Swine Flu: Obama’s Katrina?
There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times concerning availability and distribution of the swine flu vaccine.
The most interesting part of the article was Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius’ comments. When asked about the confusion concerning the swine flu vaccine, Secretary Sebelius responded thus:
“I’ve heard a lot about how much confusion there is about how to get the vaccine,” Ms. Sebelius said Friday.
“We’ll never, from the mother ship, give one national picture,” she added. “It’s going to be many, many local decisions. What we do need to know is — if that information isn’t getting across, then maybe we can do something about it.”
Secretary Sebelius’ words strike ‘Puter as remarkably similar to President Bush (43)’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. That is, it is the job of the federal government to assist the states when asked, not to do the job of the states for them, whether hurricane preparedness or public health programs. This strikes ‘Puter as correct in concept, though woefully shortsighted in public relations.
As President Bush found out, one can be correct, and still end up getting pilloried for one’s troubles. ‘Puter expects a similar backlash against the Obama Administration in the increasingly likely event that the swine flu vaccine program is poorly administered, and children and pregnant women start dying.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.