These Little Town Blues

So Mr. Chertoff and his Homeland Security goons want to cut funding for anti-terrorism efforts in New York. The nerve. Five years ago, we lost more Americans here than have been killed in the Iraq war - to date, sadly. Reports ABC News's The Blotter:

The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History. The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets.

No landmarks? Well, that's easily answered: the list above will do - though it doesn't include Pete's Tavern, the Algonquin, the Oyster Bar, Fraunces Tavern, the Olde Town, or McSorley's.

But icons? Did they not notice Ms. Katie Couric and her courageous farewell to the peacock? Isn't Dave an icon, and Conan, and Jon? We've got icons by the dozen: geez, you trip over them on Fifth Avenue some days. Look, there's Woody, and Belafonte, and DeNiro. There goes rhymin' Simon. Cuomos, Kennedys, Careys, Clintons and Koch. Jeter, Namath, Willis, Mex, Whitey and Yogi.

Icons?! We got your stinkin' icons, Mr. Thin Man Wannabe G-Man (speaking of New York icons). I saw John Updike on line for the bank last week. Lou Reed was reading the Post on the 4 Train not long ago. He nodded at me. Gore Vidal poured himself from a cab on Seventh Avenue.

Keep this up and we're gonna go all Eddie Hayes on your scrawny Let New Orleans Drown Homeland Security neck, pallie. Sean Combs may be knockin'. Imus is listening. Trump is getting jiggy. Or maybe Tom Verlaine.

Helloooo Homeland pup - this is the homeland. Seinfeld? Little clan known as The Rockefellers? James Freaking Gandolfini? Marv??!!

Yeah, go buy s'more Segways for downtown Omaha, chump. You're an icon of failure, a monument to political disgrace and historic ignominy.

 

UPDATE: Homeland Security claims New York screwed up the paperwork and that NYPD drills are stupid. Hmm. So we're incompetent. Hmm. Bush-Cheney-Chertoff vs. Bloomberg (whom I didn't even support, truth be told). A battle of competency. Of managers. Let's see. Yes. Whom would you choose? [insert hummed Jeopardy music here]. Such a tough choice. I wonder....

Technorati tags: homeland security | Chertoff

Comments

[Kevin Wolf]

Maybe when the crew at Homeland Security got the paperwork they didn't realize it was for that New York. So they had no way of knowing if all those landmarks actually belonged on the list.

[brendog]

Tom W is right. Chertoff is yet another bumbling, craven, avaricious, incompetent crony, and DHS is yet another republicrat boondoggle - a way to take money from your pocket and put it into theirs.
DHS has also served to act as the imposition arm of a government heading south toward totalitarianism, quietly chipping away at fundamental rights and liberties.
DHS has done practically nothing to prevent terrorism in NYC, or to secure the US in general. The top award goes to the NYPD, and local and state PDs all over America. DHS has failed to (in order of importance):
1) secure our ports,
2) protect our chemical industry (a massive unprotected chlorine plant sits just over the river by the Meadowlands. Prevailing winds would push a megadeath cloud of chlorine gas right over manhattan)
3) our Nuclear power plants
4) our petroleum/energy/electrical infrastructure
5) our food supply
6) our water supply
7) our *cargo* air traffic (yes they swab this blonde hair blue eyed man's shoes, but don't know what's inside that big black box on the FedEx plane).

So yeah Chertoff, buy more Segways for Omaha, search more 80 year old grannies on Greyhounds, then tell 'em Jesus suggested it at Ashcroft's last prayer breakfast, when Pat Robertson channeled him for you.

[Slappy]

The smack down the people of this country are going to give these fools will be the like we rarely see in American politics. And that wont even be close to the best part: Watching the Republicans tear each other to pieces fighting over the scraps and laying blame for their demise. Send them all to hell.

[Tom K]

I had a good impression of Chertoff when he took the job. Based on his background, I'm inclined to believe he knows what he's doing. Based on what I can see of his performance, it's awfully hard to sustain that belief.

Truth is, there's no way to handicap where a strike might come. If you try to, New York would have to be on any short list, but it's not like a dirty bomb in, say, Birmingham would be a minor event.

Brendan's post is right on. Let's stop wondering whether it'll be the Space Needle or the Largest Ball of Twine in Minnesota they go after, and make sure that: (i) the major points of exposure -- not structures, but risks -- are covered; and (ii) just as important, there's a rapid action plan to get help to people quickly and efficiently, and maintain some measure of public order, once something happens.

Even before Katrina, it was pretty obvious that (ii) wasn't in place. I went out after that blackout a coupla years ago, and walked about 30 blocks through mid-town (to find a working ATM) without seeing a policeman! I wanted to ask which direction to walk in to find an area with power, and was lucky, after 20 blocks, to find a ConEd guy to point me to Times Square.

As to (i), well, things seem even worse. Some politician could make an effective issue out of this, if they could convey the impression that they could actually do better. Seems to me, Rudy is in the best position to exploit this, to look at in in purely political terms for a moment. Get people focused on his competence, and they may not notice his personality or his liberal social positions, and may view his dictatorial tendencies as a positive. (Which will carry a whole other set of risks, of course.)

Rudy in '08: a Putin for America!

[Tom W.]

TK - exceedingly galling: the explicit put-down of the NYPD's prep tactics by these clowns....I mean, gimme a break!

[Slappy]

How about not invading other countries on false pretenses? How about not demonizing other religions? How about not tellin gthe world that your god wanted you to do this? How about not feeding the world with weapons and military training? How about not saying things like "Bring it on!"

We created Osama. We trained him to fight our previously made up enemies.

You can't stop terrorism. Impossible. Especially if someone is willing to die. But you can be a decent citizen of the world and not provoke such hatred. With our countries wealth, we could help fight disease and poverty worldwide and Osama would have a much hadrer time recruiting. Harder time than the US Army is having now in trying convince our poor to fight.

[Lisa]

I can tell you what's in Omaha: The huge processing facility for First Data Corporation, one of the world's largest processors of credit card transactions (6.5 billion in revenue and global in reach). Two days after 9/11, FirstData offered up its data and the Bush administration relied heavily upon it. In his new book "The One Percent Solution", Ron Suskind writes, "The massive data sweeps
[at FirstData]...implicated the privacy of tens of thousands of Americans..."
One of the first infringements upon our civil liberties and privacy rights by our current totalitarian regime began in Omaha - now there's a "landmark" worth protecting by the secrecy-fueled Bush hegemony.