Wingnuttia Chimes In

I accidentally heard this morning that Glenn Beck, the right-wing yapping head who once threatened to kill Michael Moore, was carrying on because, according to him, 60 percent of the New Orleans police force didn’t show up for work today, and Bush should come down and federalize the national guard (those that are still there and not in Iraq, of course) and fire the police.

To start, I should say that I question anything I hear from the conservative echo chamber. I don’t know if this 60 percent number is legit, or if it came from Frank Luntz, the Media Research Center, or, to quote Al Franken, “Rush Limbaugh’s butt.”

Assuming it is, here’s something to consider: the police are outgunned by the roving mobs that filled the void when it took DAYS for relief and federal agencies to intervene. The police are supposed to report for work, sure, and they should be disciplined if they don’t, but doesn’t this cataclysm at least provide some mitigating factors? I guess, if Beck had the choice, he’d be too busy loading slugs into Mrs. O’Leary’s cow to drive carriages that would carry people to safety from the Chicago fire.

(note to anonymous commenters: don’t bother to inform me that the thing with Mrs. O’Leary’s cow is only a legend.)

Here’s another glorious electronic gem from Beck: “President Bush needs to go down there and have a ‘bullhorn moment.’”

Uh, Glenn, I have news for you: The time for a ‘bullhorn moment’ was about three days ago, or maybe even earlier.

Unfortunately, the rescue effort (which seems to be coalescing somewhat, thank God, at long last) requires a bit more than a ‘bullhorn moment.’ It requires massive coordination of state, federal, and private agencies the likes of which this country has never seen before. It takes private donations on an unprecedented scale also. It takes the recognition of the fact that thousands of people are dead and require ongoing medical assistance. It takes a continued, ongoing rescue effort and reclaiming/restoration of not just New Orleans but the entire region where Katrina hit that will take years and billions of dollars. And it will require much, much more than what I just mentioned for needs and circumstances that are unforeseen at this moment.

Leave it to you to trivialize this horror and turn it into some easily digestible “media moment” that you and many of your knuckle-dragging listeners can comprehend. I guess it’s easy to do that when it is impossible to show empathy and, instead, treat human suffering as merely an abstraction.