From “Editor and Publisher magazine”:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719:
bq. In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.” Then she added: “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
Jaysus. The very rich are different from you and me.
(via “Atrios”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_09_04_atrios_archive.html#112596381619694000).
Update: It’s even worse. “Michael Froomkin”:http://www.discourse.net/archives/2005/09/the_modern_let_them_eat_cake_moment.html has a link to an “NPR segment”:http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/marketplace/2005/09/05_mpp?start=00:00:01:00.0&end=00:00:04:36.0 recording her comments. She actually said, “What I’m hearing _which is sort of scary_ is that they want to stay”
{ 19 comments }
Steve LaBonne 09.05.05 at 8:37 pm
S’ils n’ont pas de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche.
Profbacon 09.05.05 at 8:38 pm
Yes, they have more money.
Mary Catherine Moran 09.05.05 at 9:22 pm
This attitude toward poverty and the poor is nothing short of Dickensian. But alas, where is our Dickens?
RedWolf 09.05.05 at 9:23 pm
They are Sunnis and we are Shiites and President Saddam doesn’t care about Shiites in New Orleans.
Stephen M (Ethesis) 09.05.05 at 9:40 pm
Well …
“They were soon to be Texas-bound. “And I don’t even like Texas,” she said.”
P O'Neill 09.05.05 at 9:42 pm
Many on the Right came to view 9/11 as beneficial, an Epiphany, because it was necessary to awaken Americans to the evils of terrorism. Babs seeing New Orleans under water as beneficial for its people is in the same mind set. It’s both a rationalisation of failure and a willingness to make a judgement about the relative value of different lives (once they’re outside the womb, of course).
Claire Bowern 09.05.05 at 9:46 pm
Houston. It’s worth it.
Toadmonster 09.05.05 at 9:53 pm
Let them eat butt.
Sven 09.05.05 at 10:35 pm
How can the announcer continue on in NPR-speak after her Mrs. Drysdale sniff, like nothing happened? Can’t he at least slip in a Grouchoism, like “Why, I’d horse-whip you if I had a horse.”
MaryCh 09.06.05 at 12:08 am
Thanks for sharing the workings of a beautiful mind.
Her string of pearls is a long one, dating at least from her take on VP Candidate Geraldine Ferraro, running against George H.W. Bush in 1984: ‘rhymes with witch.’
Keith M Ellis 09.06.05 at 12:15 am
Reminiscent of the WSJ’s Lucky Duckies.
nick 09.06.05 at 4:23 am
“That is a woman who knows how to hate.”
–Richard Nixon on Barbara Bush
Doug 09.06.05 at 9:13 am
And Tricky Dick knew a thing or two about the subject.
jet 09.06.05 at 9:55 am
Last I heard there were over 200,000 refugees in Texas. The governor of Texas said that his state could absorb about 100,000. So if she was saying it was “sort of scary” that 200,000 people wanted to stay there, perhaps it has something to do with Texas not being able to take care of them and not the evile motivations Henry attributes?
But who’m I kidding. You are all vastly smarter than I and possess ESPN and can read the fist lady’s mind. So I guess there’s no fooling you, she’s a big racist and was scared all those New Orleans people would stay in her WASP state (which is one of the few states where whites are a minority).
Matt Weiner 09.06.05 at 11:23 am
Jet, one thing we know is that no one named Barbara is currently the first lady. You’re really making a quite nasty accusation against the president, when you think about it.
OK, OK, cheap shot. And I’d be happy to nominate Mother Barb for the title “fist lady,” whatever that means. Cheap shot again! Sorry, nitpicking is one of my main pleasures.
Seriously, the “underprivileged anyway, so this—this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them†quote is extraordinarily callous and I think justifies an uncharitable interpretation of the rest of it.
jet 09.06.05 at 1:11 pm
Okay, fair enough.
Matt Weiner 09.06.05 at 1:31 pm
Jet, the reason you’re my favorite CT conservative is that you know when to admit I’m right. ;-)
Firebug 09.06.05 at 8:17 pm
You know, I always considered the idea of wiping out an entire royal house to be needless barbarity. When Lenin had all of the Romanovs – even the children – executed, I thought it was merely a symbol of the Soviet regime’s lack of contempt for human life.
Now, for the first time in my life, I am beginning to have some understanding of the forces that make people want to commit regicide.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place without the Bush clan?
Firebug 09.06.05 at 8:24 pm
It shouldn’t be necessary, but it probably is: I am not seriously arguing for regicide in the U.S. I’m saying that I now have a greater understanding as to why the French and Russian revolutionaries did what they did – that it was not merely mindless barbarity, but the culmination of a long process of evil and incompetence emanating from the ruling family. I would just as soon not see the guillotines wheeled out here, and if things start to get that bad, I’m going to Canada.
I would settle for a Constitutional amendment saying that no one from the Bush family can ever again hold any office or public trust, as they have shown themselves utterly incapable of discharging such offices.
BTW, if someone thinks that my statements are too much, then they better have attacked John Derbyshire when he urged the murder of Chelsea Clinton or they are fucking hypocrites.
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