Condi Rice Goes Shoe Shopping While New Orleans Floods

simulacra said:
Listen, I was born in New Orleans.
I have family in New Orleans
I have family members that are unaccounted for.
I have family members that are crowded in my parents house in Texas.

I hope everything turns out okay in this regard, Simulacra.

As for Condi shopping for shoes, I think Dubya knew this might be a risk when he accepted a female Sec. of State. If he'd hired a man, that guy might have been caught at the hardware store, shopping for tools. Shoes, tools, what's the diff? Ha ha.

Seriously tho', she's uninspiring simply because of her zealot-like support of this president. The fact that the members of his administration were not in place to deal with the aftereffects of Katrina doesn't surprise anyone except perhaps a few free-thinking repubs who are now waking up. I'm no more surprised at this than I was to see Bush's own weak response.

If you are a man who has power, your followers will rarely surpass your own concern for a particular issue. If you work in the king's court, you survive a lot longer by becoming "not much smarter than the king", if you catch my drift. In the end, Condi shopped for shoes because she has clawed her way to the top of the power pyramid and knows she CAN shop for shoes at any time she likes. They all know they can't be touched by the herd of Americans, IMO.

Originally posted by whaaa

Originally posted by Rikimaru
So now the buying habbits of the administration is being critisized? come on, lets have some legitimate critisizms and not this childish stuff.

It's not about the buying habits of the administration; it's about the callous, unconcern for the citizens of this country that were in peril.

Is this a legitimate critisizm? I'm one republican that thinks so!!

Big deal she used her time off to go out and buy some shoes and take in a show. She was not spending the taxpayers dollars they were her own to spend and it is none of our business what she does in her off time. I would tend to think many senators and congressmen did the very same with their wives and husbands. By that I mean do some shopping having dinner out and taking in a show all on their own money. Why weren't they down there? Oh wait they had an emergency session to allocate funds to help in the rescue efforts.

Just my two cents and I am a Republican and it does not bother me in the least, you see I know she already had made plans to visit the area so there is no need to try and pick up some garbage news story on her daily private life.

Last I checked, Condi Rice isn't an ordinary citizen. She is the Secretary of State. The power that she weilds in her ten fingers can cause nations to crumble, media to scramble, but more importantly, people to organize.

Instead she used those powerful ten fingers to weild a charge card and see a play.

Being Secretary of State isn't a 9 to 5 job. It's not like she leaves her work at the office or gets to have uninterupted vacations. I think the term "public servant" is self explanatory. In the face of this horrible disaster where people are still dying, as one of the most powerful people in the country, how could she NOT be working on this 24/7 until the last person is saved?

I think that speaks volumes about how she feels about Americans. If you remember correctly, Condi also said that the tsunami disaster created "a wonderful opportunity" for Americans to show compassion and reaped "great benefits" on the diplomatic front.

Obviously, Ms. Rice is all about a show of compassion and has a lot to learn about actually being compassionate.

The Problem With Mud

Originally posted by nikelbee
Please do not think I intentionally misread your point. It is a little hard to see it. Try unmasking next time. Armed in sarcasm just makes this into an insult fest and I don't really want to have to pull the thesaurus out again. Besides it would be much better if we actually discussed whether or not it was right for her to go shopping for shoes at a time of national crisis. Not whether you think I’m ----- insert word here.

You're right, and I'm sorry.

The problem with getting into a mud fight is that everyone gets covered in mud.

I could have made my point differently, but I didn't, and that was my mistake.

We're all upset by all this, and we all react to it in our own ways. I know quite well how ironic it is to point a finger at someone pointing fingers.

I knew it when I first replied to this thread. My sarcasm was directed at the idea of someone sitting at a computer somewhere claiming the high moral ground versus someone else who is simply trying to live her life without some self-appointed political pundit or another mendaciously applying their own false interpretation to something that frankly isn't their damn business.

The problem with the mud being slung here is that it covers everyone who passes it along, from the woman who indignantly confronted Ms. Rice in the shoe store -- the exact same store that same self-righteous woman had no problem shopping in while the Gulf Coast suffers, by the way -- to the gossip columnist passing it along, to the other gossipers, precisely none of whom are helping anyone by feeding this meme to the public.

What do I see in all this? A self-appointed panel of experts who sit in judgment of how other people should live their lives.

What are they offering in a time of need? Sanctimony. Vanity. False piety. Self-congratulation. Hypocrisy. And nothing, nothing that helps anyone anywhere, let alone the Gulf Coast.

Now here I am, covered with the same mud. And it's not clean mud-bath mud, but mud that is as fetid and noxious as the mud which has bubbled out of the sewers of New Orleans.

Am I wrong to consider the slinging of this mud not only inappropriate, but disgraceful? Am I wrong to think that we the public should focus on the jobs our public officials do, rather than demand that they deliberately deceive us and put on some sort of cynical puppet show for the cameras?

If that's wrong, I'm going to stay wrong, because there's no way in hell I can see what's going on here as right. What's being called for is dishonesty and the implication is that once a person is elected or appointed to public office, he or she forfeits the right to do anything in public without some self-serving jackass or another making political hay out of it.

Screw that. I refuse to accept that, because it is wrong, and I will not support it in any form.

Witness John Kerry's pathetic pandering to the cameras during his campaign, the staged photo ops, the banal, soulless lip service, the endless signs that he couldn't be trusted. Bush did the same thing, so don't get me wrong, but when I voted, it was with the uneasy assurance that between these two snake oil salesmen, he wasn't as good at lying to me as Kerry tried to be.

Why would I possibly want to encourage politicians to be even more dishonest than they already are? How will that improve the dismal state of American politics?

What has anyone involved with this ridiculous and disgraceful episode of rumormongering contributed to the betterment of the world?

Not a damn thing. Just more evil in a time of evil.

We all deal with tragedy our own way, and I am helping my fellow Americans in my own way. Anyone who has a problem with that can go piss off, because I'm not in the mood for it.

If I gave the impression I think I'm above all this, or think I'm better than anyone else indulging in this sort of shameful behavior, that's incorrect. I'm not. But I've tried to get out of the habit, because I used to do it all the time.

Eventually, I grew out of it, but I can still slide back down into it again, just as I did here. Mud this deep is soft and yielding and easy to sink into, but hard to get out of as it sucks you in deeper with each step you take.

And that's what threads like this do. They don't do anything good, just add bad to what is already bad.

Knowing this as I do, I've said what I have to say.

Now if you'll please excuse me, I need to go wash my clothes and take a long shower.

Originally posted by RANT
Drudge broke this first, so it's hardly a politically motivated hack job.

It's simply shocking. Not that she went shopping, or took in plays or played tennis or made an appearance at an internet convention, but that she (or anyone on ATS frankly) would be shocked people are shocked by Imelda Marcos here being covered on the very Internet she was in NYC to showboat for.

She's not buying soup here people. $7 grand boots is a poorly planned photo op. Don't be obtuse. She's supposed to be strategic minded and represent this country to the world, but can't figure out how to represent herself to us? This isn't right. It's poor judgement.

And the defense of her by some like she's just regular people here doing her daily chores is freaking nuts. I was certainly both ashamed by and sympathetic to Bill Clinton's animal urges and poor judgement, but he didn't do it on camera on purpose!. :shk: Wow guys, come on.

[edit on 4-9-2005 by RANT]

Well said.

I think she bought these Hi Heel Boots 'coz she got scared that Georgie is going to send her to Downtown New Orleans so she needed some Shoes to battle this High Water.

Originally posted by Souljah
I think she bought these Hi Heel Boots 'coz she got scared that Georgie is going to send her to Downtown New Orleans so she needed some Shoes to battle this High Water.

Maybe there's something else afoot

www.abusedshoes.com...
www.wethighheels.com...

I remember Bush's inauguration. IMHO, it should of been a lot more low key. Troops he sent to Iraq (right or wrong) were living in miserable conditions, and he was having a grand gala. Don't get me wrong, he should of celebrated his victory, but he should of had a little more compassion, or a concern for the perception of no compassion. Some sense of propriety.

If Condi wanted to buy some thousand dollar boots, she should of known better, and just waited a couple of weeks. Or had an assistant buy them, something!

I just want my government officials to look like they are empathic to the sufferings of US citizens. Is that too much to ask?

I'm not getting the fuss here. She had some down time, everyone is entitled to that. Besides, I bet she had her cell with her if she was needed.

Originally posted by intrepid
I'm not getting the fuss here. She had some down time, everyone is entitled to that. Besides, I bet she had her cell with her if she was needed.

Hey intrepid according to others she is not entitled to any time off, some seem to think she is not human :shk:

Just why is beyond me:shk::shk: I agree, she had time off and can do any darn thing she wants and yes that includes buying shoes

Rumor has it while in the shoe store she slipped out the back door and ordered and brand new shiney hummer and we will get to see her showing it of in naw lins on Monday