Lowering The Level of Discourse

[09:45] me: i spent an hour writing a kick ass editorial for the st. pete times yesterday and those pussies didn't publish it
[09:45] my friend: what was it about?
[09:45] me: i'll send it to you
[09:45] my friend: k
[09:46] me: you're @yahoo, right?
[09:46] my friend: yup
[09:50] my friend: i got a "ur momma's so ugly" joke ...wanna hear it?
[09:50] me: wait.. i just sent you a literary work of art, and you're gonna tell me a "ur momma's so ugly" joke?
[09:51] my friend: yep
[09:51] my friend: ur momma so ugly that her birth certificate is an apology letter from the condom company

So for those of you that might find this a wee bit more interesting than a "ur momma's so ugly" joke, here it is.

Watching President Bush on video last night being briefed on what a horrible storm hurricane Katrina was expected to be was just another sad reminder of all of this Adminstration’s failures. Time after time, they were forewarned about potential disasters and time after time, they failed to act to stop or minimize their effects. Then afterwards, to add insult to injury, they deny that they were ever forewarned.

The intelligence community knew full well back in 1998 that terrorists were looking into using airplanes as missiles. However after the 9/11 attacks when the twin towers went down and over 3000 people lost their lives, George Bush said “had I had any inkling whatsoever that people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect the country.”

The CIA raised all kinds of doubts that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger, yet Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to press the issue of going to war with Iraq in order to stop them from building WMDs. We now know for a fact that Iraq was not buying uranium from Niger and had no related weapons program, yet the Bush Administration continues to this day to claim that they were just sure Iraq had WMDs.

Similarly, White House officials were warned over and over by military experts and intelligence officials that a growing insurgency might cause all kinds of messy problems in rebuilding Iraq. Today we see Iraq on the brink of civil war and an insurgency that appears to continue growing stronger. Yet we have Defense Department official Paul Bremer saying "We really didn't see the insurgency coming."

Then last night, on a video taken the day before hurricane Katrina hit land, we see George Bush begin warned that the levees could break and then arrogantly asserting that we are “fully prepared” to deal with the aftermath. As we all know, the levees did break, and over a thousand people died and over a thousand are still missing. Yet, a few days after the storm, he stated “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

This cycle of being warned, failing to act, and then denying the warning is getting a bit tedious. As can be seen in Bush’s latest CBS News poll approval ratings of 34%, the American people are on to this routine, and we see the devastation it can cause.

Since it was meant to be in print, there's no links, but if you go visit Ricky, you can find most of the references.

UPDATE: OK, I'm so sorry I called the folks at the St. Pete Times pussies. I hope they accept my most humble apologies. They did end up publishing it, just a day later.