Leiberman Katrina and Fort Hood

Leiberman is doing his best to stir up anti Arab sentiment in the wake of the tragic Fort Hood Shooting. The incident where the shooter happened to be a Muslim and much to the deep joy of the Right Wing Nut Jobs and I suspect, Senator Leiberman, he had a really Arab sounding name.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will seek to move forward on an investigation surrounding the mass shooting Thursday at Fort Hood Army base in Texas, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the comittee’s chairman, said today.

WaPo Capitol Briefing

Lieberman mentioned that the shooter had “turned to Islamist extremism” on Fox News (his spiritual home). Strange how he and his fellow xenophobes see fit to focus on that when they have never zeroed in on the fact that many mass killers profess to be Christian. A well worn argument I know but one that needs constant repetition.

Interesting graf in the WaPo piece:

“Therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.” (Leiberman)

Something else happened on American soil that killed a lot more than 13 people, and was, an act of terrorism, albeit a less traditional form of terrorism. That something was hurricane Katrina and the death toll was At least 1,836

It was terrorism because the US government could have done much to relieve the suffering and reduce the death toll. They could have had the military in New Orleans in force rescuing and distributing but they didn’t. Nothing happened, Americans were left in desperate need of help and the federal government spent more time looking for a scapegoat and attempting to manage the press than it did trying to save lives.

So, the Democrats came to power and set out to investigate exactly where culpability for the handling of the aftermath of Katrina went so horribly wrong? Umm… not exactly:

WASHINGTON — Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman blasted the Bush administration last spring for failing to cooperate in the Senate’s investigation of Hurricane Katrina. But now that he is in a key position to press the investigation, he is refusing to do so.

Spokeswoman Leslie Philips said Friday that Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, wouldn’t issue subpoenas to the White House as he called for less than a year ago.

“The senator believes a more productive use of his time and that of his staff is to make sure legislative fixes are implemented and ensure that a response to a future catastrophe is better,” Philips said. “The senator feels the American public has already concluded that the White House response was sorely lacking. Rather than take on the White House and open an old fight, he believes he can be more productive by moving forward.”

Nola.comOnly the first part of this article is available, the rest is archived.

So to sum up:
Under Bush Leiberman called for a thorough investigation into the response to Katrina. Further down the line, when he actually had the power,he quashed any investigation. Now he wants a full blown Senate investigation to an incident, albeit a tragic one that involved a solitary, mentally unhinged gunman. Joe Leiberman values the PR gain of this one incident above the roughly 2,000 lives lost in New Orleans. Joe Leiberman is either an immoral, opportunistic lowlife or can function with a level of cognitive dissonance that would send most of us screaming to the asylum.