Rhetoric Not Matching Reality

AP reported The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes.

The news today certainly looks good.

The economy is booming.

It is.

Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired.

So far, the only government employees I have seen mentioned did nothing except confirm hearing the news from other reporters

Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.

And it has arrived.

As New Orleans descended into anarchy, top Bush administration officials congratulated each other for jobs well done and spoke of water, food and troops pouring into the ravaged city. Television pictures told a different story.

You must have been watching a different television station than I did. I saw long convoys of national guard troops, trucks loaded with water and MREs, jeeps pulling boats on trailers, and buses to take people out of New Orleans. Should they have been sent a few days earlier, yes, but the Governor did not ask for them, and while Bush declared a disaster area a couple of days before Katrina strck, so that he could pre-position supplies, he could not send in the military or federalize National Guard troops from other states until the Governor asked for it.