Looters, Physical & Spiritual

These two Hurricane Katrina aftermath stories run neck and neck for the bottom of the loathsomeness barrel:

Children's Hospital Under Siege

Late Tuesday, Governor Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond. [emphasis added]

What the bloody hell is there of any value that could be stolen from a children's hospital? With all due respect to Glenn Reynolds, these are the looters who should be shot - or at least be at the front of the line for the firing squad.

Speaking of shooting (of the "off her mouth" variety)....

Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego , so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused. Recovery would be easier and much quicker if almost ½ of the three states involved National Guard were not in Iraq. All of the National Guard's equipment is in Iraq also. Plus, with the 2 billion dollars a week that the private contractors are siphoning from our treasury, how are we going to pay for helping our own citizens in Louisiana , Mississippi, and Alabama? And, should I dare say "global warming?" and be branded as a "conspiracy theorist" on top of everything else the reich-wingers say about me.

And a double-extended-middle-finger-salute to you too, Cindy. Are you going to protest Children's Hospital on your way to D.C.?

[HT: Double H]

UPDATE: This story reminds me of something that Dwight Eisenhower said when he inspected the first liberated German concentration camp: "They've made me ashamed my name is Eisenhower."

Environmental Minister Juergen Tritten doesn't represent all Germans (and soon won't be in office at all), but he has done much to make me less enthusiastic about my ethnic heritage.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin notes the same old crapola coming from the usual gang of idiots:

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Kos, one diarist and some of his commenters are going absolutely insane with their Bush hatred and blaming him for wanting to kill off black residents of New Orleans.

I offer my comments in this post as a most appropriate rebuttal.

UPDATE III: This is a better one:

The Pentagon late Tuesday ordered five Navy ships and eight maritime rescue teams to the Gulf Coast to bolster relief operations as worsening conditions overwhelmed the initial response.

The New York Times plans to report later tonight: One Navy amphibious assault ship, the Bataan, with six Sea Stallion and Sea Hawk helicopters that could be used
for search and rescue missions.

The ships will carry food, fuel, medical and construction supplies, as well as hovercraft that can be used for evacuation and search-and-rescue missions.

The Navy was also considering sending the hospital ship Comfort.

Bill Clinton was all lip-quivering and no action; George W. Bush is all action and no lip-quivering. For all that the latter hurts himself by his neglect of public relations, which combination is going to do more for the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama?

UPDATE IV: Rush Limbaugh suggests what else the President could do, which amounts to little short of finally dislodging the entrenched greenstremist regulatory hegemony inside and outside the Beltway that is trying to, in the late Bill Simon's words, "shut down the dynamo":

What is the major problem facing America today? We've had - what is it? - 85 or 90% of the oil production in the Gulf shut down. We've got refineries down there that are flooded, not going to be able to work....The President is considering making a speech on conserving energy, conserving fuel use. The President has made the decision to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which I think - well, I disagree with it. I don't think it's time to do that. I don't think it's necessary. We don't have a shortage here. We have a distribution problem we have to deal with. We've got refineries down; we've got production down in the Gulf, and who knows how long it's going to be down. Hopefully they will be up much sooner than a lot of people think. But for the solution to come from an expert author, saying the only way to fix this is to get off of fossil fuels?

Folks, do you realize the golden opportunity that is presented by this? You know what the President could do? The President, instead of releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, he could by executive order, eliminate all gasoline taxes for a short period of time, a temporary period of time. He could, by executive order, eliminate, temporarily eliminate, all of these different regulations on the formation of gasoline that cause all kinds of distribution problems, even in normal times - and he could illustrate that one of the real problems we have here is brought on by militant environmentalists.

Heck, why not? (1) It would do immense good for energy supply and prices in both the short- and long-term; (2) it would expose to full public view the true crypto-Marxist motivations of the greenstremist movement; and (3) it would boost the President's visibility as being "engaged" and "on the job" in meeting this crisis head-on, and throw the watermelon brigade (green on the outside, red on the inside) on the defensive for a long-overdue change.

I mean, seriously, people in the affected areas on the Gulf Coast don't give a rat's ass about caribou and otters and ducks; you stop caring about such things when you have no place to sleep, no clean water to drink, no food to eat, and no electricity by which to attain the preceding. Let the greenies stand in the way of restoring a basic level of living in the face of the Administration trying to carry out that restoration, and who is going to look worse? Really, what are GDub's enemies going to say? The tired old "Bush is throwing more boodle to his Big Oil buddies" twaddle? More Halliburton doggerell? God Almighty, scroll back up to see what they're saying about him already. What in the frakking world would he have to lose?

NRO's the Corner is all atwitter this afternoon with mass pannings of the President's speech on disaster relief this morning. In classic Republican fashion they're panicking that he'll be perceived as "being out of touch" by "not doing enough fast enough." And, without coming right out and saying so, because he hasn't gone down to New Orleans and thrown a few symbolic sandbags and engaged in, you guessed it, lip-quivering.

Let him take Limbaugh's advice, and I will guarantee that spin of Bush's supposed "inaction" would vanish like a belch in a hurr....well, it would vanish, anyway. And Dubya could be a national hero once again.

The Left is trying to extract political gain from Hurricane Katrina. If the Right can do that by augmenting and accelerating the Gulf Coast's recovery as well as doing something about high energy prices, what is Dubya waiting for?