

2004 out HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! ! 2005 in