In Pursuit of Priorities

Via This Modern World, Chris Floyd's close study of the exact text of the President's declaration of emergency summarizes why the whole "us Feds were just waiting to be asked" story is bullshit.

This is a president who has acted time and again to stretch the limits of presidential power beyond the bounds of the Constitution into the area of outright tyranny. He has declared that he has the right to imprison anyone, indefinitely, on his own authority, if he decides, arbitrarily, that they are an "enemy combatant" or "terrorist." He's given himself the power to order "extrajudicial killings," anywhere in the world, of anyone he deems -- again, arbitrarily -- a "terrorist." He has launched a war of aggression against another nation in flagrant breach of the United Nations charter. His legal minions have declared that he is "above the law" when it comes to ordering torture in the worldwide gulag of prisons he has set up for the captives of his "war on terror."

This is a president who obviously feels no restraints whatsoever on his executive power in pursuit of his priorities. But when it came to the destruction of New Orleans and the surrounding areas, when it came to the fate of the thousands of victims who were abandoned to flood, fear, chaos and needless death for days on end, we are now supposed to believe that Bush was a helpless giant, his hands tied by red tape, that he could do nothing, that someone else -- anyone else -- was responsible for the sickening, shameful incompetence displayed in the response to the storm. We are supposed to believe that a president who could go to war against the will of the entire world could not impose his authority on government agencies in his own country.

Bob Harris has more, graphically illustrating a typo that was either very unfortunate or very evil...