Hope and Change, Change and Hope

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/24/change_is_coming_to_fema.html

This article showed up in the Washington Post Politics Daily section of this morning’s emails. Those of you who know anything about me know that:

When W rolled FEMA into DHS, I went ballistic. I said then that it was a terrific way to neuter a needed agency, and I was proven right.Everything that came from it afterwards, was stillborn.

When Katrina hit, and New Orleans was lost, then the government denied there was problem and CNN was broadcasting pictures of refugees at the stadium in the rain, I knew that affairs had gone completely sour.

When it was reported that “Brownie” was out looking for new shirts, at a department store many miles form the scene of the disaster, my stomach churned.

When some days later, W told “Brownie” he was doing “a heckuva job”, I vomited.

When Brownie got shit-canned, I stood up and cheered and told everyone that I just wanted a shot at that job for a month or so. (I probably would have shot by a Bushie Brown Shirt brigade, but I really didn’t care; my sensibilities were enraged).

Now the word on the Obama street (see the article) is that change is on the way for FEMA. Hip Hip Hooray! Hope! Change! Change! Hope!

But then one reads on. The rumor is that James Witt, another Clintonista and Arkansas crony, will be brought in to reprise his clean-up act. And he will bring along Mark Merrit to help and then succeed him. If anything in the report about Witt’s activities after he left FEMA is true, then we should be wary. He obviously learned enough about the slovenly government relief processes during his tenure to profit enormously from them, afterward. And he has a skillful and learned protégé’. Again, if at all true, he has been ably aided and abetted by the likes of state governors and their successors (Would trust Bobbie Jindal with YOUR wife?). Let’s just hold the cheering and applause for a bit, shall we?


Alongside this disclosure came the announcement, by the Fed (and broadcast widely in the Mostly Silly Media), that several billion more dollars were suddenly being released into the consumer marketplace to promote consumer spending (Christmas gifts?), finance new automobiles (which are largely over-priced and fuel-inefficient) and (finally) to do something about the gazillion dollars a risk in current home mortgage foreclsures around the country (which should have been done long ago).

Hank Paulson, appearing gaunt, haggard and frightened as ever, held a another press conference, looking like a cornered dog who has been caught stealing the Thanksgiving turkey off of the dining room table, and blurted, stumbled and gasped his way through a series of nearly incoherent explanations..and now we wait to see if Wall Street will jump for joy or jump off the ledge of the highest building.

The first pundit and media reactions were that this economic move did not ever require the draconian predictions laid out two months ago, about those predicted massive defaults and martial law, and it would seem that the Fed, W, Paulson and the rest are merely grandstanding for the holidays. But it seems to me to be a sack of large coal lumps being left at the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

There is certainly hope for change in the air, but these announcements make me wonder if we should change our hopes, just a little bit, until we know exactly what the future portends. I would really like to get into the holiday spirit, instead of just being dispirited.

Life goes on in Texas.