The Indians were right. They believed photos captured the soul. How else to explain the soulful picture above: President Bush, making a speech from a beribboned balcony, appears to be wearing a big ole patriotic skirt. Something you’d expect to see on Miss America during a Miss Universe pageant. The only thing missing is the Statue of Liberty torch.
That’s just how ridiculous W. now seems to people when he pretends to be a strong, competent president. The Republicans — as if we didn’t know this already — are all smoke and mirrors, all showbiz.
Yes, lots of mirrors.
And mirror gazing.
“I got it at Nordstrom,” exclaimed Michael “Brownie” Brown in a response email sent to a FEMA staff member. Said staffer had caught the FEMA director on television — during the height of the Katrina disaster — and thought Brownie’s on-air outfit looked “fabulous.”
In her recent op-ed, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd shared more gems from the new cache of Brownie e-mail released by the Congressional panel investigating the mindnumbingly horrid Katrina non-response.
In another e-mail to staffers, Brownie mocked: “If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god.”
Day four of the New Orleans nightmare, Brownie was getting e-mail advice from his press secretary: “You just need to look more hardworking,” Sharon Worthy advised the FEMA fashion plate. “ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!”
You can imagine her closing this with: “You big silly girl!”
Several days into the worst natural disaster in America, the President was having his own pressing image issues. Dowd writes that Bush seemed, “empathetic to Brownie’s concerns about looking good. Obsessed with losing the seven pounds he’d gained around his waist, W. was so focused on getting back his hourglass figure that his staff had to compile an emergency DVD of Katrina news stories before he could be dragged away from biking.”
Gosh, this is crazy-making. In the old days (last year), Republicans knocked themselves out trying to look strong and dependable. Not like us liberals, who they never tired of describing as “narcissistic,” “self-centered” and — gasp — METEROSEXUAL.
Well, look who’s the Girly Man now?
