Hurricane Gustav: From the GOP

During the 2003 State of the Union I kept a running tally and accurately counted the number of times President George Bush used the following words:
"Terror"
"Weapons of Mass Destruction"
"Sadaam Hussien"
"Osama Bin Laden"
"Al Quaeda"
"Tom Brady"

I threw the last one in because I could not believe that Tom Brady was actually there, sitting next to the First Lady. Only in America can you use a Super Bowl Champion to promote a war that is a lie. I continue to be bitter about it.

The final numbers were off the chart and absurd. I sent out the final count to a group of friends.
And instantly it made the rounds, it was forwarded, and forwarded to the masses.

I know this because I sent out the email before school started at 7am the following morning. By 3pm when I had finished school and was checking email again, I had an email in my box from a person – and I will never forget this name – who went by “Fuzzybunny”. Below what he or she wrote - which I will share with you in a moment - I saw that my message had been forwarded eight different times before making it's way to him/her.

In Fuzzybunny's message to me, s/he basically called me a coward (he was the one using a pen name), challenged my patriotism (there was a huge American flag on my classroom wall next to me), and said that I was wrong for criticizing the President’s effort to preserve security (no comment needed here).

But that’s not the punchline. The punchline is that s/he ended by saying to me that he was going to “teach me a lesson” and sort of cackled off into the sunset. I didn’t think much of this guy until the next day when I began receiving emails from every conservative organization in America.

My decision? Keep them. I’ve been getting emails from the GOP ever since.

You wouldn’t believe some of the articles I’ve kept over the years. I think I’ll write a book about how wrong they were and continue to be someday.

Here is one that arrived yesterday:

Democrats Display Destructive Delight
By Jeff Crouere
September 2, 2008

Once again a major hurricane has hit the New Orleans area. Once again, I have evacuated my family along with millions of harried Gulf Coast residents. We are worried about our family members, friends, property, and pets. It is stressful time for all of us in this region of the country.

It was just three years ago that Hurricane Katrina devastated our area creating horrendous damage and killing over 1,600 people. Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands of people who have not been able to return home. Thousands of homes remain damaged and unoccupied. Sadly, our community has not recovered from Katrina; yet, now we have to face another killer storm. It is a tragic situation that is more than nerve wracking for all of us in the New Orleans area and throughout the Gulf Coast.

In the midst of this tragedy, liberal propagandist Michael Moore, a bloated blowhard, has insulted every resident of the threatened region. Moore told fellow Republican hater and lunatic liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, that Hurricane Gustav was proof that there "is a God in Heaven." Moore crowed that it was delicious irony that President Bush was scheduled to speak to the GOP convention at the same time the devastating hurricane would be rampaging across the northern Gulf Coast.

By celebrating the political ramifications of Gustav, Moore and Olbermann were displaying more concern about partisan politics than the well being of millions of Americans. It was a disgusting display of nasty partisanship at a time of national crisis. Any decent human being should be more worried about the safety of fellow Americans than scoring political points.

Of course three years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area and the federal response was lame and delayed. Yet, the local and state response was equally inadequate. This time, the federal government has been proactive and very aggressive in evacuating local residents and preparing for this hurricane. The actions of Louisiana state government led by new Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has been the antithesis of what happened during Katrina. At that time, Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco was overwhelmed, overly emotional and ill-prepared. She clearly was not able to convey any leadership or inspire any confidence in state government. In contrast, for this emergency, Governor Jindal has acted quickly and confidently and certainly saved lives by his leadership during this crisis.

Regrettably, several leading Democrats are using this tragedy to score political points. Former DNC Chairman Don Fowler said that the hurricane demonstrates that "God is on our side." A shocking video captured a heartless Fowler laughing about this tragedy and saying that it would negatively impact the Republican convention. In another example of horrible insensitivity, liberal Fox News contributor and Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill said that Republicans must be "praying for tornadoes" so that President Bush will skip the convention. This type of disgusting partisanship is why many people are tired of politics.

Let me be clear to these liberal Democrats, no sane Republican official is praying for tornadoes. In fact, Republican leaders gathered for the convention are very concerned about the impact of the storm and will lead an effort to assist in the recovery of the area. For example, President Bush did not attend the convention so that he could manage the federal response to Hurricane Gustav.

It is time to remind these callous Democrats that God did not send a hurricane to help one party or to harm people to score political points. The God that I worship is a merciful and loving God that watches over all of his flock, regardless of political affiliation.

This tragedy should be an opportunity for people to put aside political labels and pull together to insure a quick recovery from this disaster. The last thing anyone should be doing at this point is to try to take political advantage of this tragedy. The comments of these leading Democrats are incredibly cruel and show complete insensitivity to the plight of their fellow Americans. Now is not the time to play partisan politics, there will be plenty of time for that once this threat passes.