Anything strike you as odd in this item from the "What’s News" briefing in The Wall Street Journal‘s weekend edition today?
Louisiana is asking up to $750,000 of FEMA for a media campaign to get storm-scattered residents to vote absentee in coming elections.
If you were an elected official in Louisiana right now, and you wanted to get re-elected, would you go out of your way to get the people who have suffered so much from your incompetence to vote? As dumb as some people think he is, I doubt that the president would try very hard to get those folks to
the polls — if he were running again.
There may be an explanation, though. What I just quoted was the print edition that came to my house. In the PDF version of the same item online, there is an added datum:
The mayor wants New Orleans gambling to expand.
I guess Louisiana politicos’ taste for risk explains the request for FEMA. If so, you have to admire them. Usually, when politicians advocate gambling, it’s so they can rip off other people — and mainly the poor and uneducated. In this case, they’re risking their own phony-baloney jobs. That’s putting your sinecure where your mouth is.
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There are two possibilities of equal probability:
Open door #2. According to this column, Democrats in Louisiana need 33% of the white vote and 95% of the black vote to get elected. It seems likely to me that proportionately more poor blacks are dispersed outside of the state than whites for simple socioeconomic factors: they are more likely to be renters who don’t have a home or low-paying job in the hospitality or gaming industries to return to. The mayor’s promise of an expanded gaming industry is a lure set to attract his base, the poor and uneducated as you put it so well.
Hmmm. It is #1 and #2…
Once again we gain insight into why the State is the journalistic sewer it is. Warthen has no integrity, so he fails to comprehend that other people might have integrity.
What about this as a possiblity – the officials in Louisiana believe that it’s important that their citizens vote, and are willing to leave the choice of whom to vote for up to the citizens.
Warthen believes that the most important goal in managing elections and voting is to put as many obstacles in the paths of black voters as possible. Because his view is that the goal of elections should be to put obstacles in the path of voting, he cannot grasp that someone might have a different view. Warthen cannot comprehend the possibility that the elected officials in Louisiana might feel an obligation to the citizens of Louisiana, and might feel that it is important to assist them in the exercise of their rights. The fact that Warthen is a dishonest racist blinds him to the possibility that not everyone in the world is a dishonest racist.
And what is this “incompentence” on the part of Louisiana officials that Warthen keeps harking back to? Everone who does not maintain a deliberate state of ignorance about what’s actually happening, as Warthen constantly boasts that he does, understands that the “incompetence” on the part of Lousiana officials is a myth promoted by Bush supporters to try to deflect attention from the Bush administration’s failures.
Louisiana was hit by a hurricane. They made timely and proper requests for assistance. The assistance didn’t come.
It wasn’t Louisiana officials who stopped helicopters from bringing supplies to the Superdome because of imaginary shots fired at helicopters.
Warthen is possibly the last person in the world to cling to the myth of the “incompetent Louisiana officials.” But of course, a lot of Louisiana officials were black, and certainly a lot of them were elected by votes of black people. And of course, to Warthen, anyone elected by black people can’t do their job right.
If you’re still defending Bush at this point,it’s a disease.
From five years of living in Louisiana, few things that happen there surprise me. On the other hand, other states I’ve lived in (New Jersey) or that my wife has lived in (Texas, her home) are hardly known for pristine politics. Electoral politics (as contrasted to governing politics, a far tougher are) consists of turning out your voters. Is anyone surprised?
Brad –
Mary’s right. Everybody in New Orleans is blameless and deserves our pity and our support. All of the city’s officials did their durndest to help the poor folks. Sure, the municipal and school busses were not used for evacuation, but that’s because the Big Easy’s citizens deserved better than that. That’s why some law enforcement officials found ingenious means to round up transportation and clear out of town. The Good Lord helps those who help themselves:
After their brief stay in Baton Rouge, they got their trip to Vegas.
On the original point of Brad’s post there is very good news from Jefferson Parish:
Does it strike anyone else that the phrase “We get a portion of every head that walks on the boat,” is a Freudian slip?
Look, I don’t spend a lot of time defending this paper or Brad. I respect him as a journalist, though I disagree with quite a few of the editorial decisions made this this paper, I think to imply that Brad is a racist is completely unfounded and cheapens any argument. I am so tired of the ridiculous race baiting gotcha game that race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have turned into an artform. Why don’t we just have an honest debate?
As for the $750,000, what a disgusting waste of money! There is so much pork in that bill that it makes me actually feel less sorry for the victims. Why do we need to spend so much money to get people to vote? What are they doing, picking them up in busses to take them to polls? People who take thier civic responsibility seriously will vote. People who don’t, won’t.
Isn’t it funny that the same people that Nagin couldn’t pick up a finger to evacuate with the hundreds of available school buses are now being hunted down, for votes?
Where does “Mary Rosh” get such wild notions that Brad Warthen wants to keep black people from voting.
If his column is any indication, Warthen wants everyone to vote, the less qualified the better. I haven’t ever seen him, or any editor of The State, demand an end to Motor Voter Cheater, or an end to straight party voting, or and end to bussing voters to the polls, including the mentally retarded, illegal aliens, etc.
Mike,
I just read this comment:
“Sure, the municipal and school busses were not used for evacuation, but that’s because the Big Easy’s citizens deserved better than that. That’s why some law enforcement officials found ingenious means to round up transportation and clear out of town.”
Just wanted to let you know that this is probably the dumbest thing I have ever read. Yeah, I am sure that starvation, drowning, thirst, and violence did much more for people’s dignity than riding in a school bus that happens to be good enough for thier kids. Could you really be serious with such a moronic point? You actually succeeded in making the mindless race baiting look close to thoughtful, but not quite.
Lee, Nathan, and all:
“Mary Rosh” is a pseudonym the user has adopted to mask his/her identity, and for good reason as you can see from the posts here and elsewhere on Brad’s blog. It’s a slap at a pro-gun researcher, John Lott, who for some idiotic reason used the identity “Mary Rosh” to praise his own work, criticize others, etc. This website celebrates Lott’s folly.
The commenter Mary Rosh is a troll:
I’ve been the target of Mary Rosh’s vitriol and usually leave just one response, then forego further interaction. I have learned the lesson:
The trick is to get Mary Rosh to post to a website where the owner’s savvy enough to track the IP address and do a little analysis.
I have my own “Mary Rosh” conspiracy theory. Maybe it still IS John Lott, or some other right-winger trying to discredit us lefties. I’ll do my part not to feed any trolls!
I really hate the redefining of English words, such a “trolling” from a techique of fishing, to a verb manufactured from the noun “troll”, since trolls don’t do trolling. Trolls live under bridges and just insult those who come by, so I see how the slang was created.
Mike, the definition of “troll” that you quote is the generally accepted one, but that isn’t the definition of “troll” you apply in accusing me of being a troll. The real definition you are working from is “someone who makes a point with which you disagree.” You are trying to narrow the scope of the discussion because your arguments can’t stand up in a fair contest. That’s why you took such (false) umbrage in accusing me of “slandering” people who “volunteered” to “help” the Iraqis when I ponited out that $9 billion was “helped” to disappear when these people were in charge of it. If you can misapply definitions and otherwise define points of view contrary to yours as unacceptable, you will have a much easier time of it, because you can then spin out your endless, pompous, rambling arguments and, when someone points out that those arguments are based on lies and make no sense, you can accuse them of “trolling” and avoid addressing the fact that you arguments are based on lies and make no sense.
QED.
No one takes seriously the whining of Democrats who ignore or excuse the billions of dollars stolen by UN officials from Iraq, while starving (according to UNICEF), over 1,000,000 Iraqis to death in their black market deallings with Saddam.
Lee –
I want the $9B, it’s just that there are about 2,000 suspects and Mary makes her charge without evidence. It’s like saying that there was a holdup in DC yesterday, Congress was in session, so Delay did it and Warthen is lying about it. One cannot argue with such irrationality.
Your use of a false analogy gives additional proof of your dishonesty. The analogy isn’t to some random holdup in a place where someone happens to be. The analogy is to the treasurer of a business that has $9 billion in the treasury when he takes office. When the treasurer leaves office, the $9 billion is gone, but the business did not receive any goods or services in exchange for the $9 billion.
That’s the situation that prevailed in Iraq before and after the neocons went over there to “help”. You look at the situation and pretend that there is some big mystery, and there’s absolutely no way to figure out what happened.
You know that’s not true. It’s easy to figure out what happened. What happened is the exact same thing that happened every time a treasurer had a full treasury when he came into office and an empty treasury (with no accounting for the expenditures) when he left.
And Warthen, as far as I know, never said anything about the stolen $9 billion. It’s YOU that’s lying about it.
Mary –
You cite as evidence only the presence of some neocon folks.
Kindly furnish information that might serve in forming an indictment. You know, names, places, times, etc. Even secondhand info would be nice.
If you can’t, I suggest you try this refreshing beverage.
Cheers!
“You cite as evidence only the presence of some neocon folks.”
Presence? Once again you show your lack of integrity. I don’t cite the fact that there were “present”; I cite the fact that they were responsible for running the CPA.
“Kindly furnish information that might serve in forming an indictment.”
1. Before they showed up, there was $9 billion there.
2. They were in charge of looking after the $9 billion.
3. After they left, the $9 billion wasn’t there anymore.
q.e.d.