The Most Revolting Letter of the Day

(To the New York Times)

To the Editor:

How typical of your editorial page to criticize President Bush's speech. For the record, give me action instead of flowery words any time!

The president guided this country through 9/11 in a masterful way, and I, for one, feel that he will do the same for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Dolores Demeri
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Sept. 1, 2005


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Two comments: I agree that action instead of flowery words would be nice. Action for the 25,000 people stranded in the Astrodome who haven't eaten for four days would be very nice indeed. Toilets and water would be nice. A third of the state's National Guard not being in Iraq would be nice, so they could, you know, help out in exactly the sort of situation the National Guard was intended for. The letter-writer says "give me action" as though that's what the government is actually doing. (Oh, and Bush's words weren't exactly flowery. They were actually insultingly stupid.)

Second: note that the writer "feel[s]" he will do the same for the victims of the hurricane. She doesn't seem to know he is. She doesn't even think he is. She feels he is. She's got a hunch. That's cute. The way it's cute that some people "feel" there were WMDs, or "feel" that Iraq initiated 9/11. It's cute to me that we live in a world where people feel whether facts are true or not.

I myself feel that if the still-stranded citizens of New Orleans were other than poor and black, Bush would have put his game-face on sometime around Monday afternoon, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, I feel Bush's game-face looks a lot like a monkey's, and situations like this make me even angrier that presidential elections are won and lost based on who Americans think they'd like to have a beer with. John Kerry would've gotten a little more done in this situation, that's how I feel.