Administration aides indicate that, according to Blanco, the decision to drop out became made firmly when the federal government informed her that the Road Home Program was in violation of regulations regarding fund disbursement. The program was set up so that government, which was Blanco’s preference because her ideology distrusts the ability of the common folk to conduct their own affairs, controlled grant disbursement. The rules, which have existed for a long time and were communicated to Blanco months ago, state at the least that recipients must have the option to get funds immediately or else the nature of the program was such that additional qualification would have to be met.
This apparently was added to a litany of other perceived slights Blanco thinks she gets from the federal government, which include a belief that Mississippi got more hurricane disaster recovery money than it should have relative to Louisiana and health care redesign that promoted taking money away from state institutions and instead giving it to the uninsured. One also could add the federal government only partially removing the state matching requirement for some recovery funds the entire amount of which almost always in the past for other states regarding other disasters has been removed. The motive, according to her, was partisanship by the Republican administration.
Naturally, this worldview betrays an inability to see things as they are and to understand the political world:
None of this has anything to do with partisanship, except in the sense that Republicans and Democrats differ fundamentally ideologically. And the richest irony of all is that while Blanco blames the GOP for playing politics, she never has done anything but in her term. For example, records show that as soon as the extent of Hurricane Katrina’s effects became evident, she immediately began to formulate a political response to avoid (unsuccessfully) for being blamed for suboptimal actions she took that made the situation worse. Or, witness her refusal to create pay raises for educators in last December’s special session when Republicans offered to do so if she would cut other spending, and then she blamed the GOP for this.
Since taking office, Blanco always has displayed an incredible myopia regarding political conflict. She never has understood that she has the wrong ideology to move Louisiana forward, a liberalism that puts more faith in government than in the people, and a populism that had her focusing first on the good of her allies and special interests, and then only on the rest of the state. It is an ideology thinking people oppose on the basis of principle. Unable to grasp this, she therefore imputes all opposition to her (because she, by her definition, possesses a special wisdom that the great unwashed masses lack) as a product of venial political motives.
While Edwin Edwards may have acted out the Crucifixion in jest, Blanco by her own words would have us believe her political career has died for the sins of a Republican Party out to get her just because she was a Democrat. It’s why, clueless to the end, she seems honestly to believe a simple change of partisan label would have spared her all the criticism she has received for acting on an ideology wrong for Louisiana. Somebody needs to do her a favor and where she cannot help but see it slap a note paraphrasing a Louisianan’s advice to a presidential candidate, altered to fit Blanco’s own paranoiac view: “It’s the ideology, stupid.”
1 comment:
Gee, Jeff,
Don't be shy. It's OK to speak your mind. Seriously, though, I just discovered your blog. I'll be back. Re: Blanco (or as I prefer to call her Blank - o), someone would have to sit her down and explain to her what the word ideology means. I don't volunteer.
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