The choice of "evacuee" over "refugee" is interesting in its portrayal of short-term displacement from some emergency situation. Also, as one humorist noted, "refugee" implies a place of refuge.
The ability of this Administration to spin the media is outstanding and further demonstrates how GW truly deserves the title Teflon President.
Just as "insurgents" are not rebels, "terrorists" are not militia, the
ability to manipulate the nouns distorts the reality to the public, and
apparently to the Administration themselves as they drink their own
punch.
The poor (literally, unfortunately) people of New Orleans are
refugees from a natural disaster, just as the people of Sri Lanka were
after the Tsunami.
It is good the press is finally starting to question the
Administration on their handling, on this the fourth anniversary of
9/11. Are we really any safer? Does the color-coded
fantasy warning system really portend anything? Does the Administration
really allow the most effective people within the intelligence and
military ranks do their job to protect us? Are the priorities of the
Administration properly aligned with the realities of our contemporary
threat environment, which, incidently Mssrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and
Chertoff, include natural attacks with WMDs? The answer is clearly no
on all counts (we should not need foreign troops on our soil to help us recover) and hopefully the Fourth Estate stands up and recalls their responsibility.
From David Ignatius in the Washington Post (or Lebanon’s Daily Star to show "outsiders" are reading this too):
The Bush administration, meanwhile, remains in its hunkered-down
defensive crouch, with White House spokesman Scott McClellan treating
any demand for accountability as a partisan "blame game." It’s
outrageous to read that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
has been telling members of Congress that media reports are overstating
the problems for storm survivors — this from a man who was denying on
National Public Radio last Thursday that there was any crisis at the
New Orleans convention center at the very hour reporters were finding
dead bodies and abandoned, starving people there. If the administration
maintains that tone, it will self-destruct.
Tell me again, where does the buck stop? This President is so disconnected from reality ("Brownie, you’re doing one heck of a job") it is beyond frightening. Four years after 9/11 and it is very hard to believe people think were are safer. At the very least, perhaps people are starting to come around, as Newt Gingrich wrote and as a poll by Foreign Affairs indicates.
Now reconsider this in the context of Iraq and counter-insurgency.
