Aaahh....the Irony!

Definition of irony:  "a word meaning, emotion, attitude, belief, circumstance or outcome that is opposite to what would have been expected."

Here are some examples of irony:

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Life is full of irony.  But perhaps nowhere else are there more examples of irony than in politics.  Here are some recent instances for your reading "pleasure":

1.  The most conservative and anti-American of Egypt’s Islamist presidential candidates was barred from running because his mother was a U.S. citizen. 

2.  Getting into the NAACP convention required its attendees to show a government-issued photo ID.   The press had to show two forms of photo ID, a government-issued ID (i.e. drivers license) in addition to their press identification.   Speaking at the convention, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Texas voter ID law would harm minorities.

3.  A new super-PAC was formed whose purpose is to support candidates who want to limit super-PAC contributions.)

4.  In another example of money in politics, the senate banking committee--whose congressmen received $582,000 in campaign contributions from JP Morgan--were in charge of "grilling" CEO Jamie Dimon on the London Whale derivative trading fiasco.  "A vast majority of the Senators at the hearing ... repeatedly praised Dimon’s wisdom and executive acuity while politely soliciting his opinion on how he thought his own bank should be regulated..."  Yes, this is the same bank that was "hand-slapped" with a paltry $135 million fine for helping Enron commit fraud; the same bank that settled a $2 billion shareholder lawsuit alleging they underwrote Worldcom's bonds without discovering an $11 billion fraud at the (now bankrupt) company; the same bailed-out bank that is currently gambling in the global casino with an eye-popping $70 trillion in derivatives (compare this to the U.S. GDP of $15 trillion and a world GDP of $70 trillion); not to mention a bank soon to be embroiled in the Libor scandal.

5.  An article highlighted unemployed Tea Party activists who are on government assistance

6.  "Drill baby drill" may have become  the most ironic political slogan, since oil companies are not drilling despite plenty of on- and off-shore leases with no drilling moratoriums.

7.  Here's an ironic twist in which Mitt Romney's most important credential has become his biggest liability--his experience at "Bane" capital and the unanswered questions swirling around it.  Perhaps an even bigger irony is that a recent poll suggests 60% of people nevertheless think he will be "better at the economy" due to his business experience.  Those who have looked into his business experience at Bain Capital cite examples of looting companies via leveraged buyouts as well as Romney's use of off-shore tax havens.

8.  Surely the biggest political irony of 2012--and perhaps the mother of all political ironies--is Obomnycare.  Perhaps "self regulation" of the financial industry takes second place honors.

9.  Of course, Romney has flipped on virtually every issue--not just health care--for the sake of votes.  It might be argued that in 2002, Mitt Romney was more liberal than Barack Obama.

10.  Speaking of disaster relief, hurricane Katrina presented many layers of irony.  (Much of the following material is taken from this article.)

• Republicans are often portrayed as being "stronger" in times of military need or in times of disaster. In fact, Bush presided over a disastrously inept emergency response that changed the world's opinion of the U.S. as a developed country. As quoted from this source, Bush first had scientists warning him days in advance of hurricane Katrina that he was about to have a major disaster on his hands. Bush did next to nothing to prepare for the hurricane, and next to nothing in response afterwards for days. In fact, President Bush chose to remain on vacation for the first several days of the crisis, and only took time to view the destruction out the window of Air Force One, on his way back to Washington D.C. from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Bush left dealing with Katrina to Michael Brown, who was completely unqualified for the job, and only got it thanks to the help of his neighbor Joe Allbaugh. And when the media began to howl about Brown’s miserable performance, and his padded resume, Bush defended him saying “Brownie” was doing a “heckuva job”. Eventually, Brown’s failure became so undeniable that the Bush administration caved in and fired him, finally making a wiser choice by putting Vice Admiral Thad Allen in charge. Nevertheless, for many people, this was not so much an indictment of the administration as it was just another example of big government's ineptness.
• But there's a deeper level of irony here. According to this article, homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wanted to take command of disaster relief on the day before landfall, but Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco refused. Federal response was hindered because the law gave first authority to state and local authorities...State and local efforts—particularly in New Orleans, and Louisiana more broadly—interfered with what actions the federal government could actually take. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was late in ordering an evacuation and did not allow the use of school buses for evacuation, which could have saved hundreds of lives. President Bush had no power to change that decision. So "inept big government" actually had its hands tied by the "efficient state and local governments". 
• But wait! We find an even deeper level of irony as we keep digging. The Bush Administration had worked to apply the principles of small government to FEMA, while introducing privatization and decentralization to emergency management. President Bush's first FEMA director lamented in Senate testimony that “Federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an over sized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective State and local risk management,” and suggested that certain disaster management responsibilities, such as providing food and shelter to the displaced, should be delegated to faith-based charities. (We found out how well this worked.) In March 2004, former FEMA head James Lee Witt testified before Congress that “the ability of our nation to prepare and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded ". . . . I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders and first-responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared.”" Add to this the appointment of political cronies with no experience in disaster-response, mis-use of the the national guard in the Iraq war, diminishment of the status of FEMA by incorporating it under the department of homeland security, funding cuts to disaster planning as well to the local and state governments that were supposed to be more efficient, and you have an administration that was damnably culpable (pardon the pun).
• As usual, there's the "big government spending" versus "bigger government spending" irony as well. Pay now or pay later. The failure of the New Orleans levees was preceded by a failure of environmental protection and planning. Due to the vast network of levees, navigational channels, and oil and gas infrastructure, the Louisiana coastal plain has been losing 6600 acres of wetlands per year--wetlands that would normally provide protection from hurricanes. In addition, the channels provided a highway for storms to sweep inland. In 1998, state and federal agencies, with the participation of a diverse group of local churches, scientists, environmentalists, and fishermen, developed “Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana,” which offered a host of ecosystem restoration strategies. Its $14 billion price tag was never funded, and the President’s 2005 Energy Bill provided only $540 million--a relative pittance--for Louisiana'’s coastal restoration over four years. Also, over a period of many years, scientists had predicted that a strong storm could breach the levees, and some had predicted what appears to be the precise sequence of breaches that flooded the city. The failure to protect New Orleans resulted from the failure of the federal government to fund badly needed improvements once those limitations were recognized. (The Iraq war had taken center stage--a war that ended up costing $2-3 trillion, depending on who you ask.) The cost (to the government) of rebuilding New Orleans was approximately $87 billion--far more than the cost of the coastal restoration and levee improvement proposals. Timely "big government spending" on those proposals would have been--in retrospect--a fantastic deal. Instead, while we were busy killing people in Iraq, dead bodies were floating in New Orleans.
• Makers of FEMA trailers used after Hurricane Katrina paid $43 million to those suffering from health issues associated with them. Apparently, the cheap particle board and poor ventilation resulted in occupants' excessive exposure to formaldehyde. The trailers were deemed "uninhabitable" and decommissioned. But apparently, some of them nevertheless showed up again, this time as temporary housing for some BP oil spill cleanup workers. Evidently, the price was right. (In the interest of fairness, it should be said that by this time there was probably less outgassing of formaldehyde.)
• Hurricane Katrina was cited by experts as another possible example of evidence for global warming, which is associated with increased frequency and intensity of severe weather events, among other things. Many of us will still debate whether global warming exists and whether there is anything we can do about it, while at the same time we are stocking up on bottled water and other emergency supplies so we will be prepared for floods, drought, earthquakes and other catastrophes predicted for the "end times."
• In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush declared that a “Great City Will Rise Again.” This was a platitude that was apparently not followed up with any actual planning or decison making on his part. Seven years after Katrina, New Orleans is still two different cities. Areas like the lower 9th ward have all the same problems as before, including the highest crime rate in the world (40% higher than before Katrina), extreme black poverty, and homeless people living in abandoned houses. No definitive decision was ever made as to how to handle this area of the city, whether or not to prohibit rebuilding, what to do with the abandoned houses, etc. In the end, people were allowed to rebuild, but with minimal help or coordination from the government. Thus, a fantastic opportunity to reshape the city and encourage its inhabitants to rebuild on higher ground was missed, and today these parts of the city are still struggling, with millions being spent on upkeep of empty lots. Instead of spending $127 billion on rebuilding parts of New Orleans that never should have been rebuilt, the government could have used the same money to reimburse each affected resident of New Orleans--an average of $425,000 (!) per person--to go buy a house and live somewhere else.
• During his initial Presidential campaign, Mr. Obama promised "[I] will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm." By August 2011, that promise had largely been fulfilled. This is perhaps the only aspect of hurricane Katrina that lacked irony.