Georgie, You're Doing A Heckuva Job

Irony is defined in Wikipedia as:

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). Irony may also arise from a discordance between acts and results, especially if it is striking, and seen by an outside audience. Irony is understood as an aesthetic evaluation by an audience, which relies on a sharp discordance between the real and the ideal, and which is variously applied to texts, speech, events, acts, and even fashion. All the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity, or a gap between an understanding of reality, or expectation of a reality, and what actually happens.

President Bush is the king of irony, and he probably can't spell it. Today he is in New Orleans marking the second anniversary of Katrina's strike. He is of course down there to toot his own horn and to tell everyone what a great job he and the federal government have done.

Of course, a large portion of New Orleans looks like a war zone with businesses and homes boarded up.

Most Americans will point to Iraq as Bush's great downfall and they would be correct, for nothing shows the gross incompetence of his administration in a brighter light than that. The truth of the matter is that two years ago the war in Iraq could have still been won. Bush was still being given the benefit of the doubt. And then along came Katrina and the people saw Bush lacked the one thing he needed to be president; leadership.

He proved that he was out of touch and worse than that the people saw that the people he appointed to office were toadies and political fund raisers instead of professionals. Michael Brown, the head of FEMA had no experience in disaster management, and it showed. Bush's reaction to the ongoing disaster and his out of touch FEMA director?

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Here is how the Washington Post wrote about Brown shortly after Katrina.

Michael D. Brown has been called the accidental director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, caricatured as the failed head of an Arabian horse sporting group who was plucked from obscurity to become President Bush's point man for the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Amid the swirl of human misery along the Gulf Coast, Brown admitted initially underestimating the impact of Hurricane Katrina, whose winds and water swamped the agency's preparations. As the nation reeled at images of the calamity, he appeared to blame storm victims by noting that the crisis was worsened by New Orleans residents who did not comply with a mandatory evacuation order.

The only talent anyone in his administration has to have is to be loyal. Competence or experience is of no consequence. Of course, you probably shouldn't laugh at the unintentional irony. Just keep thinking this thought:

"Georgie, you're doing a heckuva job."

Jim Martin