Having a Heart

Via AMERICAblog, I found this story about three Duke University students who drove down to New Orleans last week to help and managed to evacuate seven people who weren’t receiving help from authorities.

The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.

"We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai," said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla.

Guess it wasn’t really as hard to get down there and help out as some spinmeisters would have us believe, huh?

Also, in case you hadn’t heard, Al Gore was involved helping people, too. Perhaps the reason you didn’t hear about it was because he wasn’t granting interviews. I imagine it was because he realized you can’t be helping people and talking about how much you’re doing to help people at the same time.

And this morning, I saw news footage of Bill Clinton and Daddy Bush meeting with evacuees who had been relocated to the Astrodome; a newscaster was speaking over it, so it was soundless images, but here’s what I saw: Daddy Bush and Babs were surrounded by kids, who they were hugging and kissing on the tops of their heads; Bill Clinton was surrounded by adults in a circle, and one of the women was speaking to him. He was listening intently to what she was saying, his brow knitted, just letting her talk. He wasn’t nodding, or looking around, or anything—just focused intently right in on her as she talked to him, listening, hearing her.

I assume it’s pretty well established by now that I am no Clinton fan, for many reasons, but one thing about him that I will always defend is his genuine concern for and interest in people, which is simply impossible to fake. That man was hearing what that woman had to say, and I can only imagine how much it meant to have a former president actually give a shit about what she was going through as opposed to being used for a disingenuous photo op.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter is working with Habitat for Humanity (as he has for 20 some years) to put “Operation Home Delivery” into action as soon as conditions allow, in order to provide housing and assistance for victims of Katrina.

So what’s my point, and is it really as controversial as it seems to be? You’re goddamned right it is. Our former Democratic presidents (and one VP who would have been our president in a reasonable world) give a shit about helping people, and are willing to get their hands dirty to do it. Our former Republican president and current president give a shit about helping themselves to good publicity, and are willing to use devastated people to do it. Watching the leaders of their respective parties over the past few days, I’ve been absolutely shocked to see how glaring the disparities truly are, and I’m not about to pretend it’s any different.

In one party, cream rises to the top; in the other, shit floats to the surface.