George W. Bush Helps the Medical Profession

Shakespeare's Sister is shrill:

Shakespeare's Sister: No Chemo for You: Oh the blessed irony. Last Tuesday, the 30th--you know, the day all the papers looked like this--President Bush was in San Diego at the Naval Medical Center, with the intention of the visit to thank medics who aided tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. Well, not only was he busily ignoring the needs of the people in New Orleans; his little photo op in San Diego was also preventing patients there from receiving the medical care they need.

The Naval Medical Center in San Diego's Balboa Park was shut down to accommodate a visit by President George W. Bush Aug. 30, RAW STORY has learned, forcing patients to cancel chemotherapy treatments and hundreds of scheduled patient visits....

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.

Comments

[bad news]

Someone tell Lance Armstrong, who has spent $500,000 of LAF money to transport patients for Chemotherapy. Missing treatments can be fatal.

[Big Al]

did he wear his pearlhandled revolvers?

[dragan]

Wasn't Lance last seen in public as W's domestique?

[RT]

I wonder what the folks who made a big deal about Clinton's haircut delaying plane flights feel about this. Plane delays, chemo delays...which seems like a bigger deal to you?

[ogmb]

I thought it was ony one Impeach-Bush post per day?

[trotsky]

Why don't we just dismantle the Secret Service, which has created such an elaborate security cordon around the president that the world all but shuts down when he arrives in town? It's a wonder they let him leave the White House.

Puh-lease, hard to blame Bush for this one.

[me2i81]

It's an administration tradition--Colin Powell shut down the airstrip in Banda Aceh for a day during his tsunami tour.

[monkyboy]

This story is even more ironic when you consider that in the event of a nuclear terrorist strike, emergency bone marrow transplants will be needed within 48 hours to save the worst hit survivors...

[mjrmjr]

The haircut was worthy of impeachment...

But if the president is a Man of God, well, he does no wrong.

I'll throw in a plug for an mp3 about Bush/Katrina that I just found. It's a remix of Kanye West's 'Gold Digger' and it's f'in brilliant!

http://www.fwmj.com/plex/media/thelegendaryko/George%20Bush%20Doesnt%20Care%20About%20Black%20People.mp3

[sm]

For those long urls, consider using TinyURL at tinyurl.com

[pi]

My commuter train into work stopped and sat on the tracks for nearly an hour one day. (Thus tripling the length of my commute.) The reason? GWB's helicopter was flying into the city and had to cross the tracks. They didn't want there to be any chance of a train being on the tracks when he flew over. As if there were likely to be people on the train with bazookas ready to shoot him down.

[mds]

"Why don't we just dismantle the Secret Service, which has created such an elaborate security cordon around the president that the world all but shuts down when he arrives in town?"

Some of us with the ability to observe reality have noticed a dramatic increase in the elaborate security cordon for this president in particular. Last I checked, not even Ronald Reagan was nicknamed "Bubble Boy." (Note that this insularity started before 9/11, too, so that excuse doesn't hold water.)

"It's a wonder they let him leave the White House."

Well, he could take a page from Timothy Bottoms as George W. Bush, and say, "Try Commander-in-Chief. Whose present command is: Leave the chemo patients alone!"

"Puh-lease, hard to blame Bush for this one."

Wait, that's right, because the political photo-op at a medical center just scheduled itself. And those food shipments suspended themselves. And those helicopters diverted themselves into a television backdrop. And those firefighters...Well, anyway, it's all a kind of magic, apparently.

[azurite]

I've thought the nation as a whole should refuse to pay for Bush and Cheney's: (1) transportation costs--why should we pay for them to lie to us? (2) Secret Service--do I care if someone offs either of them? No and I'm tired of people who commit the 'crime' of disagreeing with them being treated like criminals or, at a minimum, not allowed within a mile of "the presence" as well as the cost. Both of them are wealthy, let them pay for themselves--let them take "personal responsibility" for their own protection/transport/health care. Set an example for all the rest of us in something besides greed, corruption and unethical behavior.

Impeachment is not enough. It is necessary to convict as well to actually get rid of them.

[theorajones]

As a minor point, I think Clinton's haircut on the airport tarmac holding up traffic THAT IT NEVER ACTUALLY DID HOLD UP was far, far, far worse than this.

http://tinyurl.com/7bclj

I mean, not delaying planes whie you get a haircut vs. actually preventing cancer patients from getting chemotherapy so you can get a photo op? Who can compare the two?

[Dave]

outsource bush's photo ops to Bollywood. He can stay there and pose. The rest of us can get on with the work at hand.....

[John Stuart Mills]

Just to clarify on peoples views, if the moral thing to do and the best thing for your country come into conflict which would you choose?

[a]

http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2005/09/please-tell-us-not-all-berkeley.html

"Yet, Professor DeLong deleted that information from his blog's comments section when a helpful reader offered it."

Impressive.

[Dave]

moral is a big word

[monkyboy]

If there wasn't a large percentage of the U.S. voting population that is swayed by this kind of posturing, Bush & Rove wouldn't do it...

[bad Jim]

God mocks us. With one hand He wipes out innumerable lives, with the other He witholds succor. God savors our impotent fury.

[rea]

"if the moral thing to do and the best thing for your country come into conflict which would you choose?"

Into which catagory do you think stopping timely chemotherapy for cancer patients in favor of a political photo op falls?

[tom f]

Put a green-screen studio in the White House, it could save lives and money.

Cheney was funnier than Jon Stewart yesterday. Replying to a journalists question in New Orleans as to whether cronies should hold senior positions at agencies such as FEMA, he replied that these agencies have always been run by a mix of civilian and professional staff and that it was important to acheive the proper balance.

I kid you not. That's the best dead-pan comedy I've heard in months...

A proper balance b/t cronies and devoted professionals.

LOL

[J Thomas]

I checked that "Let's fly under the bridge" blog. They referenced the Red Cross FAQ about Katrina. The last time I looked at that they listed ten reasons they didn't do any aid inside NOLA.

But now there are only 7 reasons on the list, the one about FEMA is gone. The ones that say the National Guard and the state Homeland Security Department didn't want them, are still there.

Louisiana has its own Homeland Security Department, apparently they changed the name of something else when the "homeland security" name got popular. The painted sign in front of the building has between three and five different names, depending on how you count, and "Louisiana Military Department Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness" is one of them.

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/agencyrelated/aboutagency.htm

It bothers me that the Red Cross has changed their FAQ to make it look like FEMA was not involved. Of course they have to get along with national governments in each nation they operate in. It's more important to save lives than to tell the truth. But still....

Remember just before we invaded Iraq, the big uproar about our news media failing to report Saddam's atrocities? Their excuse was that it let them have access.

And it occurs to me, if they'd do it for Saddam wouldn't they do it for Bush? Bush might or might not be better than Saddam, we won't know until we get honest reporting, but he's at least a born american citizen. If they'd censor themselves for Saddam, for "access", is there any plausible reason they wouldn't do it for Bush?

And the Red Cross too.

Anyway, this blog claims that Brad DeLong was lying about why the Red Cross stayed out of NOLA, and points to the new Red Cross FAQ as his evidence.

Is there any doubt left that 1984 is the operations manual?

[J Thomas]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
This newspaper says FEMA kept Red Cross out of NO.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.redcross/index.html
This one says

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1764551_comment.php#1766033
Somebody called the Red Cross and asked them. The woman on the line said Homeland Security ordered them not to go into NO because if they brought in food it would keep people there. He posted on 9/2/05.

9/5/05 date on a post quoting the current Red Cross Faq with 7 bullet points, none mentioning FEMA.

9/7/05 was the first claim on this thread of this blog that it was state DHS and nod federal DHS that kept Red Cross out.

[Leila]

I had chemotherapy this past year in San Francisco, at UCSF. In fact, my first day was the day after the presidential election. The chemo nurses were trying so hard to cover up how absolutely miserable they were about Kerry losing. One of them told me a few sessions later taht they were all just devastated.

George Bush wouldn't come to SF - he knows we all hate him - but I'll bet the staff at UCSF would take up arms before they'd halt chemo for a presidential visit.

That f****g moron. I'm shaking my head in disgust. Those people have no shame.

[volunteer]

J thomas is right. The Red Cross has changed its story several times about why it never went into NOLA. Specialized medical teams who go into hospitals and clinics were kept out too, even after doctors and nurses were asking in radio reports why the Red Cross never arrived to help them. I know contributers who called them in the early days of the disaster to find out why they weren't there. First is was part of a pre-arranged plan with FEMA and LA state emergency department, then it was the supposed great violence and danger, then all mention of FEMA dropped. There is surely some politics involved. I don't blame the Red Cross, they probably have to play along with the politics or these Sh*ts would start messing with them because they didn't kiss ass.