September 1, 2005

• Poor Little Mikey

  I’m listening to All Things Considered on NPR.  Robert Siegel had
  Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on the phone, asking
  him about conditions at the convention center in New Orleans, about 9
  blocks from the Superdome.

  Siegel calmly and unemotionally (like the good journalist he is)
  relayed to Chertoff the reports from the NPR man on the ground
  there.  He said there were 2,000 people at the convention center,
  and that they had not had any official help, no food or water, medical
  care or law enforcement, since the crisis began.  Officials at the
  Superdome have been sending the overflow from there to the convention
  center, promising them that they would find aid there.

  Siegel mentioned two corpses of elderly people, one lying on the
  ground, the other slumped in a wheelchair.  He said that during
  the night a ten-year-old girl had been raped in the building. 
  Like the good politician he is, little Mikey started out denying the
  entire story.

  I guess the guy can’t help the pipsqeaky quality of his voice, but he
  should have had some psychotherapy somewhere along the line, to help
  him transcend that defensiveness and denial.  He came across as
  whiney and irresponsible.

  After Siegel reiterated in a matter-of-fact manner some of those
  eye-witness reports and assured him that they came from seasoned
  reporters who had seen disasters all over the world, either someone
  whispered in Mikey’s ear with some wise advice, or the penny dropped
  for him all on his own.  He switched from flat denials to saying
  that he “wouldn’t argue” about what the reporters were saying, but that
  he had “had no reports” of any of that.

  Of course he’d had no reports.  That’s what the reporter was saying:  that there had been no official presence
  at that location where they had been sending refugees for days. 
  Looters had been bringing back food and bottled water and distributing
  them, thereby becoming heroes in the eyes of the suffering thousands.

  It’s a rough situation for everyone trying to provide aid and comfort
  to Katrina’s victims.  Some of the voices I’ve been hearing (both
  in my head and on the radio) project humanitarian concern and an
  earnest desire to help.  One man I heard is coordinating some of
  those efforts.  He told about some of his crews barging pumps
  along a canal, who were fired on from the canal’s banks.  His
  voice conveyed a bemused disbelief.  He projected a resigned
  determination when he said he’d ordered the rescue crews not to stop
  their trucks for anything but a military or law enforcement order, not
  even a flat tire.

  Chertoff’s voice conveyed petulance and fear.  He just seemed to
  be trying to cover his own ass.  I’m disgusted, but not surprised,
  given the tenor of the rest of that federal administration that
  appointed him.

  NPR has apparently done more for the thousands of refugees at the
  convention center than the Department of Homeland Security did. 
  At the end of the segment, Siegel reported that after his conversation
  with Mikey, someone finally showed up to check on the crowd there.
  
  
  11-something PM, Alaska time

  Pictorial Update:

  I
  was curious.  I didn’t know what Little Mikey Jerkoff looked like
  because I haven’t watched TV since Doug broke the antenna wire
  shoveling snow from the roof a couple of winters ago.  I found
  this at http://www.buckfush.com.
  
  And the next one from http://www.jewlicious.com:
  

  I forget where I got the rest of these.

  

  Shrub and Smug
  

  clueless
  

  …and my favorite, vacuous.
  

  Forgive me, please.  I just needed a little bit of comic relief.

  • 8:56 pm
  • 16 Comments