AP Bush comforts New Orleans, urges hope

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060829/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Bush comforts New Orleans, urges hope

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS -
President Bush comforted this city that lost so much in Hurricane Katrina and has regained so little in the year since. Amid the raw sorrow of Tuesday's anniversary, the president selected a few beacons of hope to give a lift to struggling Gulf communities and his own still-smarting presidency.

He scarfed hot cakes with happy patrons at Betsy's Pancake House, a reopened hangout in a downtrodden, flood-stained New Orleans neighborhood. He chose as a speech backdrop a new charter school viewed as a sign of the city's commitment to a better post-Katrina educational system.

He called on rhythm and blues legend and local favorite son Fats Domino, who is restoring his destroyed Ninth Ward home, and replaced the National Medal of Arts that got washed away with everything else. He visited a Habitat for Humanity project nearby that is building dozens of homes for displaced local musicians.

He even met the New Orleans Saints, whose return to the Superdome next month is cheered here as a symbol of normalcy in the very place that 30,000 storm victims grew increasingly desperate in the days after Katrina's strike.........

[rodeodance]

1. this has to be the sappiest, crappiest Headline I have ever seen!

[Behind the Aegis]

2. I agree!

I just saw it on my homepage news site and I almost blew chunks. What really sucks is he was just a few blocks from my house and I didn't know, otherwise I would be hoarse right now!

[rodeodance]

3. "the challenge is to help restore the soul,"

......."The challenge is not only to help rebuild, but the challenge is to help restore the soul," Bush said in a speech heavily laced with religious references. "Sunday has not yet come to New Orleans, but you can see it ahead."

When Katrina roared ashore east of New Orleans last Aug. 29, it left 80 percent of New Orleans underwater, killed 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, destroyed or severely damaged more than 204,000 homes and made more than 800,000 people homeless overnight.

A year later, New Orleans and other hard-hit parts of southeastern Louisiana haven't even emerged entirely from the cleanup phase. With insurance settlements in dispute, no master rebuilding plan from the city, and federal grants only beginning to flow to residents, significant reconstruction efforts seem a distant hope for most. Less than half of New Orleans' population has returned.

"I know you love New Orleans," Bush said to residents scattered across the nation. "And New Orleans needs you. She needs people coming home. She needs people — she needs those saints to come marching back. That's what she needs. New Orleans is calling her children home."

[rodeodance]

11. a speech heavily laced with religious references. "

"The challenge is not only to help rebuild, but the challenge is to help restore the soul," Bush said in a speech heavily laced with religious references. "Sunday has not yet come to New Orleans, but you can see it ahead."

[rodeodance]

13. Bush offered ---a raft of promises, many of them repeats from before.

"I take full responsibility for the federal government's response," Bush declared.

Bush offered — as he has on his 12 previous post-storm trips to the region — a raft of promises, many of them repeats from before. He said that the government will "do what it takes to help you recover"; that there will be "a better, more effective response" to the next storm, be it the looming Tropical Storm Ernesto or another; and that levees will be made stronger, schools smarter and law enforcement tougher.

He asked Congress to give Louisiana a bigger cut of royalties from offshore oil and gas production to fund restoration of storm-protecting wetlands and urged approval of federal scholarships for poor students to choose between public or private religious schools.

He urged local authorities to make the decisions necessary so rebuilding rules are clear and to take the opportunity to overhaul its poor-performing public school system. And he pleaded with corporate America to locate businesses in the Gulf.

[uppityperson]

18. hey Mr.bush, gvts job is to help rebuild. OUR souls are our own

to do with as we like. Help is needed in rebuilding, our souls will do fine.

[LisaM]

4. Oh, great, he goes to a charter school....

while the public schools sit drowned and neglected.

[Lindacooks]

5. They don't want comfort and false promises, you pig chimp,

they want you to follow up on YOUR promises and FIX IT.

It is an absolute disgrace that one year later there is still garbage and broken homes littering the streets and that the pace of recovery is so slow.

GOD, I hate him and duplitious repukes who say one thing and then do the exact opposite. WHEN are the American sheeple going to wake up?????

[Kutjara]

6. Colonel Saunders comforts chickens, urges secret recipe. n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

12. .

:rofl:

[NorthernSpy]

20. LOL!

Good one!

:thumbsup:

[susu369]

25. Thank you

needed a laugh. Witty.

only it's not funny to those poor souls actually hurt by Katrina. (I lost my home to Hurricane Ivan - so I can relate).

[aaronbees]

26. Executioner comforts death row inmates.....

!!! I mean seriously, this is just a nutso article and headline.

"He even met the New Orleans Saints ...." Wow, BuschCo, that's going out on a limb there to "comfort" the New Orleans citizens!

The whole article is very strange but some of it's good as it goes on ("Bush offered ... a raft of promises, many of them repeats from before"), which leads me to actually believe the opening graph is some over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek writing. Then again, that's how surreal it is in BushCo land.

Jesus, he's a freak.

[grilled onions]

7. Nice to use LA as an afterthought during his year as a fund-

raising vacationer. The hot cakes were "over the top". First he's reading..then his playing his geeee-tar and now he's scarfin not the hotcakes. Gag me with a spoon.:puke:

[truthisfreedom]

10. exactly. and this will NOT help his poll numbers.

[spindrifter]

8. This needed a big barf alert!

What about the visit to the levees to admit that they aren't ready to withstand another onslaught from hurricane-force winds? And what about that homeless, abandoned Katrina dog that he decided to adopt so it could be pampered with the Scottish terriers? How about that encouraging word for the countless New Orleans people standing in line to get permits to rebuild so their houses aren't torn down as "abandoned." And that visit to the sorely under-resourced public defenders trying to help people who have spent a year lost in the criminal injustice system.

[rhiannon55]

9. COMFORTS?

I once had an abusive partner who would punch me in the face and then "comfort" me.

Same sick thing. Aargghh! I despise abusive assholes. I can't believe we have one occupying the WH. :mad:

[fooj]

14. He even met the New Orleans Saints...

Hell that's the only reason the bastard showed up. What a loser.

[KamaAina]

27. He heard they had a player named Bush

and wondered whether it was Jeb or Neil. :dunce:

[Ian David]

15. Emperor Bush Fiddled While America Drowned

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2801216&mesg_id=2801222

[Straight Shooter]

16. Wife-beater brings flowers to hospital, comforts battered wife.

:puke:

[xultar]

17. Fucking bastard asshole headline.

[w4rma]

19. Bush "comforts" New Orleans with nothing but words. (nt)

[BenDavid]

21. Excuse me, but is bush

saying that he, and he alone can restore the soul of the people? WOW! Oh I forgot. Bush says he is G-d's chosen here on earth. "Personally, I think you're a f%$%*^# idiot"

[samsingh]

22. wtf is with the headline?

[KamaAina]

23. Aaauugggh! He was in my adopted neighborhood!

He scarfed hot cakes with happy patrons at Betsy's Pancake House, a reopened hangout in a downtrodden, flood-stained New Orleans neighborhood.

The downtrodden, flood-stained neighborhood is known as Tulane/Gravier. It was downtrodden enough before Katrina that it did not have its own neighborhood organization. After the storm, a recently arrived Tulane med student (the neighborhood is adjacent to Tulane and LSU medical centers) decided to change all that:

http://www.pnola.org

The PNOLA System

-"No Red Tape": a clear and concise rebuilding area that was badly damaged, a small but strong executive staff working long hours with streamlined logistics, a council system to manage local cooperative organizations and contractors, and an interactive progress tracking center for our donors to SEE THE CHANGE as we create a unique neighborhood called: "America's Quarter".
-This all part of a great block-by-block grassroots funding and rebuilding approach that gets American citizens, families, neighborhoods and businesses directly involved on a street by street basis.

Right around the first of the year I encountered PNOLA on a now-dormant rebuilding board. It so happens that during my sojourn in New Orleans ('89-'91), a women's health clinic was located in Tulane/Gravier (it had relocated before the storm). Many a Saturday morning, I and a few close friends would keep an eye, sometimes more, on the resident anti-choicers so that they couldn't terrorize the patients like they wanted to. This direct exposure to Christofascism was a key moment in my political radicalization. And so, when I found PNOLA, I jumped in and have been doing planning and general brainstorming (from too far away) with them ever since.

And now it's come to this: the false god who is worshipped by all Christofascists, Bush** himself, sits down to a meal of pancakes right in "my" neighborhood! Too bad he didn't try to flip them, like Gary Bauer...



After all the PNOLA volunteers' hard work gutting houses and whatnot, now they're gonna have to disinfect Betsy's, too! :sarcasm:

[UpInArms]

24. Dimson loves to destroy things so he can "hug the mothers and the widows"

There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like.

[Phredicles]

28. He offered a RAFT of promises?

If I didn't know our media better I'd wonder if this was an effort at sly subversion; certainly he's offered nothing else to bail out these poor souls.

Reminds me of a joke from a year ago:

Q: What's Bush's position on Roe v. Wade?

A: He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

[radfringe]

29. The plan must be delivered to the White House by March 1

Also Tuesday, Bush put Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in charge of a new task force to study how to get aid to victims more quickly in future disasters. Of $110 billion in federal funds available for last year's Gulf Coast hurricane victims, only $44 billion has been spent — although another $33 billion has been released to state and local authorities.

The plan must be delivered to the White House by March 1 according to a White House notice released Tuesday.

ummm..March 1 of what year?