Eleanor Clift's Astoundingly Ignorant Rant

It seems that the disaster of Hurricane Katrina has untied the staff at Newsweek, but sadly not to report the truth or to somehow help the situation. No, Newsweek seems united in using the deaths of hundreds (or thousands?) of people and widespread destruction to attack President Bush. Just a few posts down, Keith commented on the appalling comments of Fineman. Fellow columnist Eleanor Clift joins the party with a shockingly ignorant editorial "A Colossal Failure of Leadership," which is labeled as a "web-exclusive commentary". If this is the quality of something that is "web-exclusive", I might just have to rethink my stance and go back to print media.

Ms. Clift starts off with this idiocy:

I didn’t see the movie “The Day After,” which depicts the desolation and desperation in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. Staring at the images from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is like watching that disaster movie in real time.

She didn't see the movie yet says the images are like watching the movie in real time? I haven't seen the movie either. Shall I suggest that Ms. Clift reminds me of that completely asinine reporter from the movie that no one could stand?
Her brainless rantings continue:

Where is Rudy Giuliani when we need him? We’ve had four years since 9/11 to prepare for a crisis with mass casualties, yet we seem totally unprepared.

This shows a shocking lack of understanding of the scope of the problem in New Orleans. Perhaps Ms. Clift should have taken a physics class just once in school instead of studying the art of the poisoned pen. An entire city was built below sea level, a category 5 hurricane brings 20 foot sea swell with waves on top of it, and she seems perplexed that everything isn't already taken care of? I noticed she continues to shine on Giuliani with:

But this was a moment for national leadership, and nobody rose to take charge the way Giuliani did in New York.

I'm sure when Giuliani announces his candidacy as a Republican next year, Ms. Clift will be first in line to help with the campaign. Oh, and by the way, Giuliani was the mayor of New York City. What does that have to do with national leadership? This next paragraph is particularly outrageous:

This has been a colossal failure of government. President Bush spent Tuesday, the day after Katrina struck, at a Medicare event in Arizona and then he made his way to a San Diego naval base for yet another anniversary tribute to the Greatest Generation. His concession to reality was adding a few words of compassion to his prepared remarks. Meanwhile, the greatest natural disaster in a century was unfolding at sickening speed with television cameras capturing footage of looting reminiscent of the days after the invasion of Iraq. Things were so bad “you almost wonder if Donald Rumsfeld is in charge,” said Marshall Wittmann, an analyst with the Democratic Leadership Council.

Wow, let's check the list. We have a snide mention of World War II veterans, a personal attack of President Bush's character, a portrayal of failure in Iraq, and a slam against Rumsfeld by a leader of the Democratic Party. That's a pretty impressive paragraph, even by loony left standards.

I don't really want to give any of Ms. Clift's writings any more press, but she ends with:

Congress had been planning to eliminate the estate tax, draining billions from a federal budget already reeling under the costs of a war. Marshall Wittmann, who used to advise John McCain, predicts that Bush’s tax-cutting days are over. “We’ve been living in la-la land,” he says. “This is a moment of sobriety when business as usual can’t continue.”

Ahh, I understand, it's the elimination of the estate tax that's causing all the problems along the gulf coast. Actually, from reading the editorial it is clear what Ms. Clift's real point is. She hates President Bush. She hated him before Katrina, she hated him after Katrina. She doesn't like his economic ideas and she doesn't like his political ideas. It seems she doesn't like any of his ideas. The hurricane and the suffering of thousands is just a convenient excuse for her to show the world just how deep her mindless hate runs.

To Ms. Clift I have this to say. This is not been a failure of leadership. You view it as that, but you weren't going to follow President Bush no matter what happened or didn't happen in New Orleans. You'll probably be disappointed to learn, if you can open you mind enough to do so, that a growing number of people are getting tired of the continual and baseless attacks on President Bush. Ask outside your tiny little sphere of fellow biased journalists and you will find that even people who never even considered voting for the man can see your slanderous, ignorant rant for what it is.

I can only hope Newsweek decided to employ different columnists in the future. Ones, perhaps, that think for themselves instead of spewing out a very tired--and false--diatribe.