Two links worth checking out

Salon has been at the top of its game, as have so many bloggers, during the current catastrophe.

Would that clever words could fix things.

Nevertheless, I recommend two of the many insightful things currently posted on Salon. I know access is a pain for those without memberships.

The first catalogues the Bush Administration's use of the phrase, "Now's not the time for politics." If you think you've heard it before, you have. A sampling:

The president and his press secretary have suggested over the last few days that anyone who questions the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina is engaged in the "blame game," and that "now is not a time for politics." We thought that sounded just a little familiar when we heard it, and now we know why. In the presidency of George W. Bush, it turns out, it's pretty much never a "time for politics."

"Now is not the time for politics," the president declared on Feb. 14, 2001, just two months after the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore and put him in the White House. Later that same month, the president said, "There's a time for politics, and that ended a while ago." On March 22, 2001, the president explained: "See, there's a time for politics, and there's a time for policy. And the way I view it is, once you get sworn in, that the politics is over."

In the aftermath of 9/11, the president said, "Now is not the time for politics." When the president was pushing one round of his tax cuts in December 2001, he declared: "Now is not the time for partisan politics."

There's plenty more where that came from.

Link #2 is video, a public service for those who have heard about but haven't seen the tv journalist meltdowns and moments when reporters have grown a pair before our very eyes. In one segment, maybe not the most flashy but to me the most poignant, Ted Koppel points out a simple truth to Brownie:

Brown: We’re going to make absolutely certain that the devastation that has been wreaked upon these people is taken care of and we’re going to get their lives back in order.

Koppel: Mr. Brown, some of these people are dead. They’re beyond your help.