Apparently some Bu****es didn't read my first post in this thread, which showed Barbara Bush saying another stupid thing regarding a different topic. As I said, true, nothing she says has any value, and it's not like she is the decision-maker in our government, but you can't deny her elitist attitude. But hey, the woman is like 80, so I won't even bother to make fun of her. She is from a different generation and she sees things differently from the top. BTW, here is an article from a conservative columnist on this topic: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0509070253sep07,1,6154573.column Mother's remark puts silver foot in Bush's mouth Published September 7, 2005 I was all set to defend President Bush as a guy who really doesn't want poor black people in Louisiana and Mississippi to die of starvation and disease, no matter what the Democrats say. But then Barbara Bush, the president's mom, went and dusted off the Bush family silver foot Monday. And she used it. While touring the Houston Astrodome, where thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees have been huddling, Barbara Bush said they didn't have it so bad because, heck, they were poor to begin with. "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she was quoted as saying in an interview on National Public Radio. Thousands of hurricane refugees were sitting on or near their green army cots, perhaps thinking of lunch, presumably waiting to be fed something hearty. Anything but cake. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," Barbara Bush said. And here comes the fastball over the middle of the Democratic plate: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." At least she didn't ask them to sing and dance. But I'm sure it's working out very well for them. How often does something nice like a hurricane come by and change your life so you can hang out with thousands of others in the Astrodome and have Barbara Bush say it wasn't so bad, because you were poor anyway? By my calculations, Barb's foot is about a 10 1/2 EE, but by the time you read this on Wednesday, after Leno and Letterman get through with her, she'll have an EEEE at least. There should be some back teeth stuck to the pinky toe when the surgeon general finally pulls it out. You've got to figure that somewhere, former Texas Democratic Gov. Ann Richards is smiling. It was Richards, or perhaps one of her pointy-headed ghostwriters, who came up with the devastating line about former President George H.W. Bush. Richards said the former president couldn't be blamed for his misstatements, because he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. Now it turns out Barbara was in charge of the silver. She polished it up good and shiny. And in political terms, she put her foot in her son's mouth and knocked loose a few teeth. I'm sure Barbara won't be able to fix things up just by bringing a lime Jell-O mold (with floating chunks of pineapple) over to the White House at suppertime. "Son?" "What, Ma?" "I'm sorry what I said about those people. However, I did make Jell-O to cheer you up." "With the chunks?" Most of us have moms, but if we're lucky, they never made Jell-O with or without the hideous chunks. But most of us don't have moms who could start a war with China or overturn the Republican's Southern Strategy with a few choice words, like Barbara Bush just did. Please don't get it into your head that my constant exposure to people in the mainstream media--many of whom are still peeved that Al Gore isn't president--has changed my political views. It hasn't. But what Barbara Bush said can't be ignored. She's the former first lady, the current first grandmother, and she's no political cream puff. Even though she's got that soft white hair and those crinkly blue eyes, she also has that deadly string of pearls and probably rattled them at Laura Bush when they first met, and Laura got flustered and blurted out that her two hobbies were reading and smoking. Who wouldn't get flustered? I'm scared of her, too, and I've only seen her on TV. Like the president, my mom's a Republican, so I called to warn her about what Barbara Bush said. "No!" she said. "That can't be true." I could hear her fingers typing on her laptop, frantically trying to get to The National Review Online, where she could find ammunition to refute such a heinous story created by the liberal mainstream media. But it is true and she knows it now, and I had to remind her of something that all reporters and editors remind their families, particularly moms: Don't talk to reporters, ever. It has nothing to do with journalists thinking we're famous or popular or that anyone cares what we say. It does have to do, however, with the ancient fear held by most humans (except for the Jerry Springer set) that anything our moms say may be embarrassing, that the women who brought us into the world can take us out of it with one foolish statement, a la Barbara Bush. And, besides, we're reporters. We know what we're like. So, what did I say about reporters? "Never to talk to them, ever?" said my mom, who was a reporter once, but repeated this to humor me. Exactly.
so if im to get this analogy of yours, going from having a home of your own with your own bed to sleep in, having all your stuff (clothes, furniture, pets, photos, ect) and being able to go about your life in your own neighborhood is a worse situation than their current situation at the astrodome? bum w/out sandwich = life in new orleans (pre-storm) bum w/ sandwich = life in astrodome (post-storm) =bad analogy!!!
why bother responding to him? are you really "that" bored? why am i responding to you? because im drunk and bored.
I don't understand why people are bashing Barbara Bush here - what she said may have not been the most politically sensitive, but maybe people are telling her that they like it in Houston and see a brighter future. If you're reallly poor, change isn't a bad thing. It might bring hope. Not a knock on anyone, but it's just the truth. I'm sure if there was a disater in Houston, and Houston's poor went to New Orleans, maybe they'd feel a little less oppressed by life as well. These folks lead miserable lives. It's not fun being poor in an urban enviroment with drugs and guns all around you and not much of a future. I'm not a fan of Bush, but criticizing his mother for clearly only trying to be be helpful is just distasteful.
I dont' care if people are telling her that or not. She has to be an insensitive idiot, or someone so out of touch with the plight of these people to repeat it that she deserves all of this bashing in more. If you are really poor some types of change might not be a bad thing. But it doesn't take a genious to know that if they've been watching loved ones starve to death, die of dehydration, or lack of medical attention while only following directions and being told that help was on the way while people all around them, possibly including loved ones die on the street isn't a change for the better for them. For anybody especially a rich woman who's never had to worry a day in her life about half the problems these people deal with all the time to make such a ridiculous coment is assanine, and she deserves all the grief that she can get.
I'm more disturbed by the comments of some of the posters here than by Barbara Bush. I can understand her perhaps making an off the cuff comment that wasn't very well thought out but I find it unbelievable that some of the posters here are claiming the disaster is a good thing for the refugees. Yes New Orleans had a lot of poverty. A lot of American cities do but to spin it as some sort of good thing?!! That now that these people have lost their homes (and yes not all of these people were street people many had jobs and homes) their neighborhoods, friends and families! Now somehow its a good thing that New Orleans is under water? Unfreakin believable... I've been to disaster areas. I've worked recovery efforts helping people out from fires, floods and storms and you can't imagine the pain of talking to someone who's lost their home and even worst who lost someone they knew. Its the height of arrogance and callousness to presume that just because someone doesn't live materially as well as we do that its a good thing their previous life was destroyed. For one there's no guarentee there lives will be better. I can tell you from working relief and recovery operations in the vast majority of cases people end up worse off. Its almost never good to be a refugee For two again how do we know they were worse off to begin with? Quality of life isn't always measured by material possessions or income. I know for a fact that many people in the tsunami affected regions don't want to come to America or Europe as refugees even though it means a materially higher standard of living. Finally, I don't usually like calling people out on internet forums but I've heard FD Khan post a few times in these Katrina threads that most of the people in the Astrodome were homeless and shiftless and largely to blame for their misfortune. How do you know that? Have you gone down to the Astrodome and conducted a census of the people there? Have you had them show you tax records or welfare check stubs? I find it presumptious to the point of offensiveness to make such a generalization for the purpose of making rhetorical points. It is nothing less than a blaming the victim in the face of a catastrophe on a Biblical scale.
It's the idea that since "they had little to begin with, they really lost nothing" that really gets me. The Army recruiting thread demonstrates the sentiment that since their lives are worthless anyways, they had might as well go off to Iraq and make something of themselves. Never mind the fact that fighting in a war they personally stand nothing to gain in does nothing to better their plight. Oh well, I guess since their lives are meaningless anyways due to their impoverished state - we might as well convince the poor its for their own good to stand in the line of fire and fight our wars. After all, isn't that how it has always worked?
I don't understand what some of you are trying to say. Are you saying that these people wanted to be stuck in the middle of a hurricane just so that they could somehow "move up" in society later on? What, they wanted their lives to be threatened by a huge natural disaster just to live in crappy conditions in a stadium? Is that really any better than living in the streets? Barbara Bush, to me at least, was undervaluing these people's lives with those comments. Just because they're poor doesn't make them any less of human beings.
Barbara Bush is probably not a b****. And no, she doesn't hate black people, either. Like her son, she is simply out of touch. When you are rich and powerful it is really hard to relate to people who have very little. It is not a crime to be out of touch, especially given that she is not an elected official. Her son, on the other hand ....
...interesting that the most controversial part of this "faring better than before the storm hit" is not a direct quote...
Must be a typo in the article. I persaonlly saw the interview where she said that on the Daily Show. Rest assured, those words did come out of her mouth. But nice try, giddyup.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," Barbara Bush said in an interview on Monday with the radio program "Marketplace." "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway," she said, "so this is working very well for them." she never says "before the storm" hit, but thats what her quote seems to imply with her they "were underprivilged anyway" remark. coupled with the part about it being "scary" that "they all want to stay in texas". personally, i would welcome any storm vicitms who wanted to stay here. texans showed so much hospitality that i think it will leave a lasting impression of goodwill. now they know the truth of our awesomeness and if they want to be a part of it than they should be welcomed. we've got plenty of room.
