Last week, we all sat dumbfounded at the remarks of Pat Robertson when he called for the assassination of Venuzualen President Hugo Chavez. Robertson’s comments were inappropriate, insensitive, and bordered on barbarism.
Now, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has issued a similarly inappropriate, insensitive and barbaric statement about the Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour.
On his blog, RFK Jr. says that he believes that the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, that leveled gulf coast cities in Mississippi this week, can be blamed on Gov Barbour’s “derailing” of the Kyoto Protocol.
He says:
As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.
In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman’s strong statement affirming Bush’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.
Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that wouldbe friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administration’s attention.
He goes on to say:
Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and–now–Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.
In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.
I am appalled at this post! I don’t care how you feel about global warming, the Kyoto treaty, or environmentalism — this statement shows absolutely no respect for those in Mississippi who have been devestated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina. How are these people better served by blaming all of this destruction on global warming? On top of that, why do we feel the need to place blame on specific people?
RFK Jr. words are just as reckless and just as assinine as Pat Robertson’s. Will they be as damning? Doubtful.
RFK Jr.’s post: “For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind”
I have a feeling there are a LOT of New Orleans metro-area residents that don’t feel like they were “spared” by Katrina. Especially the 25,000+ who are being moved to the Houston Astrodome.
Katrina has wrought great devastation on countless numbers of people in the Gulf states…how can someone even think of making that kind of statement when 100s of people are dead and 1000s more are homeless? We should be concentrating on providing aid and comfort to our fellow human beings.
RFK Jr gets a free pass for two reasons:
First, he is a left wing pundit who speaks out on a buzz topic: environmentalism.
And secondly, his father, a beloved political figure, was brutally assassinated so we feel as though we should give him a wide birth.
Obviously human life isn’t as important as digging at your political opponents.
I wonder why there are fewer and fewer Democratic Govenors in the South… maybe because they can’t distance themselves from comments like this?