Monday Morning Quarterbacking
Nothing makes me more infuriated than watching reporters act like know-it-alls. They seem to thrive on the prospect of asking pointed questions of officials in high positions in order to make them look unprepared or incompetent, and I've seen it constantly on the recent news with the hurricane flattening New Orleans. We all know what it means to be a Monday Morning Quarterback - you sit there, knowing the result of the game, and talk about how if you were the offensive coordinator, you obviously would have called a different play to win the game. The fact is, you're not the quarterback, and you weren't in a position to make that call. Further, you didn't make any attempt to help the quarterback make the right call (no, screaming at the TV doesn't count). And that's what these bloody idiot reports seem obsessed with doing!
Idiot Reporter: "Sir, why wasn't the Guard more prepared for this?"
Guardsman: "We were prepared. In fact, we've been able to activate the National Reservists in many states and already have a large number of troops on the ground, and thousands more coming"
Idiot Reporter: "Why didn't the President do more to prevent this?"
Me (screaming at the TV): "Prevent a hurricane? Did you really just ask that question, dumbass? The President ordered the entire city evacuated 3 days before it hit! That's unprecedented! The governor of Louisiana was the one who sat on her butt and did nothing!"
Idiot Reporter: "Doesn't the war in Iraq hurt the US government's ability to respond to Katrina?"
Me (again, screaming at the TV): "You moron! Of course having 150,000 troops in Iraq means they're not in Louisiana! Can you get off your moral highhorse and quit trying to make Bush look bad when he's attempting to deal with one of the largest natural disasters to ever hit this country and one of the largest attacks on our country we've ever seen (9/11, 3000 Americans died there, for those of you who conveniently forget that fact when arguing that we should have let the terrorists go)"
I've actually listened to all three of those questions actually asked by reporters. They came from MSNBC, ABC, and Foxnews in no particular order. It sickens me to see pictures of people suffering and have these smug little pricks sitting behind their microphones asking questions like this when they should be stepping up to the plate to help. Even the musicians have figured it out, and they're hosting several (multiple groups of musicians, multiple benefits, multiple times) large benefit concerts to raise money to aid the Katrina victims.
God bless the God-people. You know who they are. They're the SuperChristians who never miss a meeting at church. But I tell you, for all their self-righteousness and willingness to shove their faith on you like the check at a restaraunt, these people have been among the quickest to respond and the most generous. Seriously, these people are amazing when it comes down to helping others. They take Jesus seriously, and when it counts, they live their lives the right way. There is nothing that helps build faith in God more than seeing His followers truly and passionately serve Him by helping their fellow man. For those of you who know me, that's very, very high praise.
On a related note, our President is one of those SuperChristians. For those of you who don't know, he's a reborn Christian who leads this country with his faith in mind. That said, he was informed of the hurricane, and has acted accordingly. I say this because I'm tired of the Monday Morning QBs out there trying to blame him for a natural disaster. He ordered the city evacuated. He activated FEMA who prepared as well as they could with short notice for post-disaster relief efforts. He mobilized the armed forces almost as soon as the winds were low enough to move people in. And most importantly, he has worked with Congress to get immediate federal relief money to pay for the massive relief effort. One reporter was quoting that the mobilization of the military is costing on the order of $0.5 billion a day! I don't care what you say, if you have the audacity to suggest that the President has not acted, you are blinded by ideology.
And I guess while I'm here... Bill O'Reilly pissed me off today. I watched his coverage of the hurricane and his opinions were uncharacteristically ignorant. Throughout the episode, he made comments to the effect that the military has failed, that President Bush has failed to act, that the local police forces have failed, and basically took the position that the relief effort has been a failure so far. Mr. O'Reilly however seems blind to the difficulties of coordinating the relief effort and seems incapable of understanding that getting those kinds of resources to a city full of millions of refugees, many of whom are armed and very dangerous because of their desperation is not a simple task. You can't just say "Make it so" and have Spock press a button and voila, everyone's saved. Dealing with people takes time, especially because they're desperate and in need of more than the physical relief of food, water, and shelter. Dealing with armed people takes even more time, because at this point, they're willing to use their weapons irrationally. Dealing with sick people takes time, because they can't just be loaded on trucks and boats and moved at will. Evacuating a hospital requires more than just a few more Marines. Now, combine all that with the difficulty of doing it in an amphibious environment. The whole damn place is a fetid, feces-filled, festering swamp now! Mr. O'Reilly, if you think you can coordinate better, get off your ass, fly down there, and take care of business, or just shut up and let the professionals do their jobs.
Idiot Reporter: "Sir, why wasn't the Guard more prepared for this?"
Guardsman: "We were prepared. In fact, we've been able to activate the National Reservists in many states and already have a large number of troops on the ground, and thousands more coming"
Idiot Reporter: "Why didn't the President do more to prevent this?"
Me (screaming at the TV): "Prevent a hurricane? Did you really just ask that question, dumbass? The President ordered the entire city evacuated 3 days before it hit! That's unprecedented! The governor of Louisiana was the one who sat on her butt and did nothing!"
Idiot Reporter: "Doesn't the war in Iraq hurt the US government's ability to respond to Katrina?"
Me (again, screaming at the TV): "You moron! Of course having 150,000 troops in Iraq means they're not in Louisiana! Can you get off your moral highhorse and quit trying to make Bush look bad when he's attempting to deal with one of the largest natural disasters to ever hit this country and one of the largest attacks on our country we've ever seen (9/11, 3000 Americans died there, for those of you who conveniently forget that fact when arguing that we should have let the terrorists go)"
I've actually listened to all three of those questions actually asked by reporters. They came from MSNBC, ABC, and Foxnews in no particular order. It sickens me to see pictures of people suffering and have these smug little pricks sitting behind their microphones asking questions like this when they should be stepping up to the plate to help. Even the musicians have figured it out, and they're hosting several (multiple groups of musicians, multiple benefits, multiple times) large benefit concerts to raise money to aid the Katrina victims.
God bless the God-people. You know who they are. They're the SuperChristians who never miss a meeting at church. But I tell you, for all their self-righteousness and willingness to shove their faith on you like the check at a restaraunt, these people have been among the quickest to respond and the most generous. Seriously, these people are amazing when it comes down to helping others. They take Jesus seriously, and when it counts, they live their lives the right way. There is nothing that helps build faith in God more than seeing His followers truly and passionately serve Him by helping their fellow man. For those of you who know me, that's very, very high praise.
On a related note, our President is one of those SuperChristians. For those of you who don't know, he's a reborn Christian who leads this country with his faith in mind. That said, he was informed of the hurricane, and has acted accordingly. I say this because I'm tired of the Monday Morning QBs out there trying to blame him for a natural disaster. He ordered the city evacuated. He activated FEMA who prepared as well as they could with short notice for post-disaster relief efforts. He mobilized the armed forces almost as soon as the winds were low enough to move people in. And most importantly, he has worked with Congress to get immediate federal relief money to pay for the massive relief effort. One reporter was quoting that the mobilization of the military is costing on the order of $0.5 billion a day! I don't care what you say, if you have the audacity to suggest that the President has not acted, you are blinded by ideology.
And I guess while I'm here... Bill O'Reilly pissed me off today. I watched his coverage of the hurricane and his opinions were uncharacteristically ignorant. Throughout the episode, he made comments to the effect that the military has failed, that President Bush has failed to act, that the local police forces have failed, and basically took the position that the relief effort has been a failure so far. Mr. O'Reilly however seems blind to the difficulties of coordinating the relief effort and seems incapable of understanding that getting those kinds of resources to a city full of millions of refugees, many of whom are armed and very dangerous because of their desperation is not a simple task. You can't just say "Make it so" and have Spock press a button and voila, everyone's saved. Dealing with people takes time, especially because they're desperate and in need of more than the physical relief of food, water, and shelter. Dealing with armed people takes even more time, because at this point, they're willing to use their weapons irrationally. Dealing with sick people takes time, because they can't just be loaded on trucks and boats and moved at will. Evacuating a hospital requires more than just a few more Marines. Now, combine all that with the difficulty of doing it in an amphibious environment. The whole damn place is a fetid, feces-filled, festering swamp now! Mr. O'Reilly, if you think you can coordinate better, get off your ass, fly down there, and take care of business, or just shut up and let the professionals do their jobs.
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