Bill to George: It's Time to Quit

Stopping in Los Angeles at the HBO studios down the street from the Farmer's Market (get there now and get the BEST bunches of thin-melt-in-your-mouth asparagus!!) to watch Real Time with Bill Maher. He had this to day about the speech George Bush delivered last week about Hurricane Katrina and washed out New Orleans. If you watch Maher's comedy specials or have ever seen his TV programs or enjoyed him live, you know this was delivered well:

C'mon, Mr. President, it's time for you to quit while you're behind.
Bill Maher

America must recall the president. That's what this country needs: a good old-fashioned California-style recall election complete with petitions, finger-pointing and a ridiculous cast of replacement candidates.

Just like Gray Davis had to do here in California, George W. Bush must now defend his job against...Russell Crowe! Because at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. Naomi Campbell can be vice president - only phone throwers, people!

Come on, Mr. President, this can't be fun for you anymore. You can't spend more of our money, because you used it all up. And you can't start another war, because you've used up the troops. And when it comes to reacting to hurricanes, you made your old man look like St. Francis of Assisi.

Your job has turned into the Bush family nightmare: helping poor black people. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out and no one's speaking to you --- mission accomplished!

Now it's time to do what you do best: lose interest and walk away, like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?

Oh, I know what you're saying: "Hey, I've got three more years, and there's so many other things I want to.....touch." Please don't.

I know. I know. There's so much left to do: war with Venezuela, eliminating the sales tax on yachts and diamonds, turning the space program over to the church, handing healthcare over to Halliburton and Social Security to Fannie Mae, giving embryos the vote.

But none of that's going to happen now. Why? Because you're the first American president to lose a whole city. Jimmy Carter never lost a city. Herbert Hoover was a lousy president, but he didn't concede an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

You've performed so poorly you should give yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. On your watch we've lost almost all of our allies, the budget surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky.

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. Yes, God does speak to you. And he's saying: "Take a hint."

Real Time with Bill Maher is on HBO at 8pm PST/11pm EST

Good Enough for Poor Folk??

The catastrophic flooding and destruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing lack of federal response has captured the rapt atttention of the entire world. The United States of America is being called the United States of Shame, among other things.

As Leo has settled on the Ascendant of George W. Bush, it is clear that he is not reaping the positive rays of past deeds done well. Saturn is taking the air out of the prideful ballloon of hubris and the sight is not pretty. No amount of damage control from Karl Rove seems to help. News orgnaizations worldwide are noting the recent statement of Barbara Bush, George's mother, and connecitng it to what they are labeling as "the root of his uncompassionate conservatism". Polly Toynbee of The Guardian (UK) wrote in her column on September 9:

What the great Louisiana catastrophe has revealed is a country that is not a country at all, but atomised, segmented individuals living parallel lives as far apart as possible, with nothing to unite them beyond the idea of a flag. The 40 million with no health insurance show the social dysfunction corroding US capacity. For the poor at the bottom of the New Orleans mud heap, there never was even the American dream to cling to. They always lived in another country. The born-agains absolve themselves from sympathy with the victims by explaining Katrina as God's wrath on the Sodom-and-Gomorrah sins of New Orleans.

But it took the mother of the nation, Barbara Bush, to perfectly capture rich America's distance from the scene. Visiting (evacuees) in the Houston Astrodome, she pronounced them lucky: "So many of the people were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." She let slip darker fears: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas." Katrina lifts the lid on the hidden America invisible in sitcoms, but above all shows how the rich don't acknowledge shared nationhood with the rest.

Meanwhile, there is talk of developers turning all the land ocupied by the poor of New Orleans into a gentrified area of downtown luxury townhomes and condominiums, hotels and businesses. Makes you wonder, exactly where, then, will Habitat for Humanity be rebuilding homes for all those people displaced by the tragedy?