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WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will launch a bipartisan coverup of what they described as an “immense, but probably unavoidable failure” of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the panel’s other top-ranking Republican, said they hope to shift as much blame as possible to lower-ranking officials and career federal employees—ideally at an obscure government agency that few Americans have ever heard of.
“In keeping with recent congressional practice, we will try to shield the president and the senior members of his administration from directly responsibility for this fiasco, although a few token resignations may be required this time around,” the pair said in a joint statement. “Our primary focus, however, will be on figuring out how to throw billions of dollars in additional funding to the very same agencies that failed so spectacularly this past week.”
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed his own support for a cover up, saying it would follow in the “proud footsteps” of Congress’s refusal to hold anyone accountable for the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks, the completely inadequate investigation into the Abu Ghraib torture abuses, and the Senate Intelligence Committtee’s whitewash of administration efforts to cook the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Speaker of the House Denny Hastert declined to comment on the hurricane or the proposed Senate investigation, other than to make a loud “BRRRRRRRR” sound while pushing a toy bulldozer across a map of New Orleans.
In other news, it’s harder and harder to tell the joke fake news from the real.
Wait, what's so funny? I read the article over and over again and I don't see what's so funny. Am I missing something? Is there some sort of ironic twist to this? I read it and read it and I don't see any ironic twist. It's all so...real.
"In other news, President Bush announced his plan to stop taxing the wealthy, altogether.
'Why should the people who've worked so hard to hang on to their trust funds be expected to bear the burden of the hurricane clean-up? That's just wrong, and we're not gonna do it. It's gonna be hard work,' Bush said, 'But that's what making the tough decisions is all about: hard work. I'm workin' hard to make this country safer for everyone worth more than a million dollars.'
Is this from theonion? This has to be. To be so obvious about it jeez. How vulgar.
Henry: The article Patrick quoted is satire, written by the inimitable Billmon. You can find the original article by clicking on the "bipartisan coverup" link.
If Billmon isn't in the "required reading" section of the blog syllabus, he should be (even sans comments).
The Washington Post had a headline (now not visible at their web site) something like:
"Thousands Wait for Relief, while White House Shifts Blame".
Kinda says it all, no?
Patrick,
You two have absolutely been on fire this week. Way to go.
You were making that up, right?
BBC, just now: US President George W Bush says he will lead an investigation into how the Hurricane Katrina disaster was handled.
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