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JANUARY 14, 2006
- Most other media outlets do their "year-in-review" somehow before
the year is even over. We at M/I like to think before we speak
and let an actual event occur before we pretend we can report about
it.
With the year now over and some time to
reflect, we now present our version of The Best and Worst of 2005, a
little at a time. Here is Part I, the Best and Worst public
servants of the year.
HERO OF THE YEAR
He is the only man who has managed, in
more than five years, to get George W. Bush "off his ass" to
actually do something useful. His name is Ray Nagin, and he is
the enormously heroic Mayor of New Orleans.
Of course, with the Bush/Limbaugh right
in control of the non-Moderate Independent media, you didn't hear
any reports referring to Mayor Nagin of New Orleans as the hero he
was. In fact, you mainly heard smears that were spread to try
and cover the incompetent, asleep-at-the-wheel Bush from being
pinned with deserved blame for yet thousands more American deaths
resulting from his uselessness.
If Mayor Nagin had been a lesser man,
thousands and thousands more would have died.
But Nagin had the courage to go on the
radio and to the presses and to anyone who would listen - and there
were not many at first - and shout and scream and cry in no
uncertain terms in the only type of language that would get
through, that "someone needs to get off their asses."
Criticize his lack of composure as you may, he came apart because he
had to. He said knowingly during one radio interview, "I know
I'm going to get in trouble for saying this." But he only
cared about the people who were trapped in their attics in water up
to their necks, about the thousands displaced with no supplies,
about his city in ruins and a President busy at fundraisers and a FEMA chief utterly unqualified and more concerned about people's
opinion of the clothes he was wearing than the fate of the human
beings suffering the horrible disaster.
Ray Nagin, you are a friggin' hero, and
The Moderate Independent salutes you and your massive bravery, and
your ability to do the one thing no one else has been able to do:
to get George W. Bush off his ass and in gear and doing something
useful, if only for a few days. If you had been there on 9/11,
as the President sat for all those minutes reading storybooks to
children while the planes flew toward their targets, and told him in
your special way that, "someone needs to get off their asses,"
thousands more American lives would have been saved.
American needs more Ray Nagins.
And America needs to acknowledge the mayor's great heroism not just
in the face of one of the worst disasters in American history, but
in the face of the most malicious and incompetent federal
administration in American history.
BIGGEST FALL FROM GRACE
If John McCain really put stopping
things like torture before his political party allegiance, he could
have stopped torture in its tracks. He knew the Bush
administration stood in defense of torture before the 2004
elections. He could have stood behind John Kerry, who opposed
the use of torture and would have ended it immediately. And if
he did so, he likely could have moved enough moderate Republicans
and Independents to do the same that Bush would not have been given
another term.
Instead, John McCain said repeatedly he
preferred the policies of George W. Bush, that he approved of how he
was handling the War On Terror and Iraq, and he endorsed and
campaigned for Bush/Cheney's reelection.
In doing so, he campaigned for the
continuation of torture, for the reelection of those who had condoned
the practice and wanted to continue it.
To subsequently go to the Senate floor
and claim he cares about torture, to put legislation before a
President who so supports torture he threatens a veto of the bill
banning it, to play out the sham of pretending he thinks the
Bush/Cheney admin won't just find a way around any ban, is obvious
bull. McCain had a chance to end torture instantly. He
chose to stick to party over human rights. He backed Bush and
his policies instead of Kerry.
And all this after McCain was
swift-boated out of presidential contention by the Bush/Cheney
smear-and-lie machine in 2000 and while watching Bush/Cheney
swift-boat his friend and fellow veteran John Kerry..
Senator McCain, your mantle as an
independent maverick who puts what is important above party loyalty
took a huge hit in the past year. While once you were a
Moderate Independent favorite, you are now this year's biggest fall
from grace.
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