PeterDavid.net

What is going on reminds me a bit of "Deny everything". That is the game that is going on, but it is of course not a fun game. One pushes the blame to the other and at the end everyone more or less says that they all did the best they could.

I am living in Britain and I don`t know the fineries of US politics here. But some of what I have seen is just common sense: Maybe people couldn`t have been evacuated sooner but nobody can tell me that even immediately afterwards there was no one who could have dropped urgent supplies like food, water, baby milk powder and maybe even some medical supplies. And locking up a large number of people in a dark stadium and kind of throw away the key for days without food or water is of course a recipe for disaster.

I have seen pictures that made me sick and very angry.

What was needed is leadership. Someone who stands up immediately and gets things done. Not buerocrats who wait for orders and instructions, who don`t move until it is too late for the most vulnerable.

Bush certainly didn`t show leadership here. But what first of all counts is, what were the people who run the local government doing? The local police, the army? I was annoyed at pictures of people driving around in cars investigating but nobody stopped and took at least some of these desperate people out.
I heard that one policeman even pointed a gun at a woman who wanted to get in his car.

Bush is certainly to blame. But he is not the only one.

The main thing is, get these people out, look after them - and learn lessons from this chaos. Because unfortunately the weather is getting more and more violent and unpredictable. More disasters will come.

Their is plenty of blame to go around. The local government wasn't prepared, the state government wasn't prepared, and the federal government didn't react soon enough when the other two levels of government didn't respond quickly enough.

Considering that one of the first things out of the mouths of the Mayor of NO and the Govenor of the state was to blame the feds and especially Bush, I would say that the President is reacting defensively. He could have come out and asked the Mayor why he didn't use the available transportation to start moving people out, or the Gov. why she didn't request federal assistance sooner.

Peter,

While I have no love of President Bush or his policies, I think you've failed to cast a wide-enough net on who's playing the "blame game." From what I've seen (on both the right and left), nearly everyone is playing some form of it. Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco blame Bush, or FEMA chairman Brown; the congressional Black caucus blames Bush and FEMA; the Red Cross is blaming Blanco for blocking attempts at rescue; right-wing bloggers are blaming Nagin for failure to implement a coherent evacuation plan and for not using buses to evacuate those unable to... And I could go on and on. And at this point in the recovery process, it makes me nauseated to see it, regardless of which political stripe is doing the blaming.

This is all part of human nature, and never more so than now; we want to find someone at fault, and we want to deflect fault away from ourselves. I think that's why we are so impressed when someone actually stands up and accepts responsibility for their mistakes.

Now, if you ask me who's to blame? I start with Katrina, work my way through the very many people at various government levels who so ineptly dealt with the disaster and its aftermath, and go back to the people who decided to build a city below sea level in a known hurricane zone and then proceeded to destroy nearly all of the natural barriers to preventing said hurricanes from causing such catastrophic damage. Bush is in there somewhere, but he's far from the only target.

And now, I have to suppress a shudder after defending the President (even a little).

Here's the thing I see. Right now, the New Orleans mayor and Louisiana governor should pretty much be totally occupied with doing whatever they can, administratively and personally, to help. Their moment of responsibility will come during the next round of local and state elections, when the voters will be able to decide whether they should be held accountable for lapses in duty.

Bush won't face any such moment. He's a lame duck, with no future check on his actions. I was watching CNN the other night, and for a moment, I thought I was watching the Daily Show, when they edit an Administration press conference to string all the soundbites of Blame Game together to emphasize how often they use this tactic.

I totally agree with PAD. If our Federal Government isn't competent enough to run a relief and rebuilding effort while simultaneously investigating whether there was any negligence on behalf of anyone, then we should just trash the entire government and start over. How is it possible that they can wage a war half a world away, yet not be able to conduct an investigation into this event while the facts are still fresh? Our maybe our government has the administrative equivilent of the inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Here's another irritating thing: It took many governmental officials, GOP and Democratic alike, several days to come off of vacation, not just Bush. Another failure of leadership. However, Renquist's body was hardly cold before Bush was up there nominating him for the position of Chief Justice. If Bush had acted half as quickly last week, there's a good chance that the casualties might only be in the hundreds, rather than in the thousands.

And that isn't a knock on Roberts. He's got a lot of precedent behind him to both be a good associate Supreme Justice, as well as Chief Justice someday.

"One thing guaranteed, though: They'll try to find a way to blame it on Clinton. But Clinton shouldn't take it personally. It's all part of the game."

It's funny you should say that...because I've already seen some anti-Clinton sniping on a few conservative Web sites. One, in particular, said (sic), "The people of New Orleans should be thanking Mr. Bush! If Clinton had gotten his way and had all his health care initiatives passed, they'd be worse off than they are now! And they'd better hope Hillary Clinton doesn't get elected someday, or they won't have any health care!"

***sigh***

There's more than enough blame to go around, but I have no confidence that partisans on either side will do anything BUT blame. Why should they? It's too easy to blame the other guy and make political hay then solve problems.

I'm gonna repeat this, because I think it's a useful post for this topic:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/

http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline

Two sites with timelines for events that happened (or, at least, PROMISED to happen).

I was watching a clip with George and Barbara Bush being interviewed the other day, and George Sr. used the phrase 'blame game' just after I had heard from two or three White House functionaries. I couldn't help thinking just before the interview, when one of the president's people prepped Bush's parents with the key talking points, including 'blame game,' that just before the interview began, Bush Sr. turned to his wife and said, 'You see Barbara, I told you we should have put Jeb forward, not Junior!'

And regarding the blame game, here are my predictions for the next few months:
1. Nobody gets fired.
2. Brownie gets a medal or award of some kind, a la George Tennant
3. Cheney's face cracks right down the middle as he tries to smile, demonstrating his compassionate conservatism to survivors on the ground. When the endoskeleton underneath is revealed, it finally confirms what we already knew, that the vice president is in fact an android.

Okay, maybe not #3.

This past weekend, I watched an old Sesame Street tape with my nieces called "Elmopalooza." In it, John Stewart spends most of the show trapped in his dressing room as a parade of muppets and celebrity guests tried unsuccessfully to break down the door. Finally, someone turns to Oscar the Grouch, who says, "Sure, I can get it open." When asked why didn't do anything sooner, his repply is "You didn't ask."

What does have to do with this topic? Well, "you didn't ask" is now FEMA's primary excuse for why they didn't respond sooner rather than later. While I agree that there was a complete breakdown on the city and state level, for FEMA to use this weak excuse for not coming to the aid of New Orleans is just ludicrous. The country was facing the worst natural disaster in recent memory and they're hung up on protocol.

Bush's call not to play the "blame game" while "Brownie" and Chertoff are pointing fingers at state and local officials is SOP for this administration. This is the same crew that decries the "politics of personal destruction" while smearing their enemies at the drop of the hat.

Perhaps after nearly five years, we shouldn't be surprised at this, but don't we as voters and taxpayers deserve better Oscar the Grouch as president?

This past weekend, I watched an old Sesame Street tape with my nieces called "Elmopalooza." In it, John Stewart spends most of the show trapped in his dressing room as a parade of muppets and celebrity guests tried unsuccessfully to break down the door. Finally, someone turns to Oscar the Grouch, who says, "Sure, I can get it open." When asked why didn't do anything sooner, his repply is "You didn't ask."

What does have to do with this topic? Well, "you didn't ask" is now FEMA's primary excuse for why they didn't respond sooner rather than later. While I agree that there was a complete breakdown on the city and state level, for FEMA to use this weak excuse for not coming to the aid of New Orleans is just ludicrous. The country was facing the worst natural disaster in recent memory and they're hung up on protocol.

Apparently, that's only the first part of FEMA protocol; if you DO ask, they'll say "If you want our help, we have to be in charge."

I don’t know Peter, I am of the line of thinking that problem falls highly in the local and state government. I feel the current U.S. government had a mayor fault for not seeing that the local and state was incompetent.

What got to me was that the New Orleans Mayor when he was asked when did he call for help. He admits he only called people after the hurricane hit. When asked what his plan was, he said it was to put people in the Superdome and Convention Center and wait for help. "I called everybody the day after the storm."

The possibility of a hurricane hitting New Orleans is not new. This very last semester I took a Meteorology class and when we touch over this same subject (hurricanes) the false sense of security that New Orleans had was a main topic. We talked about how horrible it would be for them to be hit by a hurricane of 3.5 or more. Here is an eerie article it’s a few months old (hence why is creepy)

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/22040b4511b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

But, yes, this is the lesson we've learned from all this and that one is one the Bush administration has to eat and fix.

Maq

All, here's a useful timeline to better review the response of all levels of government. Yes, it's a right wing blog, but the primary source is the Times-Picayune.

I've seen plenty of "blame" to go around: The city for not implementing its own disaster plan, the state for not requesting federal help sooner (and in some cases turning it away), the feds for having too much bureaucracy and paperwork getting in the way of deployment orders.

I found a link yesterday (that I can't find now unfortunately) where former Secretary Tom Ridge had once advised people keep a minimum three-day supply of food/water because it would take that long for federal help to become really engaged. He was panned for it at the time (this was the "duct tape" incident), but it looks like he was proved right - it took four.

Where do I have the most questions? At the state level. Yes, New Orleans didn't really have things in place for evacuation, but the state is the first major level of response. Blanco has seemed to delay at several junctures - taking 24 hours to make decisions, worrying about political implications of those decisions, etc.

I still have problems with the federal allocation of resources: firemen in Atlanta being told they were to distribute flyers. What a joke. But Blanco is who I've got the most questions for.

Forgot to post the link I wanted, and it looks like Robert beat me to the post while I was typing:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/

I found a link yesterday (that I can't find now unfortunately) where former Secretary Tom Ridge had once advised people keep a minimum three-day supply of food/water because it would take that long for federal help to become really engaged. He was panned for it at the time (this was the "duct tape" incident), but it looks like he was proved right - it took four.

Funny thing about Ridge. When he was governor of PA, the northeast was hit by the blizzard of 93, then dubbed the "Storm of the Century." We had massive ice jams across the rivers. Compared to Katrina now, it was nothing, but within a few days after the storm, Ridge was all over the media screaming about how FEMA was dragging its heels in getting help to us.

I guess some things never change.

Yeah, I want to see more on Blanco. She certainly delayed on asking for help from the feds, but it appears at least some of that was because the feds were playing power games ("You don't get helicopters, National Guard, food and water unless we get put in charge."); I want to know what else she did that could have been done better.

"Yeah, I want to see more on Blanco. She certainly delayed on asking for help from the feds, but it appears at least some of that was because the feds were playing power games ("You don't get helicopters, National Guard, food and water unless we get put in charge."); I want to know what else she did that could have been done better."

If this turns out to be true, it sure doesn't mesh with what some Repubs are now saying, that the process is a bottom-top process. If primary responsibility rests, as Bush and his supporters feel it should, with local and state representatives, shouldn't that mean that when they ask for help, the Fed. just provides what supplies are asked for? And the governor and mayor get to be in charge, or at least in the chain of command? If the Fed response was "sure, we can help, but we help OUR way, or you get nothing," I think a majority of people would have an issue with that. While people were suffering and dieing, government managers were having a pissing match.

Sorry, I wanted to add a fourth prediction to my earlier post: over the next few weeks, various governmental agencies will do their level best to keep the press out of New Orleans. Their justification will be the potential health hazards of the area, but in fact they're actually doing it to keep us from seeing all the dead bodies that will be exposed by the receding waters. What they won't be able to do is keep out people with their own video cameras who manage to get slip the gauntlet.

If you change the word "blame" to "responsibility" what happens? Who is responsible for what happened? In this case, the responsibility falls on FEMA. Handling crises like this is why FEMA exists, and they dragged their feet. Instead of preparing for the worst, they were caught flat-footed. Memos have already surfaced showing that Michael Brown waited 5 hours after Katrina hit before acting, then suggested sending in 1,000 agency workers -- after 48 hours of training them. (Check http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/documents-show-how-disaster-agency-delayed/2005/09/08/1125772641508.html?oneclick=true for the article.) Isn't it FEMA's responsibility to act quickly, not wait 5 hours after a disaster hits? Shouldn't the personnel be trained and ready to act, not need 2 days to get ready? After 9/11, we didn't spend 48 hours training pilots to patrol the air.

But I don't think anything will happen to Michael Brown. Karl Rove outed a covert government agent during the war on terrorism, and Bush went from firing anyone who leaked her identity to firing anyone convicted of a crime. U.S. soldiers tortued and humiliated Iraqi prisoners (heck, we have photos of this) and no leaders were held responsible. George Tenet may be facing legal charged for his falsifying intelligence about Iraq, and Bush gave him a medal. So with Bush providing the best job security imaginable to his friends, I doubt a little think like Michael Brown failing to do his job will be enough for Bush to have him take responsibility for that failure.

Here's what a friend of mine and two other college students did to help:
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-643298.html
I thought everyone might find it an interesting portrait of the state of affairs down there.

If this turns out to be true, it sure doesn't mesh with what some Repubs are now saying, that the process is a bottom-top process. If primary responsibility rests, as Bush and his supporters feel it should, with local and state representatives, shouldn't that mean that when they ask for help, the Fed. just provides what supplies are asked for? And the governor and mayor get to be in charge, or at least in the chain of command? If the Fed response was "sure, we can help, but we help OUR way, or you get nothing," I think a majority of people would have an issue with that. While people were suffering and dieing, government managers were having a pissing match.

This is what the LA Governors' office says (which may be spin); there was a quote from the NY Times stating

"But furious state and local officials insisted that the real problem was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Mr. Chertoff's department oversees, failed to deliver urgently needed help and, through incomprehensible red tape, even thwarted others' efforts to help.

"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher,
press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They
wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

But the NY TIMES quotes an anonymous source says this was more of a "power sharing agreement." Which, if true, just means they wanted to grab power.....

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had two comments that I found particularly relevant. The first was that to the Bush Administration, calling it the "blame game" is their way of dismissing what anyone else would call accountability, and the second was that usually, those who "dont play the blame game" are usually to blame.

If you missed last night's Daily show, you really should check out the replay. Stewart's delivery when saying "to blame" cannot be in any sense re-created in text.

Well. Now this is interesting. FEMA hired a private company, IEM Inc., to assess the evacuation plan for New Orleans. They were also suppose to shore it up by designing an evacuation plan for getting the old, sick, and poor out. But the funding for that got cut and it never got done.

Hm.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/03/Worldandnation/One_question_builds__.shtml

"It's not a game" -PAD

Peter, would you please pass that on to your liberal friends who want to take advanages of tragedies, like this to further their politcal power? I know democrats are exempt from even the hint of playing political games, and everyone should hate Bush as much as you do, but it seems to me that you may missing something.
One more thing, I'm a little confused by your logic: You say Bush is playing "game" because the administration has stated it doesn't want to play the "Blame game". Their desire to "Not Play" would mean they are ar NOT playing a game, but are taking it seriously. I would take their statement as to mean that they are suggesting some people may be treating this situation like a "game". If I say "I don't want to play monopoly", would you then accuse me of "playing monopoly"? I think the president should have gone in sooner, but the govenor of Louisianna needed to sign off, and she had to think things over, so he couldn't. Bush's mistake was letting her think too long. I know liberals think the federal government should be all powerful, but until you guys burn the constitution there will have to be a system to be followed. The funny thing is liberals love bureaucracy, which is what hindered things in NO and after we have all these hearing and committees we will end up with an even larger bureaucracy in place. Oh, Peter why don't you look up how all the levies are managed in NO, what politcal persons are responsible for each levy, and the steps needed to go through to do anything to a levy? Or don't look it up as it might make it a little harder to hate Bush so much (and since he is the devil lets not give him any benefit of the doubt).

"Sorry, I wanted to add a fourth prediction to my earlier post: over the next few weeks, various governmental agencies will do their level best to keep the press out of New Orleans."

Already happening. Photojournalists have been turned away at several points.

Once again, I don't buy this "we had to wait until the governor said pretty please before FEMA could help" argument. The city was literally drowning, and if FEMA immediately started airlifting supplies into New Orleans without all the paperwork being signed, well I'm sure everyone would have been willing to overlook all the bureaucratic niceties just this once.

It's kinda like a "do as I say, not as I do" thing with this bunch, isn't it? You can almost be assured that whenever the Mayberry Machiavellis accuse their supposed enemies of doing something, they've already done that very thing (or are still in the process of doing so).

I can't get this quote from Frank Herbert out of my head:
"The difference between a good administrator and a bad one is about five heartbeats. Good administrators make immediate choices."
"Acceptable choices?"
"They can usually be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand, hesitates, diddles around, asks for committees, for research and reports. Eventually he acts in ways which create serious problems."

Anybody seen a good administrator lately? All I seem to be findly lately is bureaucrats.

I "love" how the focus is shifting from why people were left to wallow in their own filth for 3 days to blaming local government for not getting those people out before the storm.

Yes governments on all levels failed before the storm, some of those failures going back decades. However none of those failures excuses what happened in the days after Katrina hit. The most powerful nation ever should not treat its own citizens the way we did last week. WTF is wrong with us that we care more about pointing out what went wrong before hand, when deaths and what not not weretheorectical, to gain political points then about how FEMA failed so miserably last week when there were actual people in harms way?

I'm not saying that local goivernments should get away blameless for poor planning. I am saying that, once the nature of what was going on became clear, the lack of a prompt rescue response was appalling. Given the right (or wrong) circumstances, that could have just as easily have been one of our mothers we saw dead in that wheelchair or one of our children that we saw dehydrated and upset.

>Apparently, that's only the first part of FEMA protocol; if you DO ask, they'll say "If you want our help, we have to be in charge."

Makes sense. You want ONE person/organization in charge, otherwise trying to get coherent/effective action out of the various groups involved becomes a nightmare.

"While people were suffering and dieing, government managers were having a pissing match."

Were that it was just an American thing. Back in the winter of '98, when the ice storm hit and we had communities without power or water for a week or more, we had the military (Federal level) base in one area wanting to help out, only to be told to "butt out" by the anti-Federalist Québec provincial government who didn't want to be upstaged by the rest of Canada. Idiots.

>(From the link in PAD's original comment) "I want to hear that he was panicked. Because I was panicked. Everyone I know was panicked."

Uh, I don't. Think about it. The leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, given to panic attacks? Somehow that would not be a terribly conforting thought.

Lastly, the Japanese have a very wise saying: "Fix the problem, not the blame." Deciding who's to blame is one thing. Having a workable, effective plan in place to ensure it doesn't happen again is another, and rather more important, matter altogether.

I have a question: the republican party is obviously very good at creating talking points and creating and taking control of the discourse. Why are the democrats unable to match that? It seems the minute Karl Rove thought of the "Blame Game" quote, everybody in the administration and everybody still defending them was saying nothing else. Why are their oponents unable to create Quotes like that too, for example, as somebody suggested, exchange the blame for responsibility. "We're not playing the Blame Game, We're playing the Responsibility Game". Take charge and don't let the opponent define the terms.

I'll admit that my quote probably isn't the best possible, but I'm not paid for that kind of stuff. Don't the Democrats have people who are paid a lot of money for exactly that?

http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/637/1/

Now this interesting, apparently, Bush's pre-storm declaration of emergency only applied to the inland parishes.

Gee, don't hurricanes usually attack the coast first?

If this turns out to be true, it sure doesn't mesh with what some Repubs are now saying, that the process is a bottom-top process. If primary responsibility rests, as Bush and his supporters feel it should, with local and state representatives, shouldn't that mean that when they ask for help, the Fed. just provides what supplies are asked for? And the governor and mayor get to be in charge, or at least in the chain of command? If the Fed response was "sure, we can help, but we help OUR way, or you get nothing," I think a majority of people would have an issue with that. While people were suffering and dieing, government managers were having a pissing match.

The governor has a lot of responsibility in these situations. Bush can declare a disaster situation, but other troops or national guard can't be sent in unless the state governor requests it. What really ticks me off is that for all the claims on all sides that bureacracy won't hinder aid - that's exactly what happened. Some reports indicate the Bush kept asking for Blanco to officially request federalizing the issue, but Blanco was concerned about the political ramifications. I think your last comment spells it out nicely.

Well, Benjamin, you just hit on one of the strong points of this administration: They are very good at finding the right sound bite and running with it.

It's kind of sad that the voters can be influence by repeating certain slogons, but I guess it works.

It seems to me that this administration has, from day one, approached governing as a marketing project rather than a management one. The problem is, it's become clear that the only thing they have to sell are empty slogons.

"Lastly, the Japanese have a very wise saying: "Fix the problem, not the blame." Deciding who's to blame is one thing. Having a workable, effective plan in place to ensure it doesn't happen again is another, and rather more important, matter altogether."

I agree with this. In this case, I think the problem IS the administration. If the only thing plopping in front of the administration were just a slow response to a national disaster, I'd feel less strongly about that. But this is just the latest failure in a long line of failures directly related to this particular kind of national event. Going back to the creation of Homeland Security, to the changes to FEMA and the budget raiding that lessened our response time, there's been one series of actions after another that directly lead to the Federal paralyzation that occured for 3, 4 days after the worst disaster to hit occurred. And what's worse, is not only did we have years and years to prepare, we also had days of advance warning that this might occur.

The governor has a lot of responsibility in these situations. Bush can declare a disaster situation, but other troops or national guard can't be sent in unless the state governor requests it. What really ticks me off is that for all the claims on all sides that bureacracy won't hinder aid - that's exactly what happened. Some reports indicate the Bush kept asking for Blanco to officially request federalizing the issue, but Blanco was concerned about the political ramifications. I think your last comment spells it out nicely.

No.

This is dead wrong.

According to the timelines, Blanco asked for federal help BEFORE the hurricane hit. She was offered help from other governors with more National Guard on that same day, but paperwork kept them from entering Louisiana until the next week. She asked for federal resources, but FEMA wanted to be in charge. If it's the local government's responsibility, then GIVE THEM THE RESOURCES.

"I have a question: the republican party is obviously very good at creating talking points and creating and taking control of the discourse. Why are the democrats unable to match that?"

Because most Dems still have a conscience?

--R.J.

Apparently, that's only the first part of FEMA protocol; if you DO ask, they'll say "If you want our help, we have to be in charge."

Makes sense. You want ONE person/organization in charge, otherwise trying to get coherent/effective action out of the various groups involved becomes a nightmare.

Then don't you DARE say that it's the local government's responsibility as first responders. Then you HAVE to say that it's the federal government's job to step in and take over and to hell with local control and responsibility. But that's NOT what the Bush administration is saying.

Moreover, bringing up this kind of jurisdictional dispute at the 11th hour is DUMB. Either the responsibility is local--so give the resources to the local authorities....or the responsibility is national...so get your ass in there and get going.

Moreover, bringing up this kind of jurisdictional dispute at the 11th hour is DUMB. Either the responsibility is local--so give the resources to the local authorities....or the responsibility is national...so get your ass in there and get going.

Haven't you figured it out yet, Roger? Bush is responsible for nothing. It's always someone else's fault. PAD is right, they'll be pinning it on Clinton sooner or later.

Considering that one of the first things out of the mouths of the Mayor of NO and the Govenor of the state was to blame the feds and especially Bush, I would say that the President is reacting defensively

Considering that Bush has made it the Dept of Homeland Security's job, and thus FEMA's job, to deal with all diasters in the US, Bush is sitting naked in the sand, baking to death, and deservingly so.

"Then don't you DARE say that it's the local government's responsibility as first responders. Then you HAVE to say that it's the federal government's job to step in and take over and to hell with local control and responsibility. But that's NOT what the Bush administration is saying."
Dude, it's called "Autonomy", y'know the thing that people excercise so that no one can force you to do something you don't want to do even if you're being stupid. The federal government is "suppose" to be LIMITED in how much power can be ussurped from the states (read constitution), but this is a foreign concept these days since: A) No one reads the constituion and B)People expect the government to wipe their butt for them.

"Would you please pass that on to your liberal friends who want to take advanages of tragedies, like this to further their politcal power?"

Randy,

I would agree with you more on this if it was only us liberals who were questioning what has happened. Unless, of course, you consider Newt Gingrich a liberal.

http://www.drudge.com/news/72930/gingrich-criticizes-bush-homeland-security

Dude, it's called "Autonomy", y'know the thing that people excercise so that no one can force you to do something you don't want to do even if you're being stupid. The federal government is "suppose" to be LIMITED in how much power can be ussurped from the states (read constitution), but this is a foreign concept these days since: A) No one reads the constituion and B)People expect the government to wipe their butt for them.

The problem was that FEMA TRIED TO OVERIDE THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND RUN ROUGHSHOD OVER THAT AUTONOMY. And THEY'RE COMPLAINING THAT THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES FAILED.

Dude, I call that hypocisy and incompetence, all rolled into one.

I just find it hilarious that the right-wingers are claiming that LA's governor wouldn't sign over power to the feds when the disaster hit, and that's why they couldn't move in.

Can someone please tell me exactly when Jeb in FL signed over the authority in his state to the feds when FEMA moved in *HOURS* after the hurricanes struck FL? Or is it that the governor has a (D) next to her name, and *isn't* related to the "Let them eat cake" family?

And, to all of those who claim that LA should have had all of this food and emergency supplies stockpiled ahead of time - can you tell me where *the 49th poorest state in the nation* is going to come up with the money to pay for it?

I know - they will just whip out their "Louisiana Express Card" - don't get caught in a flood without it! Yup, they are just laying on *piles* of cash in that state...

Does anybody truly doubt if the people who were abandoned at the Convention Center were White republicans, they would have been rescued a lot sooner?

If they were white republicans, they wouldn't have been trapped at the Superdome in the first place. Bush would have had them airlifted from their homes.

Does anyone seriously think that if a Democrat was in office the same fucking things would have happened?

This is about A)it not being an election year, therefore there was no need to make sure as many people as possible were happy with Bush(as was the case in 2004 in Florida) and B) general bureaucratic nightmarish BS.

Neither of which is a Republican specific problem. Democrats are just as easily caught up in expediency during an election year, the cronyism that lead to a FEMA director with no credentials AND they're even worse at being overly optimistic about things in general.

As for the article wishing there were stories about Bush losing his shit over this.

Do you want a President who will panic and lose his shit over things or one that's calm and collected.

I've no love for Bush, but most of this would have been the same under a Democrat, don't fool yourselves, Democrats aren't any more competant or any less corrupt and lazy.

While I'm sure quoting the NYT is going to send a few people here into epileptic seizures, I thought they had an editorial yesterday that expressed things absolutely brilliantly:

This is not a game. It is critical to know what "things went wrong," as Mr. Bush put it. But we also need to know which officials failed - not to humiliate them, but to replace them with competent people.

It's obvious, for instance, that Michael Brown has met the expectations of those who warned that he would be a terrible director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This is no time to be engaging in a wholesale change of leadership, but in Mr. Brown's case there seems to be precious little leadership to lose. He should be replaced with someone who can do the huge job that remains to be done.

They go on to say that things extend way beyond Brown, and various other things.

Yes, they should probably be looking at state and local officials more than they are, but I think they did a good job absolutely demolishing the idea that this is about nothing more than "the blame game."

TWL

Democrats are just as easily caught up in expediency during an election year, the cronyism that lead to a FEMA director with no credentials AND they're even worse at being overly optimistic about things in general.

While in general I'd agree with this, I'll disagree with the second point. The only time in my entire adult life that FEMA did its job worth a damn was under James Witt, a Clinton appointee. It was lousy under Reagan, under Bush I, and it's lousy again now that Bush II is appointing buddies rather than experienced people.

TWL

Do you want a President who will panic and lose his shit over things or one that's calm and collected.

Bush doesn't get panicked - he gets utterly dumbfounded, as we saw during 9/11.

But panicked, worried, caring, considering? None of those things.

Bush should be just as pissed off as the mayor of NO and governor or LA about how this went down. But Bush just keeps on a'smilin and makes things sound all happy-go-lucky.

I just wanted to respond to one factoid, repeated again upthread (but to be found in every discussion I've encountered on the topic, usually in an attempt to dismiss arguments of state or federal responsibility for the disaster). No one "decide[d] to build a city below sea level". When New Orleans was built, to greatly ease trade from the Mississippi River, it was well above sea level. The sea level, and the level of the ground, have changed over the ensuing centuries.

And Randy, the "autonomy" argument doesn't wash. Remember that one of the purposes of the Constitution is "to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare...". That's why FEMA was established in the first place. And originally, when it was headed by people who actually had some sort of experience in dealing with emergencies, it did its job quite effectively. When potential disasters were seen brewing, they would enter the area beforehand, and make sure that whatever they thought was necessary was already on hand. Now, under the "management" of a former horse inspector, they not only aren't there beforehand, they aren't even there afterward until someone gives this so-called "leader" specific directions! Remember when Brown said that he was unaware of anyone in the Superdome? Or of the conditions there? I don't watch the 24-hour news channels - I caught the news of the Superdome roof coming off, and the stories of some of the evacuees, during a News Update segment on a local channel here in San Diego. So, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was less well-informed about the ongoing emergency in New Orleans than was a citizen half a continent away from the action, who happened to be bored and channel-surfing one afternoon. This doesn't look good...

You know what's truly sad is that the only thing consistent about the Bush II Administration is lack of accountability in anything and everything that doesn't go Bush's way.

Does anyone seriously think that if a Democrat was in office the same fucking things would have happened?

Maybe the same thing could have happened. Maybe not. Despite the rhetoric we throw around here, I don't believe that either Democrats or Republicans are single, monolithic groups in which everyone things and acts the same way. Phrases like "liberals love bureaucracy" or "all republicans only care about is the rich" therefore are meaningless to me.

What I can say with 100% certainty, is that the people this particular president appointed bungled their job. Whether some hypothetical Democrat president would have appointed someone better, I don't know. I do think, however, that the kind of turf war wrangling that apparently occured last week is symptom of the "you are either with us or against us" mentality that is endemic to this particular administration. Maybe a president, democrat or republican, who valued people skills over cronyism and a willingness to be called by demeaning nicknames, could have gotten better cooperation and planning for emergency response.

All I know for certain is that this president had four years since 9/11 to revamp our national emergency response program and he screwed it up royally.

"Dude, it's called "Autonomy", y'know the thing that people excercise so that no one can force you to do something you don't want to do even if you're being stupid. The federal government is "suppose" to be LIMITED in how much power can be ussurped from the states (read constitution), but this is a foreign concept these days since: A) No one reads the constituion and B)People expect the government to wipe their butt for them."

I have, in fact, read the constitution, and parts of it quite recently, and there's a little clause in there calling for the Federal Government to act to protect the general welfare. Also to act to protect interstate commerce. New Orleans, sitting at the mouth of the Mississippi, serves as a commercial and industrial gateway for nearly the entire country. Anything that fouls that up impacts a lot more than just people that live there. And the entire Gulf Coast is home to over 10% of the this nation's oil production, refining, and pipeline capacity. Since we're an industrial society, whether we like it or not, we run on petroleum. It impacts every single facet of every single American life. All our prices are impacted by an oil disruption.

So, when people try to retort that this is just a liberl attempt to expand the Federal power, I laugh. When the Federal Government fails to take action to protect the few things the Constitution actually does give it power to protect, yet at the same time seems to be taking more and more steps to try and restrict things like marriage and freedom of speech and religion, things that the Bill of Rights expressly prevents the Federal government from regulating, I really start to wonder if, as you say, the people not reading the Constitution include those that derive their authority from it.

"Now, under the "management" of a former horse inspector, they not only aren't there beforehand, they aren't even there afterward until someone gives this so-called "leader" specific directions!"

What makes this worse is that, in just a few years since FEMA moved under DHS, a good number of the mid-level managers, those with experience in dealing with disasters during the Clinton years, left the agency. You can manage very well with incompetent top level management, if your field managers know what they're doing. But when you have incompetency at multiple levels, you're not going to be effective at all.

Peter, thanks for the additional link, which voices one of the points that really bugged me over the last few days. I'm not sure I want to speak for any of the unfortunate people who suffered through this terrible experience, but I wonder how some of them felt if they'd been able to get to a TV and saw their president with that damned ever-present smirk of his, glad-handing Brownie for doing a good job and joking about sitting on the porch with Trent Lott (who will no doubt be at the front of the line when it comes to doling out money to rebuild). Whether or not Bush cared about what was going on, he didn't APPEAR to care. When hundreds of dead bodies are floating face down in the flooded streets of New Orleans, it's not a time for jocularity, real or forced.

And to the previous poster who wondered why the Democrats can't come up with an appropriate sound bite, maybe it's because some of them are actually taking the situation seriously. The fact that Republicans use the phrase 'blame game' as a key talking point speaks volumes. To some of them, it is indeed a game.

Finally, while everybody seems to heaping tns of blame on FEMA, the White House and just about everybody on a Federal level, I can'thelp thinking it's the local or state gvernment officials who were responsible for row after row of school buses now submerged under the flood waters when they should have been used to evacuate hundreds, even thousands of people out of New Orleans. If we're playing the blame game, there's more than enough blame to go around.

Blame Game Tied

http://borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1210&srch=

Let us go back to the ol' story of the boy who cried wolf and why left wing media bias hurts everyone.

Bush's opponents have been trying to destroy him for years. After 9/11 "Bush Knew" now the supposed claims of racism.

Even when there is legitimate reason for critic, everyone is instantly on the defensive,
Everyone is instantly polarized the only thing that suffers is healthy debate and the truth.

All levles of gov't failed miserably. But instead of looking for the true weak link and at this point we have to look at Governor Blanco, you;re too busy asking for Bush's head.

1 Anybody else notice that President Bush has, at least twice, refered to the gulf coast area of the country, of which he is president, as "that part of the world"?

Let us go back to the ol' story of the boy who cried wolf and why left wing media bias hurts everyone.

What left wing media bias? You mean the media that has turned into a bunch of Bush-loving sycophants?

Bush's opponents have been trying to destroy him for years.

As opposed to the GOP, who did nothing but give Clinton the benefit of the doubt for years.

F#ck, 5 years later and Clinton's enemies still can't stop bitching about how much they hated him!

But instead of looking for the true weak link and at this point we have to look at Governor Blanco, you;re too busy asking for Bush's head.

Since I'm not a resident of Louisiana, I'll leave calls for her head to her own constituents. I do, however, have to live under Bush for another three years, so I feel justified in calling for his accountability.

"Because most Dems still have a conscience?"

I know a lot of republicans. I know a lot od democrats. Their lack of conscience is pretty much the same...they just lack it in different areas.

I'm watching CNN and there showing the devastaton to Plaquemines Parish which is a local government that stretches tens of miles southeast of New Orleans out to the Gulf of Mexico.

The community is still submerged. People are trying to cope. National guardsmen are just entering the area for the first time.

And guess what - every person in that parish on CNN's cameras is white.

So don't tell me race has anything to do with this tragedy. Federal bureaucratic incompetence has to do with this tragedy. State bureaucractic incompetence has to do with this tragedy.

I'm sick of hearing about racism. When major hurricanes hit, they go in, destroy everything in sight and then go away and the flood waters recede immediately because most communities are above sea level. The poor response to Hurricane Katrina is the unique setting of southern Louisiana where entire communities (and cities like New Orleans) lie BELOW SEA LEVEL. How can the National Guard trucks move in? How can the FEMA trucks move in? Its not like there is a massive stockpile of thousands of small watercraft that the federal, state or local government has access to. The uniqueness of the local geography is the #1 reason for the slow emergency response. Not the color of anybody's skin.

All levles of gov't failed miserably.

At least we can agree on this.

But instead of looking for the true weak link and at this point we have to look at Governor Blanco, you;re too busy asking for Bush's head.

Ahh, so in the same breath, you say "We shouldn't blame Bush, we should blame Governor Blanco".

Yet, who created the mess that is the Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA? Bush.

Who sent our National Guard to Iraq when they could be home and helping save lives? Bush.

Who sent our money to Iraq when it will now be needed for rebuilding here? Bush.

Who refused to give money to LA to help shore up their levees? Bush.

Who appointed Brown, an incredibly unqualified man for the position of authority he was in, to head FEMA? Bush.

I sense a pattern here...

So, when people try to retort that this is just a liberl attempt to expand the Federal power, I laugh.

I laugh, too, because from what I can tell, the Louisiana governor is being blamed for the actions of the federal government trying to flex ITS muscles.

I think that's ironic. (Though whether or not she could have tried harder or in a different direction may be pertinent)(but the point remains is that at least one point of failure stems from a federal grab for power).

All levles of gov't failed miserably. But instead of looking for the true weak link and at this point we have to look at Governor Blanco,

Not for failure to call in federal resources, from waht I can see. But perhaps there's some other drastic fumbles she's made; I think I want to be educated on them.

i think we're all overlooking the fact that many hurricanes pass through Cuba before coming to the U.S.

Cuba has long been an enemy of the United States and of freedom. i say that Cuba is the geographic center of the Global War on Hurricanes.

i think it's time we start building popular support for regime change in Cuba, by negotiation if necessary, by military aggression if possible.

after the horror of Hurricane Katrina, i think most people would agree that we'd be better off fighting the hurricanes in Cuba so we don't have to fight them back home.

Thank you for your responses.

I never said we should not blame Bush
Bush should be critiqued. It is your right to critique and Bush screwed up. This was a tragedy

However if you suffer from BDS(Bush Derangement Syndrome) things quickly escalate and get out of control.

It is the histrionics that let the debate get taken over by extremists. Most BDS sufferers do not realize they are extremists.

Take Craig for example. Clear signs of BDS:

HIM: Ahh, so in the same breath, you say "We shouldn't blame Bush, we should blame Governor Blanco".

ME: If all evidence shows she was negligent then yes,

HIM Yet, who created the mess that is the Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA? Bush.

ME: You;re right. Evidence shows that Blanco hindered both organizations

HIM Who sent our National Guard to Iraq when they could be home and helping save lives? Bush.

ME: BDS ALERT!!!!

HIM: Who sent our money to Iraq when it will now be needed for rebuilding here? Bush.

ME: Major BDS readings. Off the charts!!

HIM: Who refused to give money to LA to help shore up their levees? Bush.

ME: No one refused. Evidence shows that the levvee money was transfered by state officials themselves. IN fact a scandal insued as to where the money went (state politicians pockets)

HIM: Who appointed Brown, an incredibly unqualified man for the position of authority he was in, to head FEMA? Bush.

ME: you're right!

It is all about race.

Katrina. Wiht a "K"?????

Why not a "C"???? Uh!

Racist Hurricane.

Kanye West is an asshole!

HIM Yet, who created the mess that is the Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA? Bush.

ME: You;re right. Evidence shows that Blanco hindered both organizations

Not before Katrina hit. That was when FEMA tried to muscle in and cut the local authorities out. (And after that action, would it be rational to rely on them?)

But other actions?

And, yeah, folks are right; it's not a race thing. A class thing, maybe....but not race.

AnthonyX: We live in polarizing times and it does seem like the whole country is divided into two factions: One that blames Bush for everything from the economy to post-nasal drip and the other that seems pathologically incapable of admitting he's ever made a mistake in his life.

I admit I lean towards the former, but in this case, we do have a clear instance where Bush at first appeared to not care about people's suffering while the feds played jurisdictional games with the state and local authorities. It's also clear that Brown had absolutely no clue about anything going on in New Orleans even though he was supposedly doing "a heck of job."

I really have to wonder what was going through his mind in Biloxi. Thousands of people are dead and thousands are stranded without food or water. I know, let's a make a joke about partying in NO! Then I'll talk about how I can't wait to see Trent's no porch.

As for the race issue: I don't think Bush is actively racist. I do, however think that he is largely indifferent to people, black or white, making less than six-figure incomes and it shows in his generally carefree attitude.

However if you suffer from BDS(Bush Derangement Syndrome) things quickly escalate and get out of control.

No, the only degranged person is that monkey in the White House.

And people like yourself, who are more than ready to genuflect at the Altar of All Things Bush.

As I said, there is no accountability. And you, AnthonyX, continue to support such a lack of accountability to the complete and total detriment of this country.

"What left wing media bias? You mean the media that has turned into a bunch of Bush-loving sycophants?"

Now, I think the left wing bias is an overstatement...but I think this is a bigger one...outside of FOX, I haven't seen much media that praises and does happy dances around Bush. I've seen plenty of criticism and questions-including with the NO tragedy that focus heavily on Bush as the problem and pay little attention to anyone else's failures. The few places that I have seen harp on the Mayor and Gov harder than on Bush have been primarily non-mainstream sites.

Sue me, I'm slow.

But back to the folks discussing whether they'd want the President to show a little concern, or outright fear, in the face of the devastation some have suffered. I think I'd prefer fear to his glibness cracking jokes when people are STILL DIEING in the devastated areas.

Well, the media criticism of Bush for Katrina has been the exception, not the rule. For the most part, the White House Press Corps has swallowed whatever sh!t this administration served up and asked for seconds.

And excuse me, but how is it the media's job to do "happy dances" around Bush? I always thought that it was the news media's job to hold government's feet (regardless of which party was in power) to fire and not let them get away with pulling a fast one.

Silly me.

Happy dance at my house this weekend.

"Dude, I call that hypocisy and incompetence, all rolled into one."

As Homer Simpson would say "Thats right! hypompetence!"

or maybe incomocisy

JAC

Interesting article from the Wash Post:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. . . .

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," Dashiell said.

Glenn at Instapundit has a great suggestion--lets divert some of the money wasted on pork projects like those in the transportation bill to the resconstruction of New Orleans.

Glenn at Instapundit has a great suggestion--lets divert some of the money wasted on pork projects like those in the transportation bill to the resconstruction of New Orleans.

Seconded.

BDS(Bush Derangement Syndrome)

HIM Who sent our National Guard to Iraq when they could be home and helping save lives? Bush.

ME: BDS ALERT!!!!

So are you saying that bush is deranged for doing this or that bush isn't the one who sent them there?

I think it's a great idea. Let's start with that $221 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska and the bike paths Pelosi funded in California.

Isn't it obscene that the federal government can find money to build bike paths, but couldn't find the cash to fund a project that might have prevented the flooding in NO back in 1998?

And excuse me, when did I *say* it was their *job* to do "happy dances"? Seriously...all I was noting with that statement was that they never seem that enamored with Bush. You made it sound like the media is contantly in high praise of Bush and heavily supportive of him.

It's not the media's job to do happy dances around *any* president. They should should, frankly, avoid being to cozy with any and all of them.

That bridge doesn't go to no where! It leads to an island that has a permanent resident population of like 12 people. 12! Do you know what a pain...ah, nevermind, even in sarcasm mode, I can't keep that up.

The worst thing about that project is that it's going to be named after the blowhard that wrote it into the bill. George Washington and the rest of our Founders would be all set to rise from the dead and revolt all over again, seeing as how we've effectively replaced our hereditary monarchy with an elective one.

Well, I guess I should have put a smiley in there somewhere, Thom.

Anyway, we essentially agree on the happy dance thing. I just wanted to have some fun with the name.

I'll happily third Glenn's suggestion. For the price of a vanity bridge project to a remote Alaskan island with a population of 50, think of the amount of meals that could be provided. Or construction supplies. Or clothing. And that's just one of many self-serving projects that could easily be jettisoned for the greater good.

I'm reminded of that scene from the movie Dave, where Kevin Kline rounds up his cabinet and asks them to do away with some of the more ridiculous projects in order to make extra money available for a homeless shelter. Naturally all the politicians capitulate, because they don't want to be heartless, but could you imagine George Bush saying, 'Hey Alaska guy, do you think you could sacrifice an expensive but useless bridge in order to feed several thousand of your fell Americans?'

No, I couldn't imagine it either. For a moment, I was just having a Capra moment there.

Sorry, that should have been fellow Americans. Guess I was having an illiterate moment too.

"Well, I guess I should have put a smiley in there somewhere, Thom."

#@&! right you should have. :) I thought you were thinking I thought the media should do a little dance for the president.

"Anyway, we essentially agree on the happy dance thing. I just wanted to have some fun with the name."

Yup. It is a fun name. :)

Fell Americans. That's one significant slip. Imagine..."My Sinister Americans....."

Well, if I wanted to blame Bush, I'd do it for not cracking heads at FEMA and Homeland Security and telling to Get It Done Now, and for changing the course of FEMA to something that's far less useful than it was. But that's a venial sin that's WAAYYYY down my list (certainly way below the mayor).

I REALLY want the meat axe on the meat heads at FEMA that were diddling around with bureucratic nonsense like org charts, sexual harassment training for emergnecy workers and using trained search-and-rescue personnel to hand out flyers. Yes, I'm talking to you, Mary Hudak...

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3004197

I think the real Bush Derangement Syndrome is the percentage of Americans who will find fault with ANYTHING Bush does.

There seems to be a pathological tendency amongst people on the left when it comes to ANYONE named Bush. They come up with bizarro conspiracies and insane readings of their behavior that seem to have no relation to the middle ground I choose to stake out.

From the middle, this vast land of "both sides have points" this place where no one is pure evil and no one is a Shining Knight Come To Save The Day where Howard Dean's just as kooky as Bush and Al Franken and Michael Moore are as annoying as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Rielly I don't see Bush as evil, I don't see the war in Iraq as wrong, wrongly founded but perfectly acceptable considering who was running Iraq, I don't see the aftermath of the hurricane as anyone's fault but the pencil pushers who demanded to have approval for basic needs AND the media's treatment of the process like it should happen like a fucking war.

Random Aside:

Air Drops Are Not A Good Idea
In war a bomb can miss a target. If they had dropped food and water from a plane PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN HIT BY THE DROPS or worse, those food and water drops would have been comandeered by the thugs who had taken over the Superdome.

Point is they had to secure the ground before thye could have an orderly dispersal of the food.

And why wasn't the ground secure?

Beacuse Nagin is as much of a fuckup in this as anyone else. Have you not seen the pictures of a FLEET of schoolbusses that could have been used to take people out of NOLA?

Everyone failed. Democrat, republican, pencil pusher. They should all be fired.

But we won't do that, because you people are so fucking attached to your political parties that we'll never get rid of them, no matter how corrupt and ineffectual they are.

You vote Democrat and Republican exclusively, it's your fault as well. You created this mess by relying on corrupt parties.

Again, I voted against Bush, I don't care for the Bushes, I would never vote for one, but my dislike is not pathological. It's based upon their lack of tact and inability to stop putting up everyman fronts when none of them have worked a day in their lives.

Has anyone any information on the story circulating that the Red Cross was trying to deliver food, water and blankets to the people in the superdome and were stopped by the Louisianna Dept of Homeland Security? Supposedly they didn't want any more people to go to the superdome so they stopped the delivery.

I think it's a good idea to take any story with a grain of salt these days so I'd like some confirmation beofre I call for the head of whoever decided to make starvation and subhuman living conditions as the Official Policy.

"Have you not seen the pictures of a FLEET of schoolbusses that could have been used to take people out of NOLA?"

Many people have mentioned this and, if in fact, NO had the resources to operate those buses, then city offcials f*cked up big time.

However I tend to think using these buses was easier said then done:

1) were those buses operational? (I imagine the answer is "yes," given that the school year was about to start, but we don't know)

2) did they have enough qualified drivers? (putting random people behind the wheel of a 5-ton bevile carrying 50 peoples during a mass evacuation is *not* a good idea)

3) did they have fuel for those buses?

I'm really interested to see how this all shakes out.

Has anyone any information on the story circulating that the Red Cross was trying to deliver food, water and blankets to the people in the superdome and were stopped by the Louisianna Dept of Homeland Security? Supposedly they didn't want any more people to go to the superdome so they stopped the delivery.

Think this is on the Red Cross web site. Part of the reasoning is to try to draw people OUT of New Orleans. Guess the problem is that they haven't a clue on how to do that [which may or may not be stupid, as the state would have to use National Guard forces to do this, and I don't know feasible that was. Nor do I know what camps were available for foot travel, though the state should have known that, as well].

Glenn at Instapundit has a great suggestion--lets divert some of the money wasted on pork projects like those in the transportation bill to the resconstruction of New Orleans.

Fourthed, or fifthed, or whatever number we're up to now. Count me in.

TWL

Wow, a lot of reading for a thread which started about eight hours ago - ! Many good points here, starting with PAD. And thank you for that link, PAD - some EXCELLENT points made there. True, you don't want a panicked president; but one who seemed to give more than just the tinniest flying f#*k about the thousands of Americans suffering, dying, and dead would be nice. However much blame is due at however many levels - some at all of them, obviously - we seem to have seen at least as much concern about avoiding ANY responsibility for ANYTHING by the administration as we have for the people whose lives have been devestated or lost. I'm reminded of the Presidential debate last year wherein Bush was asked to admit a mistake, and he just COULDN'T DO IT. Whether this is because it has just been drummed into him so deeply to never admit ANY fault AT ALL because it could possibly hurt your grip on power, or this is indicative of a chronic mental inability to perceive one's own errors on his part, is debateable. (If he did actually admit that mistakes were made in the Katrina situation, but pledged to work at correcting them - and actually did make some beneficial changes - any attempt to turn his admission against him could backfire on the people trying to use it. But, there may be too many "if"s there .... And the Republican leadership appears to have paired the mindset of "Our way is the only way - you must fall in line" with "We don't err. We never err.") Obviously it's too much to hope for Bush ever to be eloquent (though it occurred to me today that two of our most eloquent presidents, Presidents Clinton and Kennedy, appear to have been two of our most adulterous, as well. Coincidnce? Well, the gift of gab can often be very useful in the romance department .... This would make it less likely that W. Bush will ever be caught having an affair - he couldn't SPEAK his way into much of anything, let alone that); but for him to be more than superficially moved and saddened by the death and losses of thousands of his constituants - those he's supposed to be serving (and I don't really buy the racism argument, either, though the question of classism should be examined) - his fellow Americans, fellow human beings - shouldn't be too much to ask.

1) were those buses operational? (I imagine the answer is "yes," given that the school year was about to start, but we don't know)

Everything I've read says yes. Why would they have hundreds of non-working buses anyway?

2) did they have enough qualified drivers? (putting random people behind the wheel of a 5-ton bevile carrying 50 peoples during a mass evacuation is *not* a good idea)

I can drive a bus. I do it occasionally for field trips and things. It's easy. Kind of like driving a car only taller. At any rate, excluding Halle Berry or Ted Kennedy, it's hard to imagine many drivers being a worse option than staying.

3) did they have fuel for those buses?

Even if they were bone dry they had planty of time to fill them. This was a hurricane not an earthquake.

I say; let the investigations begin. There will be so much blame to spread around it's even possible some truth will come out.

Some of it may make people uncomfortable. An interesting bit from John Berlau:

The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.

The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.”

But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations.

The lawsuit was settled in 1997 with the Corps agreeing to hold off on some work while doing an additional two-year environmental impact study. Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain.

here's the thing though--the Sierra Club may well have been correct. At least one person I know with considerable expertise in this stuff (a flaming liberal but I love the guy) thinks that the levees have ultimately made things worse than they would have been if nature had been allowed to take its course and that this will just accelerate now. If New Orleans is rebuilt with ever taller levees the result will be, at some not so distant point in the future, a storm that causes even more devastation. repeat as needed.

I don't know if he's right. I don't even know if the question can be asked.

And, regarding that Alaskan bridge pork project: according to Rolling Stone (which is undoubtedly anti-Bush, perhaps to the extent of sometimes harming the appearance of their journalistic integrity at this point; but this particular sidebar [issue 981] lists pork from both sides), $223 million will go to one bridge, while "Don Young's Way" is a separate $231 million project bridging a sparsely populated marshland. At least he remembered his wife while putting this together - his bill is called SAFETEA-LU - "Lu" because it's his wife's name :)

There was also a very interesting article in Scientific American a few years ago (I don't have a link handy, but if you google Drowning New Orleans and Scientific American, you can find it easily) that lays everything out chapter and verse about how this disaster was waiting to happen, what were some of the factors that made it worse, and what could have been done to prevent it. Ironically, even if some of the environmental suggestions put forward in the article a couple of years ago were implemented the following day, it probably would have been too late anyway. Nevertheless, it's all there in black and white, in simple language that anybody with even an average intelligence could understand, which apparently excludes Arabian horse breeders-turned FEMA chiefs, Homeland Security directors and a current president.

Scientific American, Oct. 2001.

National Geographic, Oct. 2004.

The links are available at snopes.com.

Ummm... excuse me, American people? My President seems to be broken or something, because he's completely ineffectual. I'd like to know how to go about getting my money back? A refund or an exchange or something? 'Cause I really ain't liking what I've got...

Seriously, people, I think we've more than conclusively proven that Bush sucks hard at being a president. His approval levels are in the toilet, the rampant cronyism in his administration has got to be worse than the Harding and Grant tenures combined, and Mr. "I'm-a-uniter-not-a-divider" is FAR AND AWAY the most divisive presence in America's political landscape. Even his staunchest supporters are having a hard time justifying his actions. Honestly, I don't care if he's a Dem, a Repub, or a freakin' American Communist... there's got to be a person out there who can handle the job better. How far does he have to fall before Americans flat-out demand a new President?

There's no way Bush is responsible for the lack of response in New Orleans. This is a reality that so many seem willing to acknowledge.

"Isn't it obscene that the federal government can find money to build bike paths, but couldn't find the cash to fund a project that might have prevented the flooding in NO back in 1998?"

i don't know the specifics on this case, but bike paths aren't something i'd complain about. considering this nation's problems with oil dependency and obesity (not to mention urban gridlock), i think bike paths are a pretty good use of gov't money, especially if they make it easier for one to use a bicycle for practical transport.

recreational bike paths are a nice thing but i would argue that paths for bicycle commuters could be a serious boon to the community.

i'm not saying it's more important than fixing levies, but i would say it's more important than giving the rich tax breaks.

FEMA Blocking Relief Efforts - An Amazing List
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10195.htm

There's no way Bush is responsible for the lack of response in New Orleans

Who removed the competant head of FEMA & replaced him with incompetant cronies? Who put a likewise incompetant person in charge of homeland security? Who moved the National Guard 8000 miles away from where it was needed?

And most importantly - who was playing golf, attending concerts & going to birthday parties while thousands were dying in the flood waters?

bush isn't alone to blame, but he deserves the most because he had command of the most resources & chose instead to piss away those resources & enjoy himself while others paid the price of his decisions.

There's no way Bush is responsible for the lack of response in New Orleans

It's his team that's running it, right? It's his strategy that led FEMA in a new direction in his direction, right? It was his strategy that led to the demphasis of disaster recovery for FEMA earlier this year right?

In the world of business, that means the man at the top is ultimately responsible for strategy and the placement of his men in the proper place. If they screw up, it's his screw up, too, particularly if he could have stepped in to mitigate the damage.

What you're saying is that Bush is no way responsible for the performance of his appointees. That his remaking of FEMA had no impact on the function of the organization. That it was the right call to de-emphasize disaster mitigation and disaster relief for FEMA.

You don't believe in responsibility and you're anti-business, aren't you?

i don't know the specifics on this case, but bike paths aren't something i'd complain about. considering this nation's problems with oil dependency and obesity (not to mention urban gridlock), i think bike paths are a pretty good use of gov't money, especially if they make it easier for one to use a bicycle for practical transport.

The question isn't whether they are a good idea. I'd be all for it if a local government wanted to build bike paths in their community. The question is, should this be something the FEDERAL government should be footing the bill for?

I'd rather let state and local governments build the small stuff and let the feds put their money into the large scale projects.

Ummm... excuse me, American people? My President seems to be broken or something, because he's completely ineffectual.

Now I'm flashing on that guy who was on The Amazing Race a while back...

"My President is BROKEN!! This is BULLSHIT!!!"

:)

Just since I've seen it come up here and elsewhere:

http://gov.louisiana.gov/2005%20%20proclamations/48pro2005-Emergency-HurricaneKatrina.pdf

http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf

These are the papers filed creating a State of Emergency and requesting aid and relief (with FEMA refs) before the thing hit NO. The statements that the ball was dropped and that Bush had to beg the local government to declare a State of Emergency or to request aid are %100 bull***t.

The Red Cross link:

I can't find it and no one seems to be posting it. I keep hearing about the story but no one is giving out a link. The Red Cross homepage doesn’t have anything that stands out and the articles I've read don't say anything of the kind (or even hint at it.)

I'm not saying that the story isn't true. I'm just saying that it would be nice if all the people talking about it would link it so that the rest of us could read the entire piece and see what the entire statements were.

And there were other things holding up aid relief.

Citing Rep. Charlie Melancon's (D-LA) chief of staff, a September 3 New Orleans Times-Picayune article reported that crews were unable to deliver three tons of food for hurricane survivors in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish and Algiers Point on September 2, as "air traffic was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans." The food, secured by Melancon and Bob Odom, Louisiana's agriculture commissioner, "baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana," according to the Times-Picayune. A September 2 Associated Press article reported the difficulty Melancon had in contacting Bush regarding federal aid for refugees in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes and also noted Melancon's claim that the restriction on air traffic hindered getting aid to those parishes. According to the AP:

In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.

"I thank the president for his visit today, but it was more show than substance," Melancon said. "Frankly, we needed action days ago."

Another September 2 AP article cited a paramedic who reported that helicopters transporting sick and injured refugees to a makeshift treatment center at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport were "stopped" upon Bush's arrival, though the AP did not indicate the duration or effect of their grounding. According to the AP: "Helicopters flying patients in for treatment were stopped Friday when President Bush arrived. But the president didn't enter the airport, which swelled with armed guards during his visit, [paramedic James] Teague said."

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/print076556.html

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_CONGRESSMAN?SITE=MIDTF&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-02-22-38-44

http://www.journal-news.com/local/content/gen/ap/OH_Katrina_Ohioans.html

And everybody's fave wingnut, Pat Robertson, seems to believe that the trashing of NO has a really good side.

From the September 1 edition of CBN's The 700 Club:

LEE WEBB (CBN News anchor): And back here at home, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will be introduced by a Republican and Democrat when his confirmation hearings begin next Tuesday in Washington. USA Today reports Virginia Republican John Warner and Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh will appear with Roberts. It's viewed as a positive symbolic boost for Roberts. The nominee is from Bayh's state of Indiana. Bayh, though, says he hasn't decided whether he will vote for Roberts, but many moderate Democrats are expected to support him. Liberal senators like Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer have criticized Roberts. And now, let's go back over to Terry with more of the Club.

TERRY MEEUWSEN (co-host): And this is an important time for us to remember to be praying for what's happening with regard to the judicial system, because it's so easy to forget that in light of the --

ROBERTSON: That's right.

MEEUWSEN: -- situation that's happening south of us.

ROBERTSON: Well, in a sense, they say it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Out of this tragedy, the focus of America is going to be on these victims, and inflamed rhetoric in the United States Senate is just not going to play well now because this is a time of healing and compassion and reaching out to people, and if they start going on a vendetta against Roberts in the Senate, it's just going to hurt them. And I think they know that, so, I mean, Judge Roberts can, maybe, you know, be thankful that a tragedy has brought him some good.

There are numerous reasons why I don't (and most of America) do not blame Bush for the lack of response to the New Orleans crisis. One is simply that it's happened in New Orleans in a way that it hasn't happened to the other major cities that were devastated by Katrina. The state and city government is accountable for holding back the Red Cross and diverting food and supplies away from the Superdome. It was the state and city government which had an evacuation plan that it failed to implement. Bush, observing the powers alotted to the states, called Governor Blanco and asked her to declare what she needed to to allow him to send in the guard and she did not do so quick enough.

And this business about there not being enough Nat'l Guard for this crisis is also pap. The Nat'l Guard have been the most efficient part of the recovery thus far. Nobody directly involved with this is lamenting a lack of manpower in that area. Only leftist pundits.

"Bush, observing the powers alotted to the states, called Governor Blanco and asked her to declare what she needed to to allow him to send in the guard and she did not do so quick enough."

Again, total BS that's been debunked over and over and over again. Aug. 26th wasn't quick enough? It was more then a day before Katrina's eye even hit NO and a full week before Bush and Co. seemed to actually start acting like it really mattered to them. What, she was supposed to do it before the storm came into the gulf so Bush could get his photo ops together? Maybe you fell she should have reserved the time a month in advance.

One of the reasons I like to pop in here every once in a while is to read the sheer, seething and totally irrational hatred for Bush that comes up on my screen. Mostly for a good laugh. But today is a bit different because the accusations toward him are being flung before we've even collected all the bodies. This is an absolutely HUGE disaster. And to look at it in hindsight before it's even close to being over and trying to somehow correlate this to a Bush failure would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic. Bush Opponents were trying to tell us that Bush orchestrated the hurricane first (through not signing Kyoto and by "not doing enough" about global warming). Then he "planned" for the levies to break. The simple fact of the matter is that Bush Opponents will use ANYTHING they can grope for and try to somehow pin it on Bush. It has been a constant ever since he has had the position of President. I believe most people have seen it happen too many times now to not have started anticipating it, and rejecting it... as evidenced by a recent USAToday poll (a poll source that most Bush Opponents seem to trust) that stated that only 13% of those polled believe Bush is responsible for the tragedy and its level of poor response. But I'd like to continue seeing more of this irrationality and hatred. So, please continue! :)

DW

A rather outraged friend of mine was going off on The Shrub's lack of response time just last week. She was saying how after the 3-Mile Island disaster, Jimmy Carter was there the next day, in a radiation suit, touring the building to survey the situation. Meanwhile, it took our president 3 days to put down the Nintendo long enough to see what the fuss was about in NO.

For the last few years, I've been hearing apologists giving mutually exclusive excuses for the president's lack of response time. Like the president is "Never REALLY on vacation, he's always at work." Then I hear "The president delegates things like this so he doesn't have to be at the ready 24/7" when it came to the 9/11 disaster and the excuse for him not reacting fast enough when he had a more pressing photo op reading to a bunch of schoolkids. (And the other one "Would you rather he panicked a bunch of schoolkids?" Hey, what's wrong with someone simply saying "Sorry, the president can't read "Phil the Foofy Bunny" to you today, he's got important president things to do"? How would THAT have panicked the kids?) So, which excuse is it?

Not blaming Bush for the hurricane, but simply for his apparent lack of decisive, timely action. Applying both standard excuses given doesn't exactly inspire confidence either way. Either he was "On the job 24/7, even on vacation" and simply didn't think it worth the time to respond faster, or he "delegated the decision" on whether or not he should act to someone else, who dropped the ball. Either one of those scenarios give you a warm, fuzzy feeling of comfort? I don't care who the president is or which political party he belongs to. If a disaster befalls the country he's supposed to be in charge of, whose people he's supposed to represent and protect, then by God I want to see someone who can take charge at the drop of a hat.

Finally, it was interesting to hear people say "I wonder when they'll start blaming Clinton for not doing enough to stop hurricanes". The current sound bite I'm seeing in the news stories is the current bereaucrats at all levels are saying that the fund for the levees has been a "Favorite target for fund cuts of ALL administrations, so don't blame us", even though it's seen some of it's biggest cuts in it's history lately. More disturbing is the report that the Army Corps of engineers proposed a study to determine how best to protect New Orleans in just this sort of situation, given all the warnings about how the city couldn't handle even a moderate hurricane. And the current administration told them that such a study was "Unnecessary".

You know what... I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know if this study would have done any good, and this isn't "Hindsight criticism"... But I believe in "Better safe than sorry" and I honestly don't see how a STUDY on HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE SAFER could have made the situation any worse. Whatever paper-pusher dismissed this study as "Unnesessary" should have his bacon frying in a very big pan right now. Why? If someone running a company refuses to fund a study on how to make his building safer, and it collapses and kills hundreds, he's liable for not taking all the steps necessary to ensure safety. People who make these kinds of decisions that could affect people's lives down the line have NO problem turning down proposals like this because for the most part, they're insulated from any consequences. If we hold the people running things to the same standards that those of us in the public sector are held to, maybe some people will start covering their butts more by doing what's RIGHT and not what's best for them.

The Red Cross link:

I can't find it and no one seems to be posting it. I keep hearing about the story but no one is giving out a link. The Red Cross homepage doesn’t have anything that stands out and the articles I've read don't say anything of the kind (or even hint at it.)

I'm not saying that the story isn't true. I'm just saying that it would be nice if all the people talking about it would link it so that the rest of us could read the entire piece and see what the entire statements were.

Well I don't know if you consider this "anything that stands out" but on the red Cross homepage I found the following:
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html
Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Meanwhile, the few reporters who bothered with the story kept getting it wrong--confusing the Homeland Security agency in Washington with the unrelated State Agency. So this one guy did the unthinkable--he called up the Red Cross!
http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/2005/09/another_katrina_1.html

Yesterday I called the National Affairs office of the Red Cross (202-303-5551) and talked with Red Cross spokesperson Lesly Simmons, who told me that the shipment was not turned away by the US Dept of Homeland Security, but by this agency:

The Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (LHLS & EP); formally the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP), was created by the Civil Act of 1950 and is under the Louisiana Military Department.

Ms. Simmons also told me that the Red Cross has never mentioned any involvement in this incident by FEMA, because FEMA wasn't involved. But lazy reporters and partisan Democrats eager to pin as much blame as they can for any mishaps or screw-ups in the wake of this tragedy on the federal government (Read: George W. Bush) can't be bothered with facts that don't fit their agenda.

Lastly, there is a video you can download here (http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/08/garretredcross/) that actually has the president of the Red cross, as well as a rep from the Salvation Army, confirming that state officials deliberately kept them from delivering food to the superdome. (The reporting is from Fox News so some of you may choose to disregard it.)

You'd think this would be a bigger story...I'm sure there must be a perfectly good explanation why it isn't.

"She was saying how after the 3-Mile Island disaster, Jimmy Carter was there the next day, in a radiation suit, touring the building to survey the situation."

It's interesting that you should bring this up. Carter was a former navigation officer on a nuclear submarine, and was thus well aware that there was nothing to fear from touring 3-Mile Island. The toxic soup that saturates NO is by far more dangerous.

DW

"It's interesting that you should bring this up. Carter was a former navigation officer on a nuclear submarine, and was thus well aware that there was nothing to fear from touring 3-Mile Island. The toxic soup that saturates NO is by far more dangerous."

The only area that poses any possible serious danger is New Orleans proper, and other flooded areas. There are plenty of areas where the waters had receded come Wednesday, or even Tuesday. Suggesting that the situation may have been too dangerous for the President to safely visit is nothing more than making an excuse.

"It's interesting that you should bring this up. Carter was a former navigation officer on a nuclear submarine, and was thus well aware that there was nothing to fear from touring 3-Mile Island. The toxic soup that saturates NO is by far more dangerous."

SO? The point is when there was a disaster, Carter was on the job, while bush continued his vacation for another 4 days.

And have you all forgotten what happened when Carter visited? The way the radiation caused him to grow at an uncontrolable rate becoming...THE AMAZING COLLOSAL PRESIDENT!!!

He was big, I'll tell you that, he was a big guy. I tell you he was so big, I saw him sitting in the George Washington bridge dangling his feet in the water! He was a big guy! He was so big that when two girls made love to him at the same time, they never met each other! He was a big guy, you know what I mean? Why he could have had an affair with the Lincoln Tunnel! I mean, he was really big! He was a big guy!

On the lighter side: A Japanese weatherman says that hurricane Katrina was caused by the Yukuza

http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn1050908J5463.html

To paraphrase Robertson "Someone should take Bush out". First-he steals an election. Second-he takes out the Twin Towers(due to his incompetence). Third-he creates a hurricane to take out part of the US. Fourth-he blows up the levees to make sure the flooding destroys many cities. Fifth-as a racist, he makes sure black people in a predominately black area are not saved quick enough. When I hear that one person has so much power, I'm glad I have no interest in politics. Because as I listen to all of you bitch and moan about the other party, I am surprised we haven't destroyed ourselves yet. I did say 'yet'.

"It's not a game" -PAD

Peter, would you please pass that on to your liberal friends who want to take advanages of tragedies, like this to further their politcal power? I know democrats are exempt from even the hint of playing political games, and everyone should hate Bush as much as you do, but it seems to me that you may missing something.

Chummer, don’t bitch that the Democrats are exploiting tragedy unless you’re willing to hold Republicans to the same standard. They uncorked the genie playing political power games with 9/11. If Republicans whine that Democrats aren’t taking the high road when they’ve been playing tunnel rat for years, they have no one save themselves to blame.

One more thing, I'm a little confused by your logic: You say Bush is playing "game" because the administration has stated it doesn't want to play the "Blame game". Their desire to "Not Play" would mean they are ar NOT playing a game, but are taking it seriously. I would take their statement as to mean that they are suggesting some people may be treating this situation like a "game". If I say "I don't want to play monopoly", would you then accuse me of "playing monopoly"?

You’re not confused. You’re being intentionally obtuse. The fact that Bush and his underlings have insisted on not playing the “blame game” while still finding time to blame local officials for everything suggests politicking as usual. (My favorite example was a high muckety-muck of the Department of Homeland Defense who essentially said it was New Orleansians’ fault because they knew they were living in a soup bowl below sea level. That’s akin to saying that the victims of 9/11 should have known that the World Trade Center was a prime terrorist target, ‘cause, hey, it was hit before.) Quite frankly, considering the amount of double talk, equivocation, and manufactured talking points this administration produces on such a regular level, I’m disinclined to believe that the Pope was Catholic if this administration pronounced it so. Considering how quickly, the “blame game” meme spread through conservative circles, yes, I think the Bush administration is indeed playing political games as usual. And as has been said before, assigning accountability is not a game, it’s simply the responsible thing to do.

I think the president should have gone in sooner, but the govenor of Louisianna needed to sign off, and she had to think things over, so he couldn't. Bush's mistake was letting her think too long. I know liberals think the federal government should be all powerful, but until you guys burn the constitution there will have to be a system to be followed. The funny thing is liberals love bureaucracy, which is what hindered things in NO and after we have all these hearing and committees we will end up with an even larger bureaucracy in place.

Oh, bullshit. It’s been stated before and worth mentioning again that the LA governor asked well in advance for help but didn’t get much response. The fact it took days, rather than hours for Bush to respond suggests his indifference to suffering. And considering that Bush himself instituted a huge bureaucracy with the utterly feckless Department of Homeland Security, well by your standards he must be a closet flaming liberal.

Oh, Peter why don't you look up how all the levies are managed in NO, what politcal persons are responsible for each levy, and the steps needed to go through to do anything to a levy? Or don't look it up as it might make it a little harder to hate Bush so much (and since he is the devil lets not give him any benefit of the doubt).

Oh, Randy, why can’t you take a step back from your dogmatism and accept that Bush fucked a goodly amount of shit up, the most (?) dramatic of which was replacing a competent head of FEMA with a clueless crony? The biggest problem I have with a good portion of the current political right is their utter inability to criticize the president even when he is clearly wrong. (Or for that matter, adopt any position or philosophy that isn’t lockstep with what’s been duly approved by the gods on high at the RNC.) The fact that you insist that Bush did absolutely nothing wrong (except spuriously suggest that he didn’t move fast enough because the governor of Louisiana wouldn’t let him) tells me you are blinded with partisan blinders.

Take them off, please. You’ll be amazed how much more you’ll be able to see.

One of the reasons I like to pop in here every once in a while is to read the sheer, seething and totally irrational hatred for Bush that comes up on my screen.

Sorry, friend. Mostly, you'll only find totally rational hatred for Bush and his works here.

:)

I recommend going to Ted Rall's site if you want something more (but not completely) less rational.

After Hurricane Betsy hit in 1965 (go ahead and Google it, I won't spoon feed you), if the city officials of N.O. had spent as much $$$ on shoring up the levees as they did on corruption, them folks would still be doing just fine...speaking as someone who grew up on Palmer near Tulane.

Does anyone seriously think that if a Democrat was in office the same fucking things would have happened?/

This is about A)it not being an election year, therefore there was no need to make sure as many people as possible were happy with Bush(as was the case in 2004 in Florida) and B) general bureaucratic nightmarish BS.

Neither of which is a Republican specific problem. Democrats are just as easily caught up in expediency during an election year, the cronyism that lead to a FEMA director with no credentials AND they're even worse at being overly optimistic about things in general.

Mayhap, but a President Gore wouldn’t have replaced James Witt with someone who managed to beat the Peter Principle and a President Kerry wouldn’t have kept Michael Brown as head of FEMA.

And as for being overly optimistic, I don't think Democrats are necessarily that generally, but they can be on specific issues.

As for the article wishing there were stories about Bush losing his shit over this.

Do you want a President who will panic and lose his shit over things or one that's calm and collected.

Well, Bush isn't acting calm and collected; he’s acting callous and aloof. What that article was asking for was a human response from the President, rather than what was displayed. I’d expect sorrow, determination, and firm leadership. Instead, I get a someone acting like an overgrown fratboy cracking jokes and commerserating with a millionaire over his lost house while not giving even a superficial nod to ruined lives of tens if not hundreds of thousands of “everday” Americans.

I've no love for Bush, but most of this would have been the same under a Democrat, don't fool yourselves, Democrats aren't any more competant or any less corrupt and lazy.

I’m hard pressed to imagine that any other administration could equal the heights of incompentance, corruption, and foot-dragging that this one has achieved.

But we won't do that, because you people are so fucking attached to your political parties that we'll never get rid of them, no matter how corrupt and ineffectual they are.

And yet, you're defending Bush at the same time?

Is your attention span that short, or is it easier to bitch about everybody else, and that you just won't admit you actually support Bush?

You know, Darin, what's even more funny than the "irrationality and hatred" for Bush is your efforts to constantly make the Dems look like the bad guys.

So we were rushing to blame Bush? No, sorry, a lot more of us were trying to help the refugees. Those of us who couldn't help tried to go on with our day to day business like everything was fine, then rushed to the TV to see if anything had been done yet.

I personally listened to both the right and the left side, and I heard a number of things. Most of the general failings of the deployment of FEMA and the National Guard are posted in the links of posts that are extremely well researched, and you may look at them if you think you can handle information that conflicts with what you think is true.

On the other hand, the right-wing counterarguments (I'll be polite and not refer to them as "smear tactics") were utterly nasty.

Let's see...the people who stayed in the hurricane's path should be fined for wasting the government's time(Rick Santorum [1]), black people lacked "natural judgement" (http://vdare.com/sailer/050903_new_orleans.htm), and other such tripe.

Oh, and according to a CBS News Poll, only 38% of those polled said Bush did a good job. On a recent Zogby poll, he managed to get to 40%. So apparently all those liberals who blame Bush for everything are in the minority right now...

I seem to remember an earlier comment, around November, to the tune of "The people have spoken, so quit whining." I say the same applies here. The people have spoken, and Bush mishandled the crisis.

[1]"I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."
Sen. Rick Santorum
Interview with WTAE-TV CH 4 in Pittsburgh
September 4, 2005

One of the reasons I like to pop in here every once in a while is to read the sheer, seething and totally irrational hatred for Bush that comes up on my screen. Mostly for a good laugh. But today is a bit different because the accusations toward him are being flung before we've even collected all the bodies. This is an absolutely HUGE disaster. And to look at it in hindsight before it's even close to being over and trying to somehow correlate this to a Bush failure would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic. Bush Opponents were trying to tell us that Bush orchestrated the hurricane first (through not signing Kyoto and by "not doing enough" about global warming). Then he "planned" for the levies to break. The simple fact of the matter is that Bush Opponents will use ANYTHING they can grope for and try to somehow pin it on Bush. It has been a constant ever since he has had the position of President. I believe most people have seen it happen too many times now to not have started anticipating it, and rejecting it... as evidenced by a recent USAToday poll (a poll source that most Bush Opponents seem to trust) that stated that only 13% of those polled believe Bush is responsible for the tragedy and its level of poor response. But I'd like to continue seeing more of this irrationality and hatred. So, please continue! :)

And please continue your manufacturing of straw men, so Democrats and independents have sterling confirmation of how idiotic some Bush support can be.

Now, the rest of us with functioning brain cells (both from the right and from the left) can look at what actually did and did not happen. There's nothing irrational about hating FEMA folks who kept National Guardsman waiting outside Louisiana DESPITE the request of both the New Mexico AND Louisiana governors. And there's nothing idiotic about being angry about rescue helicopters being held up by extraneous paperwork or firefighters being kept from search and rescue so they can hand out flyers and attend sexual harassment seminars.

Unless you think that's just craven Bush bashing....

By the way, folks, you just might note that if you want the anti-fed/FEMA threads (which are not the same as Bush bashing), keep on insisting that it's all the fault of the state and local authorities. That'll inspire folks to bring up instances of FEMA and federal idiocies, of which there are many instances, to counter that statement, which means they won't be looking at state and local malfeasance (of which there was quite a bit).

That'll form a nice feedback loop to reinforce the very thing that you say that you're decrying.

I just love how the right keeps declaring 'the failure of the evacuation'. I ask what failure? 1.2 million people left before the storm hit. 1,200,000 some people left in a 48 hour period and that is a failure?!!! Even the discovery channel special tonight called that an unbelievable success. On CNN they said that it was estimated that 100,000 residents did not have the ability to get out according to the planning estimates. Yet in the end all estimates I'm hearing over the last week they were well below that 100,000 total when Katrina hit. How much will only be known when the bodies are counted.

And there is just the fact that no evacuation will ever be 100% successful because people are stubborn idiots who at times just won't budge. I had a friend in NO, he packed up his step son and wife and shipped them a state away but insisted he would ride out the storm in their condo. Not because he had no way out but because he was too f*ing stubborn. He's out and says he wished he had left with the family, but even intelligent successful business owners don't always use their brains no matter how they are begged.

So I call the evacuation a success. Could a few more have gotten out if the plans had been better implemented, sure, no doubt but we are human and falliable and 100% is totally unrealsitic.

On the levee system, it is a benefit and a curse. NO sits on what was once a regenerating flood plane at the mouth of the Mississippi river. Think swamp and you aren't far off. The soil in this area is highly unstable, and loosely packed. The trouble with NO and the surrounding areas and something that the residents decided to "fix" was that this area is very similar to Vinece, Itally. Over the years their buildings sunk into the ground as it compacted due to their activities and the river would flood the area and renew the ground by dumping additional seddiment in the area.

When NO was built it was I believe about 50 miles inland if I remember right and outside of that 50 miles there were also the barrier islands. All renewable land brought about by the flooding of the river and depositing of seddiment before it exists into the Gulf proper.

The trouble is now with the levees and the constant dredging of the river to keep shipping lanes open the barrier islands and the land that stretched out from NO is no being renewed by periodic flooding of the river. Because of this NO is now probably 20 feet below river level as the ground dries out and the earth compacts. If it wasn't for the levees, the barrier islands would still exist as a force to deprive hurricanes of their force. Hitting islands a hundred miles out and land 50 miles out would have deprived Katrina of much of it's fuel before hitting inhabited areas , as it happened Katrina didn't have much between it and the city so it struck without being deprived of much fuel.

At this point NO does not need to be abandoned but south of NO the river should be cut free to once again rebuild the flood lands and barrier islands that protected NO for nearly 300 years.

On the subject of Shrub, how much longer is the right going to makeexcuses for this guys complete incopetance? The irony is while they whine about the way the left is portraying Bush, they forget they treated Clinton far worse for far less and spent millions trying to turn his private sex life into an impeachable offense.

How totally domestic the days of a sex scandle look all these years later. Give me womanizing over this incompetent. I never thought about it but everything from 1-30-2001 to now has been a giant domino fall. For the first time in it's history, instead of appointing knowledgable prepared people to run FEMA, FEMA became the dumping ground of political pay offs, which was usually limited to the trade department in the past. Shrub ignores terrorist warnings so post 9-11 suddenly we need a department of homeland security which once again is staffed with people without a clue... But it gets worse. In the days that follow, it must have been the intelligence departments fault for 9-11 so they have to be shoved under HLS control, at the same time FEMA is being shoehorned in there with them. As we go to war and learn of the big lie, shrub plays the blame game and it must have been the CIA's fault for the bad intell, even though that is being proven incorrect. The CIA was working fine, it was the Whitehouse that had no brains. So now we have an intelligence division that is being litterally dismanteled and brushed under the rug for their supposed "failure" of correct intel. Then comes Katrian, thus proving that all the changes that were implemented to supposedly fix the problems that led to 9-11 have all been for naught and we are probably in worse shape than we were on 9-10-01. All due to someone who says he's protecting us, yet every move he has made has just made us weaker and more vulnerable . Putting a guy in charge of FEMA that was fired by a horse society... God help us. It is totally ironic that it took Clinton's FEMA chief and a plea from the governor to get the FEMA control center up and running...

On the Shrubs response, isn't it funny he can immediately leap into action in an attempt to sustain the life of a brain dead woman, but a hurrican isn't allowed to interfer with his vacation.

On an earlier question, no we don't need a president that falls apart during a tragedy, what we do need is a president who takes a disaster as seriously and leaps to the ready as fast as he did for a brain dead, beyond any help woman.

On the statment "don't blame, fix it". Sorry but in this instance blame needs to be assigned and heads need to roll because evidently it was the leaders who caused the problem in the first place. Do you seriously think someone who was fired by a horse society has the ability to fix something like this. And how do you trust the person who appointed such a person on the basis of a political payback to fix it along with that person. I don't and CEOs of corporations have been fired for far less.

Bush once stated that he would run the government like a business, well in that case, it's time for him to resign because he and his appointees are incompentants who should not be trusted to fix anything since all they have done is make things worse.

Oh this is hilarious, FEMA just announced that we shouldn't trust information on their own website. Looks like a resume was heavily padded... If they can't make sure a simple resume that was posted on their own fracking website was correct, and exactly who provided that information, they why should we trust anything they say? Wow which idiot issued that statment, 'don't trust what you read on our website'...

And the incopetance go on and on and on....

"Mayhap, but a President Gore wouldn’t have replaced James Witt with someone who managed to beat the Peter Principle and a President Kerry wouldn’t have kept Michael Brown as head of FEMA."

And your source of this devine information is...? Please post a list or a link to the names and positions either Gore or Kerry would have nominated for positions in their administrations.

She was saying how after the 3-Mile Island disaster, Jimmy Carter was there the next day, in a radiation suit, touring the building to survey the situation. Meanwhile, it took our president 3 days to put down the Nintendo long enough to see what the fuss was about in NO.

OTOH, some people were complaining that Bush's visit hindered relief efforts, because food couldn't be delivered while AF1 was in the air. A tour is style of substance. To just say "he should be there to see it" is a touchy-feely move. It's not a bad one, but that's still what it is.

As far as what he was DOING, he asked the governor and mayor to declare a mandatory evacuation before the hurricane hit, he declared a state of emergency before it was hit, he declared the area a disaster the afternoon of the storm, he asked Blanco to federalize the disaster relief on Friday, etc. In other words, he was doing what the president does - releasing money and people. I'm not sure how he was "disengaged" from it -except in the minds of people who want to find a reason to criticize him. There have absolutely been problems, IMO at all levels not just the federal level.

Bottom line: this is a disaster of biblical proportion - much, much worse than any other disaster this country has had to deal with. No other disaster in modern times has forced an entire city to have to relocate. Mistakes will be made, things will not happen as quickly as we'd like, and it's heartbreaking.

At my software company, we've already got people requesting interviews, and we're doing what we can. We've got people with family staying with them that we want to help. No help really seems adequate, though. I think that's why so many on all sides are reacting to the ineffieciencies of the relief effort.

I think the big lesson that can be learned here, by persons on both sides of the poltical spectrum, is that if you depend on government for something this important, you're very likely to be disappointed.

DW

Those who do not want to play the Blame Game, ARE TO BLAME. Better words about this situation have never been spoken.
Now, all you people supporting the decisions made by the Federal Goverment and the President, I'd like to play another game with, called the Shame Game. Do you people have any shame? Isn't there a point where you look at the LOOOONNNGGG list of what went wrong, what was said in the aftermath (Convention Center comments), and the general reactions of our Leaders and go "Okay, they messed up bad, people are dying because of what they failed to do, I want some sort of accountability". Looking at this situation, how the hell can you still stand up for these guys after all thats been reported? As of right now over 2/3rds of the country think the President, Brown, and the Department of Homeland security f'ed up bigtime. Why cant you people drop your blind support and agree that theres a double standerd when it came to responding to this disaster? Seriously, dont you have any Shame?

Bill,

Thanks. At least now I can read the thing.

For the first time in it's history, instead of appointing knowledgable prepared people to run FEMA, FEMA became the dumping ground of political pay offs, which was usually limited to the trade department in the past.

In all fairness, it was considered a dumping ground under Reagan and Bush I, too. Clinton was the first and only president to something radical like staff it with professionals with actual emergency management experience.

Bush once stated that he would run the government like a business, well in that case, it's time for him to resign because he and his appointees are incompentants who should not be trusted to fix anything since all they have done is make things worse.

Given how many businesses he'd run into the ground, shouldn't this have been our first warning?

In other words, he was doing what the president does - releasing money and people. I'm not sure how he was "disengaged" from it -except in the minds of people who want to find a reason to criticize him.

One rule of politics that I thought Bush understood is perception = reality. With a disaster of biblical proportions, people also need the president to project the image that he's engaged. For him to stay on vacation and then put unrelated photo ops in Colorado and California ahead of at the very least, making a statement about the hurricane creates the image that he isn't all the engaged. Then, on his first visit, his appearance consisted of making a joke about getting hammered at mardi gras and looking forward to Trent Lott's new porch. His loose, easy going manner was completely inappropriate to the seriousness of the situation.

I don't really care if the president cries or "loses it" in the face of the tragedy, but he should at least project the image that he's taking the problem seriously.

Then there was the utter cluelessness of "Brownie" who apparently learned about the people in the Superdome from CNN. For Bush to publicly say to this guy that he's "doing a heck of a job" again, shows a complete disengagedment from not only the seriousness of the situation, but reality itself.

Jerry,

No problem. . At this point there's so much info out there it's getting harder and harder to separate the good from the bad. It's funny how, more than ever, the opportunity to get to the truth is available but the ability to do so is ever more elusive.

A few new bits of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09military.html?ei=5090&en=aa642b8c89c27c01&ex=1283918400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1126238795-dGCl9WlaN8lbkCHBy9hw2w&pagewanted=print

The NYT is no Friend of George but the article does not paint a terribly flattering light of Gov. Blanco. Some excerpts:

officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

This should be addressed in the future. Not every city has New York City Cops and Firefighters. The fact that so many New Orleans cops failed to rise to the occasion is no surprise to those who know New Orleans (and those cops who DID do their jobs above and beyond the call of duty deserve special praise--it's esier to be heroic when evryone around you is doing the same).

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.

While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.

You'll never get them to admit it but the dailykos moveon.org crowd would have burst blood vessels in outrage had Bush taken over. I think it would have gone something like this...

Smirky McChimpface just couldn't wait to shove aside a Democratic woman leader so he could hog all the glory. Sure he sent in the National Guard--that's Shrub for you! Attack attack attack! Probably couldn't WAIT to get the chance to shoot black people! My God, first we have the Patriot Act and now this! I hope all of you lickspittle conservative lackies feel properly stupid--we TOLD you that the military takeover of the United States of Amerikkka was about to happen! And did you notice that he staged his coup AFTER the New York Times and other reputable news organizations reported that Katrina had mostly missed New Orleans? Yet right after he called in the jackboots the levees mysteriously "burst". You have to be awfully naive to believe that they survived the hurricane but broke just in time to justify Adolph W Bush's putsch.

Or something like that. But I could be wrong.

Back to the news. Paul Krugman says that

The Daily Howler will suddenly have a lot fewer friends, I suspect:
But alas! We learned a sad fact from Katrina last week. Despite all the excited talk about the way we’re “reality based,” our liberal elites are increasingly vacuous—empty, stupid, dim and shrill, committed to loud, self-satisfied ranting and too inept—too self-involved—to traffic in trivial things like facts. What are the facts about last week’s reaction? Was FEMA’s reaction historically slow? We would guess that review of these facts would tend to promote progressive interests. But we’ve yet to see any real attempt to review past federal reaction to storms. Loud-mouthed liberals are calling folk names, something we simply love to do (it feels very good). But the facts are hard to find, about this and many other topics.

But then, all across the landscape last week, we saw the dank waters of freeper creep invading the once-pristine liberal web. Progressives and liberals name-called freely and bungled facts—helping to doom progressive interests. We can be just as dumb as they have long been, our excited liberal leaders seemed to cry. Why have progressive interests foundered? Why do the poor just keep getting poorer? We thought we got a good idea as we saw these dank waters spread left.

Investors Business Daily has some harsh words about the idea that FEMA was a model of efficiancy under Clinton and has been dragged down by Bush:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20

Hillary Clinton says FEMA was more effective when her husband was president. The victims of Hurricane Floyd might venture a different opinion, and it wasn't FEMA that kept supplies from the Superdome.

...Just ask the tens of thousands of people left stranded up and down the Eastern Seaboard by Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
"We're starting to move the trailers in," said then-FEMA director and current Hillary favorite James Lee Witt, nearly a month after Floyd first hit. "It's been so wet, it's been difficult to get things in there" — an explanation that sounds familiar.

Many have called for the head of FEMA Director Mike Brown. But Bill Clinton's choice to be Southwest Regional FEMA director in 1993 was even less qualified, earning his job handling disaster recovery of a different sort.

Raymond "Buddy" Young, a former Arkansas state trooper, got his choice assignment after leading efforts to discredit other state troopers in the infamous Troopergate scandal. If a storm like Katrina struck the Big Easy back then, Young would've been in charge.

On Aug. 27, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was asked at a press conference what could be done to avert disaster. Her pathetic answer was, "We can pray hard that the intensity will weaken." That was Louisiana's disaster-recovery plan.

I can only imagine the response of the Reality Based Community if that had been Haley Barbour's reply. ("Hey Haley! How about you unclasp those hands and use them to call up some bus drivers!"

I, for one, look forward to the hearings. Yes, they will be used for cheap political gain--that's already happening (a moveon.org ad targeting John Roberts somehow ties it in to Katrina victims; the Democratic Party had to remove a request for donations to the party from a petition blaming Bush for the crisis, pretty much anything coming out of Al Sharpton's mouth) but at least we will get it out in the open. There are reasons why the Astrodome is able to serve as a good shelter and the Superdome was not and we need to see to it that every city knows the difference.

The NYT is no Friend of George but the article does not paint a terribly flattering light of Gov. Blanco. Some excerpts:

Once again, I agree that Blanco and Nagin both screwed up their respective jobs, but I fail to see how that exonerates FEMA from their own screw ups.

"Mayhap, but a President Gore wouldn’t have replaced James Witt with someone who managed to beat the Peter Principle and a President Kerry wouldn’t have kept Michael Brown as head of FEMA."

And your source of this devine information is...? Please post a list or a link to the names and positions either Gore or Kerry would have nominated for positions in their administrations.

It’s a logical assumption. There’s no reason for Gore to have replaced a competent head of FEMA from the immediately preceding Democrat administration with someone else, and there is certainly no way that Kerry would have kept an unqualified Republican spoils-system beneficiary on the federal dole. (Whether or not Brown’s notional replacement would have been as qualified as his successor is another matter entirely, but IMHO I can’t imagine Kerry staffing the job with someone as hopelessly inept as the incumbent has.)

The thing is, there's going to be a voter reckoning for the mayor and the governor. Point all your fingers at them that you want, but unless you're a registered voter for them, your opinion won't matter. And it shouldn't. The voters (assuming there's even a New Orleans city left to be mayor over) of those jurisdictions will decide whether their elected officials should be held accountable.

Bush is another matter. This event has painfully exposed the risks of electing a sycophantic president. Granted, every president appoints his buddies and the people he's most familiar with to government positions. It's kind of one of the perks of the job. But with that power comes the responsibility to make sure that those folks are willing and capable of performing their duties, or to make sure that they've got the staff to cover for them. FEMA's problem, as CNN has been reporting, is that it's more than just Brown that's incompetant: Bush has seeded FEMA management with a bunch of his cronies, very few to none of whom have any prior experience with dealing with any sort of emergency situation. Add to that Brown's just general incompetance (reports are that he was asked to resign from his prior position, and audits of that arabian horse company have revealed gross mis-management) and FEMA is just a way for Bush to funnel taxpayer money into his friends' pockets. When the President's appointees do their jobs at least passable well, no one really cares that it's all people he knows. When they fail to ensure that their agencies are capable of carrying out their essential mission, I think it's time to start looking into criminal negligence on all levels.

I can tell you from personal experience that a government agency can still function and do its job even if the head of the agency is a complete incompetent. But from all reports, FEMA experienced a mass exodus of professionals after they were put under DHS and were replaced by Brownie clones. If middle management are just as clueless as the top position, then the agency is doomed.

Apparently, the Press has taken an active role in showing Mike Brown and the rest of FEMA as being inexsperienced. Its been on both CNN and MSNBC today. Hopefully, they wont let this drop. But I think when the death toll is actually announced, I doubt people will be so quick to let this story fade away.

BTW- Doesn't it seem odd, after a week, we dont have an actual number for the dead? After 9/11, we had that 3,000 estimate within 3 days. With this, we have reported numbers in places like Missisippi in the hundreds, but supposedly theres piles of Dead bodies in some areas of Nola. Supposedly, FEMA put in an order for 20,000 body bags.

"It’s a logical assumption. There’s no reason for Gore to have replaced a competent head of FEMA from the immediately preceding Democrat administration with someone else, and there is certainly no way that Kerry would have kept an unqualified Republican spoils-system beneficiary on the federal dole. (Whether or not Brown’s notional replacement would have been as qualified as his successor is another matter entirely, but IMHO I can’t imagine Kerry staffing the job with someone as hopelessly inept as the incumbent has.)"

Oh please. It wouldn't matter what party is in charge, appointments like this are always political favors. I am in no way defending the director of FEMA, in fact I'm waiting anxiously for this crisis to be over and for someone else to take charge of the agency.

"Oh please. It wouldn't matter what party is in charge, appointments like this are always political favors."

True, but at least under Clinton, his appointments for FEMA were qualified for the job.

"BTW- Doesn't it seem odd, after a week, we dont have an actual number for the dead? After 9/11, we had that 3,000 estimate within 3 days. With this, we have reported numbers in places like Missisippi in the hundreds, but supposedly theres piles of Dead bodies in some areas of Nola. Supposedly, FEMA put in an order for 20,000 body bags."

I actually don't see this as odd. Even before 9/11, large buildings had pretty decent security, and most companies would have individual security or some other way to log employees in and out of the office. Not to mention that the deaths were all pretty specific. Friends and relatives could report people as missing.

This is entirely different. The sheer number of people displaced, over 1.5 million, spread anywhere from Texas to Illinois, New York, Florida, and everywhere in between, makes tracking just the evacuees nigh impossible. Then you have to take into account that for many of the missing, all the people that could report them as missing might also be missing. Collecting the bodies alone is going to be a massive effort. Even more massive than that is the identification of them. We might never know the actual number of people killed in this event.

When the President's appointees do their jobs at least passable well, no one really cares that it's all people he knows.

Nor should we care; it's competence we should be looking at first.

Certainly there are problems Nagin. And there are questions about Blanco, particularly about their communications and planning (The Florida plan on paper looks markedly better, and their real life execution was easily better, in that they took care of the old and inform in a much more effective way; nothing's going to help the stubborn and stupid, however). And there are definitely things to restructure at FEMA; even if the locals are incompetent, you really shouldn't be squabbling about it at the 11th hour. And you should be using your resources much more effectively--no excuses for all the red tape.

"I think the big lesson that can be learned here, by persons on both sides of the poltical spectrum, is that if you depend on government for something this important, you're very likely to be disappointed.

DW"

and what is the alternative? every man for himself? rescue for hire? or perhaps private enterprise paid for with tax dollars? corporations have more than their fair share of inept bureacracy too.

do you believe we shouldn't count on the government for national defense? isn't the military also too important to be left in the hands of the government?

"I can drive a bus. I do it occasionally for field trips and things. It's easy. Kind of like driving a car only taller."

I've never driven a bus, but I have driven several 16-ft moving trucks and I wouldn't characterize the experience "easy" - as a point of comparison, I find driving cars in Boston and NYC easy, the Autobahn was fun, and I once found myself in a pack of cars driving on the sidewalk in San Juan (interesting story).

"At any rate, excluding Halle Berry or Ted Kennedy, it's hard to imagine many drivers being a worse option than staying."

It only takes one crash to block an escape route and tie up emergency resources that could be used for other things (which supposedly happened in this instance).

"It was the state and city government which had an evacuation plan that it failed to implement."

As another poster pointed out, the evacuation from NO by most accounts was a success - essentially 90-95% of the people who could get out *did* get out. The problem was people who couldn't get out (poor, no car, sick, pets, or nowhere to go) and people who wouldn't get out (idiots).

Ultimately, disaster preparedness is first a local concern. New Orleans was not prepared. They had busses for evacuation, and they didn't use them. They had enough money to fix the levees, and they used it to build the Superdome instead. And when the predictable disaster hit, they had no workable plan. Their communications broke down horribly, they didn't know what to do, where to put people, etc.

So New Orleans dropped the ball, and it was going to be a huge mess regardless of who was president. Did FEMA and Bush handle it well? No. And this is not excusable. But there is a list of inexcusable decisions here, and it seems odd to focus on only one.

It was a great city, and this was a terrible tragedy.

Once again, I agree that Blanco and Nagin both screwed up their respective jobs, but I fail to see how that exonerates FEMA from their own screw ups.

It doesn't and I certainly did not suggest that it did. I'm on record as calling for the firing of Brown. the man never should have had the job in the first place.

True, but at least under Clinton, his appointments for FEMA were qualified for the job

Raymond "Buddy" Young?

I've never driven a bus, but I have driven several 16-ft moving trucks and I wouldn't characterize the experience "easy"

I don't see the problem. They are harder to park, certainly. You can't go 75 mph and expect to stop on a dime but why would you want to?

It only takes one crash to block an escape route and tie up emergency resources that could be used for other things (which supposedly happened in this instance).

true but I don't think that's as likely a problem as the undeniable reality of thousands dying and suffering because the buses did not run.

As another poster pointed out, the evacuation from NO by most accounts was a success - essentially 90-95% of the people who could get out *did* get out. The problem was people who couldn't get out (poor, no car, sick, pets, or nowhere to go) and people who wouldn't get out (idiots).

I heard it was closer to 80%. While we can't help the idiots, the vast majority of the remaining 20% should at least have had the opportunity to leave and with a little bit of planning they would have.

As another poster pointed out, the evacuation from NO by most accounts was a success - essentially 90-95% of the people who could get out *did* get out. The problem was people who couldn't get out (poor, no car, sick, pets, or nowhere to go) and people who wouldn't get out (idiots).

Well, that's the nub...the success of any evacuation plan is how it handles the people who can't voluntarily leave.

The Louisiana and New Orleans don't meet the grade; Florida's is demonstrably better, in that they have an ongoing database to keep track of the infirm and elderly (but they don't have provisions to forcibly remove the stupid and the stubborn....I'm not sure it'd be practical for anyone to handle those...)

Whenever I read discussions about what another president would have done in this situation, I think of tat old Saturday Night Live sketch that reinvented historical events, like, 'What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?' I personally don't give a shit what Clinton would have done, or Gore or Kerry. Let's deal with the here-and-now situation, rather than indulging in some Harry Turtledove-like alternate universe speculation. I don't care what Witt would have done if he was still in office. I only care about what Brownie the Wonder Horse did, and learning his facts from watching a TV broadcast suggests that maybe he's not all that plugged into unfolding events.

There's an interesting op-ed piece in today's NY Daily News, which is aptly titled 'Everyone's to Blame.' While I don't necessarily agree with every point it makes, it certainly points out that there's more than enough blame to go around. Which I think was one of the original points of this thread.

So New Orleans dropped the ball, and it was going to be a huge mess regardless of who was president. Did FEMA and Bush handle it well? No. And this is not excusable. But there is a list of inexcusable decisions here, and it seems odd to focus on only one.

Well, a few points. One, suppose FEMA did do their job well. The following discussion would be a hail of criticism of the local authorities; it wouldn't last as long because there'd be no real disagreement.

Two, the reason there's so much focus on the federal response is the implication it has for future events. Is this REALLY going to be the standard for future federal response to disaster and terrorism? That really SHOULD get a lot of discussion and attention.

Third, is that the focus of the administration over the past four years was on preparedness. That effort has now been shown to be inefficient and the money wasted. That's a concern for anyone and would have justified a withering array of criticism if it had been a Democratic president. Which renders any comment about "it wouldn't have been any better under a Democrat" to be null and void--it's a really stupid comment. You simply CANNOT have FEMA and Homeland Security be this ineffective and blockheaded in their behavior.

The bottom line is, "get the job done." And the job simply wasn't done here.

Lest we forget, the focus of Bush's reelection campaign was that we were safer with them in charge. Only they had the backbone to protect us and the will to make sure that we were prepared for any emergency.

As for evacuating the stupid, the only thing that will get them to leave is force and you know they'll be civil libertarians screaming about that. Maybe communities should focus on evacuating the old and disabled and let darwinism do it's job on the stupid.

There was nothing stopping bush from taking action earlier. He had the legal authority:

http://www.fema.gov/library/stafact.shtm#sec402

Lest we forget, the focus of Bush's reelection campaign was that we were safer with them in charge. Only they had the backbone to protect us and the will to make sure that we were prepared for any emergency.

"They never stop thinking of ways to harm America, and neither do we" GWB

"I only care about what Brownie the Wonder Horse did, and learning his facts from watching a TV broadcast suggests that maybe he's not all that plugged into unfolding events."

There's at least an argument to be made that he didn't learn of certain events by watching TV, but by being interviewed ON TV.

""They never stop thinking of ways to harm America, and neither do we" GWB"

I had forgotten this little slip. Almost scary, yes?

Brown was relieved of duty this morning. I've heard he was fired, but the news report doesn't seem to indicate that- just that he's going back to Washington.

Mike Brown was just removed from Katrina relief efforts. He's still, currently, the director of FEMA, but he's been sent back to Washington to "study" how to improve responses to future disasters. I turned on Fox News (!) to see how they'd react, and they said it was essentially a firing. "Perhaps a firing in stages," Chris Wallace went on to characterize. So, MAYBE, one of the incompetents will be removed - maybe the current intense scrutiny of FEMA will force the appointment of some experienced and competent leaders, and middle management, to the department?

Although, it turns out Brown DID have some experience on his resume. According to Time Magazine, in his only listed disaster-management experience, he claimed to be the assistant city manager of - "Edward"? Some small city - involved with disaster relief. Turns out, he was assistant TO the city manager - and not involved in disaster relief at all. Fox News reported all of this, as fact, not "liberal media accusations".

And apparently politicians on both sides have been critical of Brown. Let's hope we can enough bi-partisan cooperation to investigate all of those possibly neglilgent or incompetant in this disaster, from the local level on up.

(Oddly, I started writing my previous post before Mark L.'s appeared - I wasn't deliberately answering it, even though it ends up appearing that way.)

Forgot one point - the fact that FEMA _called a press conference_ to announce the fact that Brown was going back to Washington (a conference at which Brown was present, but not allowed to speak)was seen (I believe by Fox; otherwise, MSNBC) as an indication of the significance of this move as a statement against Brown.

Even though Brownie the Wonder Horse was just relieved of leadership responsibilities, I still maintain my original prediction at the beginning of this thread: nobody will be fired. Frankly, I wouldn't mind holding a high-paying government job where I no longer had to do any work. Nice pension, good benefits; leaves more time to kick back with the newest issue of Horse and Hound.

Ok, now this is starting to get insane: the latest bit of smack-your-head stupidity:

http://washtimes.com/upi/20050908-112433-4907r.htm

UPI
Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans

Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.
An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.
The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.
"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people.
"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.

Un-be-lievable.

Like most of the politicians in the New Orleans area, Lawson is a Democrat. I'll bet he'll get away with this because it's obvious that too many Democrats are unwilling to go off message, even if it means a few bastards skate.

So, to review: people were told to go to the superdome but the Red Cross and Salvation Army were kept from supplying it for fear that too many people would come. Then they were told to leave by bridges that, as it turned out, were closed by cops who had no intention of letting, you know, "those kind" of people through.

Yeah, if I were a Louisianna Democrat I'd want to see Bush get the blame too, because whatever his culpability turns out to be, there are some locals who should end up in jail. They'd better hope that the investigation gets bogged down in partisan politics.

Although, it turns out Brown DID have some experience on his resume. According to Time Magazine, in his only listed disaster-management experience, he claimed to be the assistant city manager of - "Edward"? Some small city - involved with disaster relief. Turns out, he was assistant TO the city manager - and not involved in disaster relief at all. Fox News reported all of this, as fact, not "liberal media accusations".

Brown is an idiot and needed to go...but Time Magazine may have screwed up this story.

http://www.edmondsun.com/articles/2005/09/09/front/front.txt

Claudia Deakins, Edmond's director of marketing and public relations, was quoted in the Time article as saying that Brown was not a manager but more like an intern. Brown was assistant to the city manager in Edmond from 1977-80.

However, this morning, Deakins disputes Time's quotes attributed to her.

"I spoke with two reporters from Time Magazine Thursday. I answered questions about the City of Edmond, the organizational structure and role of the city manager and his staff. My comments were in the context of the organization as it functions today. I explained that my employment with the city of Edmond began in 1997, several years after Michael D. Brown's employment by the city and that I could not speak to the specifics of the organizational structure as it was during that time. I also explained that I could not I speak to the details of Mr. Brown's role within the organization.

"The only people who can speak with authority with regard to Mr. Brown's position in the organization are those who were at the City of Edmond during that time and worked with Mr. Brown, such as the city manager or members of the city council.

"I regret any misunderstanding that may have occurred as a result of my comments."

Un-be-lievable.

Like most of the politicians in the New Orleans area, Lawson is a Democrat. I'll bet he'll get away with this because it's obvious that too many Democrats are unwilling to go off message, even if it means a few bastards skate.

So, to review: people were told to go to the superdome but the Red Cross and Salvation Army were kept from supplying it for fear that too many people would come. Then they were told to leave by bridges that, as it turned out, were closed by cops who had no intention of letting, you know, "those kind" of people through.

Yeah, if I were a Louisianna Democrat I'd want to see Bush get the blame too, because whatever his culpability turns out to be, there are some locals who should end up in jail. They'd better hope that the investigation gets bogged down in partisan politics.

Well, that's head #2, after Nagin.

Also, did someone mention that ALL THREE government disaster plans had no provision for a communications breakdown?

Ghah. There's a reason why they call it an emergency folks....

"Ok, now this is starting to get insane: the latest bit of smack-your-head stupidity:"

http://washtimes.com/upi/20050908-112433-4907r.htm

UPI
Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans

******************************

Damn. Remember my post way back when (Nworleens: September 2, 2005 09:43 PM) about the WTF breakdown by Shep Smith and Geraldo talking about how people who tried to leave the Dome on foot were being ordered to turn back into the city at gun point? That must be what they were talking about back then.

If all those guys were on scene and saw it back then; why did it take until now to start making the news?

I don't see the problem. [Buses] are harder to park, certainly.

... and harder to negotiate tight turns, and take longer to stop on slick roads, etc. There's a reason (at least in MA) that a CDL license is required to drive a bus.

Again, if there were qualified drivers ready and willing to drive the buses, then the NO city govt was grossly negligent. However, if there were not enough qualified drivers (which begs the question "why not?") I would certainly choose 'option A: direct the people to the shelter of last resort' over 'option B: put random drivers behind the wheels of a 5-ton school bus and trust them not screw up the escape routes.'

Looks like FEMA can do one thing right. And it adds yet another layer to the WWPRD question.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343813p-293471c.html

OK. Now this story comes out...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.redcross/index.html

...that throws doubt on the way the Red Cross story has been used and what has been said about it.

This version has the Red Cross not acting until day three, two days after food, water and relief were being brought in, and told to hold for 24 hours due to setting up a game plan to work them into it. By the end of the 24 hours they weren't needed.

Here's to hoping the recovery efforts for New Orleans get better oversight than the one for 9/11:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002482324_washlaxloans09.html

Sounds like the banking industry got very sloppy on this....

http://blamebush.typepad.com/

Hours of fun for all!!

"Again, if there were qualified drivers ready and willing to drive the buses, then the NO city govt was grossly negligent. However, if there were not enough qualified drivers (which begs the question "why not?") I would certainly choose 'option A: direct the people to the shelter of last resort' over 'option B: put random drivers behind the wheels of a 5-ton school bus and trust them not screw up the escape routes."

Actually, the pictures of buses that were never used is a wee bit misleading. The Gov. used the public transit bus lines to get people out before the storm hit.

The sound byte going around with him begging for buses to be sent down was recorded after the storm hit and after the people who didn't leave were now stuck.

I'll second the bus debate for the side of not just jumping in and driving. I had to help move one once. If you're on the open road or freeway then you're fine and dandy. If you're in a tight turn or on a smaller road/neighborhood area with lots of tight spots and turns and don't drive them for a living then you tend to be kinda dangerous behind the wheel. God knows we were.

"I think the big lesson that can be learned here, by persons on both sides of the poltical spectrum, is that if you depend on government for something this important, you're very likely to be disappointed.

DW"

"and what is the alternative? every man for himself? rescue for hire? or perhaps private enterprise paid for with tax dollars? corporations have more than their fair share of inept bureacracy too."

The statement was not meant to suggest an alternative for us to depend on. The government will not be the major source of relief and rebuilding in NO. It will be the people. It will be the people who are inviting "refugees" into their homes. It will be all those evil corporations (all of which are made up of people) like Starbucks giving and donating to the Red Cross. It will be those qualities found, not in government, but in the non-governmental people that contribute the most to recovering from this.

"do you believe we shouldn't count on the government for national defense?"

We depend on the military for that. The military is a tool of the government, but the military is not (at least in my view) "the government."

"isn't the military also too important to be left in the hands of the government?"

War is, I believe, often too important to be left in the hands of politicians.

Now I see that Bush is being blamed for FEMA tardiness... to do so, I think, would require forgetting that FEMA is not intended as a first response and that its response to the NO catastrophe was somewhat better than that of the Hurricane Hugo disaster. FEMA has never been a well-oiled, smooth-running organization, even when the Great Communicator was president.

DW

Even if New Orleans had the money to do something about the levees, the job has to be run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They are the ones who approve all major projects like these.

Fema had studied three possibilities of major disasters. One was another terrorist attack on NYC. Another was a major earthquake in California. And the third was a major hurricane in New Orleans. Even after they had studied the possibility, they still didn't know what to do in New Orleans. If it wasn't for the fact that the news channels were there to report what was happening, there would have been an even larger delay in assistance being provided.

Brown should be fired.
Chertoff should be fired.
Bush should resign.

Now I see that Bush is being blamed for FEMA tardiness... to do so, I think, would require forgetting that FEMA is not intended as a first response and that its response to the NO catastrophe was somewhat better than that of the Hurricane Hugo disaster.

Then they should get out of the way of the folks who ARE first responders. If there are offers from other governors to send National Guard, don't sit on it for for two days. If a hurricane's bearing down, don't squabble about org charts. If they have supplies like fresh water and food, and the first responders are asking for them, pre-position them and get them out as soon as the weather dies down.

"War is, I believe, often too important to be left in the hands of politicians."

are you intentionally quoting General Jack. T. Ripper?

though frankly, i think there's some validity to the sentiment.

The government WILL help. However, what the government can't do is force people to leave (otherwise the city of NO would have been 100% evacuated before the storm), nor can it have steady food and water for 25,000 people rolled into a city just 24 hours after the storm leaves it totally devastated.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the government shouldn't help, but people should try and take sensible precautions just in case a catastrophe hits.

The Christmas after 9/11, my sister got everyone in the family emergency food packs. It was a creative idea. There is enough for 2-3 days for all of us. Combined with some stored water, we're set for a few days in a real emergency - enough time for further help to come in (assuming a regional disaster and not a national one).

It's like insurance. You hope you don't need it, but you almost have to have it.

If all the Rock Stars & Hollywood Stars gave up their drug habits for a year and donated all that money to reputable charities to help rebuild New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and other towns on the Gulf Coast, well, that would be just super-tee-duper.

The good news is that the early searches are showing fewer dead than had been feared. We just have to hope that this holds up. The number will still be terrible.

While I think it's ridiculous (but predictable)that people want to blame Bush for every failure in this disaster, he will have to face serious desrved critisism over appointing cronies to FEMA. Today's Washington Post shows that Brown is no abberation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Especially after 9/11, this is no place to reward people for donations. There are plenty of needless government jobs out there that can take care of that.

Especially after 9/11, this is no place to reward people for donations.

Yeah, that's just staggering. Even if you believe FEMA should be restricted to after-the-fact coordination (which I do not), and that it should be integrated into Homeland Security (which I am undecided on), there's still the fact that in the wake of a terrorist attack, there's gonna be some hard work in the field that has to be done. You should have some capable people if you are the President leading the fight against terrorism.

It's as if the Bush team can think of only one response and one tactic to use against terrorism, and didn't bother to think of all the OTHER things you have to do as well. Come on, get your act together and use a little imagination!

I just read an article by a man who was in FEMA prior to the reorganization by this administration. When a natural disaster was predicted to hit, supplies, such as food and water were trucked in before the disaster so as to be ready to be released immediately upon need. They did not wait until several days after to try and get neccessities to the site. If this is an example of the way our government responds to known risks from a predicted disaster, how are they going to be able to handle a terrorist attack? That IS why FEMA was put into Homeland Security, is it not?

I just read an article by a man who was in FEMA prior to the reorganization by this administration. When a natural disaster was predicted to hit, supplies, such as food and water were trucked in before the disaster so as to be ready to be released immediately upon need. They did not wait until several days after to try and get neccessities to the site. If this is an example of the way our government responds to known risks from a predicted disaster, how are they going to be able to handle a terrorist attack? That IS why FEMA was put into Homeland Security, is it not?

Well, Chertoff and Brown CLAIMED that this was what they were doing when they found out about the conditions at the Convention Center and the Superdome. But it raises the question of why they weren't immediately flown in when the storm passed. [There are some BBC reports that this was because the power was out at the New Orleans aiport; other reports are that because the power was out, they couldn't scan all the equipment for terrorist activity...they was circumvented when someone in DC signed an order authorizing manual searches. Given so much bad information on the net, I'm not sure how much stock to put into this...but it doesn't surprise me....]

to do so, I think, would require forgetting that FEMA is not intended as a first response

And yet, that is *exactly* what Bush has intended FEMA and DHS to be after 9/11 - a first response to all disasters in this country.

If all the Rock Stars & Hollywood Stars gave up their drug habits for a year and donated all that money to reputable charities to help rebuild New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and other towns on the Gulf Coast, well, that would be just super-tee-duper.

And if Pat Robertson bothered to act like a Christian, that would be better.

Bob, you'll really being stupid here. Please think before you post.

Sure, me'll be doing that.

A present for my Bush-hating friends:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/disaster.asp

Meanwhile, the LA Times reveals how an environmental lawsuit may have derailed a project that might have solved the problem almost 40 years agao:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-surge9sep09,1,7901524.story?coll=la-home-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district.

Tower's view is endorsed by a former key senator, along with academic experts, who say a hurricane barrier is the only way to control the powerful storm surges that enter Lake Pontchartrain and threaten the city. Other experts are less sure, saying the barrier would have been no match for Katrina.

The project was stopped in its tracks when an environmental lawsuit won a federal injunction on the grounds that the Army's environmental impact statement was flawed. By the mid-1980s, the Corps of Engineers abandoned the project.

Bill, I really respect that you, of all people, posted that Washington Times information about the cronyism in the administraion's FEMA appointments. If only more and more of us on both sides can become open to seeing the possibility of mistakes, flaws, and corruption in our own politicians, not just those of the other party (and I am trying to examine politicians with an awareness and control of my own biases these days), maybe, some day, we can begin to dig this country out of the partisan tar pit in which it's trapped.

Yeah, well, if I'm gonna talk the talk I'd better walk the walk, even if it takes me where I didn't want to go.

I'd rather we came back together with the admission that people on all sides of the political divide were decent folks trying to do what's best for the country, even if they disagree on how to do it...but I guess having us all realize that politicians of all stripes are pretty much equally venal and stupid is another way of getting there.

Anyway, thanks, Luke.

The number of dead continues to be below early estimates but I caution everyone that this could change with one warehouse. Let's hope for the best (and also hope that, should the death toll be low, it doesn't give everyone an excuse to move on and learn nothing from the experience)

Oh, come now, Bill - you know as well as I that people don't need an excuse to move on and learn nothing from experience! Heck, if we learned from experience, would this country have reelected Dubya? :)

Oh, come now, Bill - you know as well as I that people don't need an excuse to move on and learn nothing from experience! Heck, if we learned from experience, would this country have reelected Dubya? :)

Probably not since, in this makebelieve world, the Democrats would have nominated a good candidate. :)

"If all the Rock Stars & Hollywood Stars gave up their drug habits for a year and donated all that money to reputable charities to help rebuild New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and other towns on the Gulf Coast, well, that would be just super-tee-duper."

Yup, because in this time of national disaster and terrible government failure, we need to keep in mind who to REALLY blame. The Rock and Hollywood Stars. Those liberal bastards.

One of the best things about doing 20 years in the military is that I got to meet, work with, laugh, cry, live, and, in some unfortunate times, see people die, people from all 50 states, people from several countries on the planet, from all walks of life. Here's something from a friend whose brother lives and works in New Orleans:

((From C.L.))

Some of you know this, but for those of you who don’t, my brother and his family live(d) in New Orleans. His wife and two young children evacuated before Katrina hit, but he stayed behind to protect his properties from looters. He has two houses in New Orleans, one is the house in which they live and the other is used as an office for his work. Neither house flooded, but they did sustain wind damage when the hurricane first hit.

He kept himself armed at all times and chased off looters. Some looters weren’t so “fortunate” when they encountered a few of his neighbors. Their bodies attest to some very poor decisions, including being caught inside houses where the owner remained.

After eight days, he finally left the city today at his discretion. He’s hired some professional security people (ex-special ops) to guard his properties and along with the National Guard presence gave him some confidence that the corner is turning. He’ll be all right and will be setting up with his family in Jackson, MS, for the time being.

He is mentally and physically exhausted, but he helped who he could, protected his home, and touched many lives during the past week. Below are a few news stories and photos that describe some of his ordeal. I cut and pasted this pretty fast, so I may have broken some links, but I was trying to make it easier to read. If so I apologize.

I didn’t post this on the [Military Reunion] site because I’m about to make a political statement. Bob, if you decide it’s worth posting go for it. I know my brother feels much the same as I do. A lot of rubbish has been spinning through the media trying to point fingers everywhere but where it belongs. I feel desperately sorry for those who suffered so much and for those who died, but the human devastation in New Orleans resulting from the hurricane is the direct consequence of generations of corruption, gangsterism, neo-colonialism, and oppression of the poor and ignorant by their supposed local leaders. The depravity seen this past week has existed for a long time, but has always been couched by a wink and a nod as the “culture” that is New Orleans.

I lived and worked in New Orleans for over three years with my family after I retired from the Air Force. I heard many life-long residents talk about the levee system while I lived there. It was always a bit of gallows humor because the joke was not whether we could sustain a category 4 or 5 hurricane, but how many parts of the system would give way when the next hurricane hit no matter the magnitude. As with so much of the city, the levee was just a veneer in many places. The money to do it right went into people’s pockets, not proper construction.

Not until the governor of Louisiana made the request could the federal government intercede. That is the law of the land. And I’m not too keen on finding reasons to chip away at the separation between the federal and state governments where there is no legal standing. The judiciary making law is bad enough (think eminent domain), but to look for ways to make big government any bigger is even more disturbing, especially when it flies against our constitution. We have a federal system. Had the president interceded before getting a formal legal request for such aid from the governor, he would have been pilloried by the media for intruding into states rights and responsibilities and his critics would be quick to use it as a reason to impeach him. There was plenty of warning for local and state authorities to do the right thing; there was no doubt that New Orleans was not going to dodge this one. If the mayor had just tried to implement the city’s hurricane disaster plan instead of ignoring it, things would have been much better. The state and local governments are the first responders in a natural disaster. However, the institutionalized mind-set of entitlement that runs throughout Louisiana kept the leadership from being able to take the actions for which they took an oath to uphold. They were too busy waiting for the political machine to tell them what to do and resisting advice from the “opposition.” That being said, the officials and leaders at the federal level could have done more to pressure the locals and they perhaps could have been more prepared to move once authorization was there. Big government breeds big slow moving agencies. The politics in this is really ugly. Above all, politics is local.

As the money pours in I will be watching and listening for signs that the rebuilding will not be business as usual. Should the local leadership not be held accountable and the insult to injury occurs where they get even fatter from graft in the letting of contracts, then we all should be seriously worried. We work hard for our money and recognize that part of it must go for the common good, but there is a threshold that should not be crossed, especially when it becomes nothing more than throwing it down a rat hole. I am proud that the one organization that could get things done during this crisis is our military. But how long can our military remain strong and proud if all the rest of society is slowly crumbling around them pushed on by polarization and opportunism, losing sight of what made our culture great? While not as extreme, the same holds true to other gulf coast areas. Why did [T.B.] risk his life by remaining in his home in Biloxi? New Orleans is just the most recent and glaring example of a growing problem throughout our society. I hope it’s a wake-up call for everyone to pay attention to more than sound bites.

C.L.
==========================================

He asked that, should I share this, I change a couple things. I honored his wishes. As for the guy, T.B., who stayed behind in Biloxi? A few of us Red State, Bush-voting, Christian, Right-Wing types made sure he personally got a handful of money, no administrative suck-off by suits at desks. He called from Theodore AL, to let us know that he was buying clean, dry clothes & shoes for his family and neighbors. No MTV, VH1 concert needed. Not with us. You know, us Red State, Bib-Overall-wearing, Bush-voting yokels.

While not the pork project rollback I'd have liked to have seen, there is something out there that is worthy of support: http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/News2?abbr=CCAGW_&page=NewsArticle&id=9246

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) unveiled a “Hurricane Katrina No Pork Pledge” alongside members of Congress at a press conference today. By signing the pledge, members of Congress vow to oppose any project or provision that is not directly related to the impact of Hurricane Katrina in any supplemental appropriations bill that provides funds for hurricane relief.

CCAGW President Tom Schatz was joined by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Indiana) was unable to attend but has signed the pledge.

“In the past, some members of Congress have shortchanged troops, disaster victims, and taxpayers by including self-serving pork projects in emergency spending bills,” Schatz said. “Weighing down supplemental appropriations bills for Hurricane Katrina with egregious spending will hinder recovery efforts and add to the deficit. By signing the pledge, members of Congress are making sure that every cent of recovery spending goes to the victims of this terrible tragedy.”

the fact that no democrats were there may mean that CCAGW is a Republican lobbying group. If so, there should be an equivilant bill set into motion by Democrats. Trying to pork up relief to New Orleans would be obscene and all too expected.

I am very late getting to this discussion, my apologies to all.

"Air Drops Are Not A Good Idea
In war a bomb can miss a target. If they had dropped food and water from a plane PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN HIT BY THE DROPS or worse, those food and water drops would have been comandeered by the thugs who had taken over the Superdome."

Really? Soooo, a huge campaign to drop food and supplies over a city that has been totally cut off from the rest of the world...a city that had people on rooftops, a crowded city, that had had a lot of damage dome to it, that would never work?

Ever hear of the Berlin Airlift?

"It's interesting that you should bring this up. Carter was a former navigation officer on a nuclear submarine, and was thus well aware that there was nothing to fear from touring 3-Mile Island. The toxic soup that saturates NO is by far more dangerous."

No one said bush had to go to NO proper, but certainly he should have gone down their earlier or not at all.

FYI....

Someone who participated in the Hurricane Pam exercise, that supposedly tested New Orleans readiness for flooding:

http://suspect-device.blogspot.com/2005/09/hurricane-pam-where-it-all-started-to.html

There are some axes being ground here, but there's an explanation or two on why there was so much red tape in the wake of Katrina.

Not until the governor of Louisiana made the request could the federal government intercede. That is the law of the land. And I’m not too keen on finding reasons to chip away at the separation between the federal and state governments where there is no legal standing. The judiciary making law is bad enough (think eminent domain), but to look for ways to make big government any bigger is even more disturbing, especially when it flies against our constitution."

Not true, but an example of how fast the Republican spin machine gets things going.

A plan put into action by President Bush himself gives the federal government (specifically the DHS which FEMA is a part of) the authority to act in natural disaster situations, as there is a tendency in such situations for local and state governments to become overwhelmed.

Guess what happened?

With all the talk about how the federal government couldn't intervene without the governor's consent, I have to wonder: why can't the federal government supply food, water, medicine and supplies if asked to? This is not barred by the law of the land [it only bars federal troops used for law enforcement activities], and we know that the Louisiana governor asked for plenty of resources before the hurricane hit.

So what was the problem with supplying food, water and other material?

"So what was the problem with supplying food, water and other material?"

No problem except stultifying incompetence.

Ordinarily, I would dislike power-plays at a time like this, but it does seem to be a pity that no one actually got full control, as it becomes more and more apparent than many problems, and more deaths, were caused by lack of a clear-cut chain of command. Disgusting that it is that FEMA would push for more power at a time like this, (If that sotry is true) but at least things might have gotten done.

The Blame Game going on at this point is looking more and more like an attempt to salvage as much face for both sides as possible. It is eminently
clear that both sides, be it the Democratic Mayor of New Orleans, the Democratic Gov. of the State, or the Rebublican President, screwed up.

Still, (and with the realization that I might get jumped for this one) it is more Bush's fault. Ok, so the mayor showed intelligence comprable to that of certain intestinal bacteria by not evacuating the City. The Gov. Should have ordered it herself. But in the end, when "The hurley-burleys done" it was up to the Feds to fix it. Like big Government or not, like the administration or not, it was their job to step in and help.

and they screwed it up. And they are still screwing it up. Heck I just saw a news story today that the companies that got the first contracts had close ties to the Bush administration.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050910/pl_nm/contracts_dc;_ylt=AjZWaru23MTSVx8LReQCXlCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

To which I quote an old song, that should have been defunct long before now.

"Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul"

(Bob Dylan, lyrics copywrighted)

the fact that no democrats were there may mean that CCAGW is a Republican lobbying group

They're not a very useful or effective group then, else they would've gotten some of the fat taken off that $300 billion transportation bill Bush recently signed.

Ordinarily, I would dislike power-plays at a time like this, but it does seem to be a pity that no one actually got full control, as it becomes more and more apparent than many problems, and more deaths, were caused by lack of a clear-cut chain of command. Disgusting that it is that FEMA would push for more power at a time like this, (If that sotry is true) but at least things might have gotten done.

That may be the case. Then again, it may be that grabbing for power muddied the waters for a clear chain of command. Certainly, the solutions I head floated had a horribly confused command structure with lots of potential for conflicting orders (reporting to BOTH the governor and the PResident????), and it came at a time when Louisiana was asking for resources...which they didn't get until much later.

Gov. Blanco was certainly indecisive (24 hours to make a decision? Excuse me?), but it still escapes me why FEMA couldn't at least deliver materials and resources and be ready to take over later, when things went to hell.

This is it PAD, I've had it this time. I haven't been to your site in several days and what do I find? That your on the bandwagon for blaming Bush about the problems in N.O.
What gets me is that liberal Democrates carry the banner that indicates they care more for the poor in this country yet during a time like this you and others have sought to turn this into a political debate. There is no honor in this and you should be ashamed, but if you fealt shame you would not engage in this in the first place. So I'm done reading your political comments (still like your comics).

"This is it PAD, I've had it this time. I haven't been to your site in several days and what do I find? That your on the bandwagon for blaming Bush about the problems in N.O."

Really. You found that, did you? That's pretty interesting. Please quote for me exactly where, please, I say, "It's Bush's fault." Where I specifically say, "I blame Bush." Even in the face of the indisputable staggering incompetence of Bush's underqualified appointee to FEMA, I have reserved judgment on assigning blame. What part of "I have no clear idea yet" is confusing to you?

"What gets me is that liberal Democrates carry the banner that indicates they care more for the poor in this country yet during a time like this you and others have sought to turn this into a political debate."

Whereas what gets me about conservative Republicans is that they hide behind the distress of the poor in order to AVOID political debate.

"There is no honor in this and you should be ashamed, but if you fealt shame you would not engage in this in the first place."

Whereas I believe there's no honor in falling into lockstep behind the GOP soundbytes, while overlooking the big picture. And the big picture is this: This was the first test of the government responding to a major emergency in four years, and it was bungled up on side and down the other. And it seems to this observer that rather than ask the hard questions, this administration's default position is, "Go away, we're busy now." Which is exactly what happened when the 9/1l commission was empaneled. Now maybe it's okay with you that nothing has changed or been learned in four years, but I find it worrisome. And more, I find it worrisome that you don't.

"So I'm done reading your political comments (still like your comics)."

I'm kind of betting the former is a fib and that you're reading this right now.

PAD

"What gets me is that liberal Democrats carry the banner that indicates they care more for the poor in this country yet during a time like this you and others have sought to turn this into a political debate."

Whereas what gets me about conservative Republicans is that they hide behind the distress of the poor in order to AVOID political debate.

And what gets me is that partisans on both sides can toss out statements on how "liberals" or "conservatives" or "Democrats" or Republicans" act when it would be clear to anyone who actually knows a few members of the groups being maligned that making such generalizations tells more about the speaker than the target.

really, is it so hard to add the word "some" to the diatribe? Or is tarring the opposition too critical to the argument? (I'll admit that I have also been guilty of this but Tim, Karen and others have been there to keep me on the straight and narrow.)

Now with PAD I'll just assume that he thinks this is so obvious a point that it doesn't need to be said. With Banner I think it's being careless. (That may not be fair to Banner but he didn't write Atlantis Chronicles :)

the fact that no democrats were there may mean that CCAGW is a Republican lobbying group

They're not a very useful or effective group then, else they would've gotten some of the fat taken off that $300 billion transportation bill Bush recently signed.

Effective, no. Useful, yes. It is good to have a group taht tells us where elected officials stand on things. If this is an issue that matters to you it may be worth remembering when and if John McCain runs for president again.

Just to show that both heroism and almost criminal stupidity are not limited to military and government officials:

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_09.html#078275

Doomed nursing home had offer of bus transport
Coroner says owner snubbed help until it was too late

By Paul Rioux
Staff Writer

Less than 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina began ravaging St. Bernard Parish with 140 mph winds and a 20-foot storm surge, Coroner Bryan Bertucci made an urgent call to the owner of St. Rita's Nursing Home near Poydras.

"I told her I had two buses and two drivers who could evacuate all 70 of her residents and take them anywhere she wanted to go," he said.

But Mabel Mangano refused the offer. "She told me, 'I have five nurses and a generator, and we're going to stay here,'" Bertucci said.

It turned out to be a tragic decision.

On Wednesday, nine days after the storm had passed, Bertucci watched as a dozen workers from a federal agency that specializes in handling mass casualties began the gruesome task of removing about 30 decomposing bodies from the still-flooded nursing home.

I couldn't believe it when I heard about the dead bodies at the nursing home, that nobody thought to get those people out. Now it turns out that somebody did. For all the good it did.

And the big picture is this: This was the first test of the government responding to a major emergency in four years, and it was bungled up on side and down the other.

Has everyone forgotten the three major hurricanes that hit Florida last year? Plenty of damage across the state. No one seemed to think that FEMA director or the state governments were incompetent then. However, this was not a major event, but a catastrophic one. That fact has to be considered when assessing response.

Nagin was just on MTP saying that the basic assumption for hurricane relief is that it would take 2-3 days before the cavalry would come in (hmm, echoes of Tom Ridge again). Given the magnitude of the event, is four days totally unreasonable?

I'm not saying this was a success, there has been plenty of bungling. However, I don't think categorizing it as failure is accurate either.

Just out of curiosity, how is a Demo-crate different from a normal Crate? Do Demo-crates lord it over all the other storage containers and packing boxes, or just the ones that can't spell very well?

No, demo crates are the crates they have in the aisles at Crates "R" Us. Sometimes they sell them at a cheaper price than the boxed crates.

Has everyone forgotten the three major hurricanes that hit Florida last year? Plenty of damage across the state. No one seemed to think that FEMA director or the state governments were incompetent then. However, this was not a major event, but a catastrophic one. That fact has to be considered when assessing response.

Nagin was just on MTP saying that the basic assumption for hurricane relief is that it would take 2-3 days before the cavalry would come in (hmm, echoes of Tom Ridge again). Given the magnitude of the event, is four days totally unreasonable?

Well, it depends on what. There's nothing to excuse the dithering of Blanco and Nagin's panicking. And there's nothing to excuse the power games before the hurricane hit. And there's nothing to excuse the red tape on the FEMA level to slow response (which some people were reporting occurred in Florida as well). And there's nothing to excuse the lack of planning and lack of disaster plans [mostly state and local, but apparently the evaluation and upgrade of those plans may have gotten lost at the FEMA bureaucracy....].

On the other hand, there may have been a chokepoint in getting resources in at the New Orleans airport and getting heavy equipment in may have been harder due to the magnitude of the event. There may be others that were unavoidable, but it looks like a lot of it was certainly avoidable...

PAD,

I read your post with profound disappointment. I thought you were better than this. You complain that the Bush administration is playing the blame game, but the reality is that ALL segments of government, local, state and federal are doing so. You say his admnistration was slow to react and say absolutely nothing about the FACT that short of breaking federal laws or invoking an insurrection act (that would not appply in this situation), the federal government is very limited in what they can do.

I am not defending the many failures of FEMA or the rest of the Bush administration. Hard questions need to be answered. But it absolutely absurd to throw stones at Bush as if he was the only one involved. The reality is, the federal government is THIRD in line, not FIRST, in handling these situations. It was the utter incomepetence of the city and state that led to this disaster. Even if Bush and/or FEMA did everything right, it would have been a debacle of the highest degree because of what the failure of the local and state officials.

Here is a link to but one of many newstories (not administration press releases) that clearly states the failures on the local and state level:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/storm/content/state/epaper/2005/09/10/m1a_response_0910.html#

By the way, I am very plugged into so called "right wing" talk radio, etc. There has been very little blaming of Clinton by Republicans. I have heard far more criticism of Bush than Clinton. And even more criticism of the mayor and governor of New Orleans and Louisiana.

Please name for me the specific "blaming" that Bush administration has engaged in? In just listening to the news on tv and radio and reading the paper, the overwhelming majority of criticism and blame has been by Democrats and local and state officials blaming Bush.

It is you, not the Bush administration, who are actively engaging in the blame game. And that is very disappointing. Your additional post shows a true ignorance of how our government works. Bush, by law, cannot send in the troops until the governor of the state authorizes it. The governor delayed doing so. To say Bush did not care is to read into his motives without even looking at why the mayor failed to use every resource available to get the people out of the city and how the governor refused to allow in the people who could immediately help the situation. The War in Iraq did not cause the most crucial delay in response. Incompetency in the state and city governments caused the delay.

I do believe Bush and FEMA could have done more. But the truth is they could have done everything perfectly and things would still be a mess. The mayor and governor are in charge in a local situation such as this. THEY should have been the ones doing more, not just Bush.

Iowa Jim

In the midst of all this, one things has been true and is only now getting coverage in the media. Other than the Red Cross, it was local churches and Christian charities that have been the most involved in helping with this crisis. For those of you who complain about Christians and say we don't actually show the love of Christ, here is a clear example where that has happened in a very personal and immediate way. (There are many other organizations who have been involved, and this is not to diminish their contribution. It is simply to point out that local churches and Christian charities were at the leading edge of getting involved, as they should have done.)

Here is one link that tells just one piece of this story:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/136/52.0.html

Iowa Jim

"By the way, I am very plugged into so called "right wing" talk radio, etc. There has been very little blaming of Clinton by Republicans. I have heard far more criticism of Bush than Clinton. And even more criticism of the mayor and governor of New Orleans and Louisiana."

That's only because they literally CAN'T blame Clinton. If they could, they would. But Bush is the one that authorized FEMA to act pro-actively, and Bush is the one in charge of the DHS, the new agency which Clinton wasn't a part of. To blame Clinton would be to blame him for something he literally couldn't have messed up because the problems didn't exist prior to Bush's administration.

So what is their new strategy? To lie and place ALL the blame on state and local officials. The New York Times just did a piece on how Karl Rove was responding to this crisis (Karl Rove being on the ball more than FEMA is a perfect example of what is wrong with this administration BTW) His answer: Place all the blame and state and local officials by propogating the false idea that FEMA isn't allowed to do anything until state and local officials let them, and then refuse to answer any questions about past mistakes while focusing on the future. That's why the administration keeps saying blame game. It keeps them from talking about the past. "You want to talk about mistakes that have been made? That's the blame game..."

Your points about talk radio only confirm its going well.

>>Has everyone forgotten the three major hurricanes that hit Florida last year? Plenty of damage across the state. No one seemed to think that FEMA director or the state governments were incompetent then, Given the magnitude of the event, is four days totally unreasonable?

Yes, it is unreasonable. I live in central Florida in an area that was directly affected by 3/4ths of those Hurricanes last year. FEMA was here within 24 hours for Charlie, and within a day for the remaining storms (No 3 to 4 days B.S. like what happened with Katrina). Everyone here now knows why we got help here so fast. The Presidents Brother runs the state, the storms came 2 months before election day, and this was a swing state.

Also, this is Florida, we see Hurricanes hit here more than anywhere else here in the country. We also have Emergency Teams and officials who are exsperienced in dealing with storms every year.

I can tell you this, if FEMA's responce last year had been anywhere like what just happened in Missisippi and NOLA, Bush would not have won the Election. And that is why you cannot compare Florida with what happened to the victoms of Katrina.

I read your post with profound disappointment.

Sorry, Jim, but my mind reads that and immediately jumps in one of two directions:

"Get used to disappointment." "Okay" -- from The Princess Bride

or

"Dick, I'm VERY disappointed." -- Robocop

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bloodbath.

P.S. I don't know that anyone here "complains about Christians" as a monolithic group. Me, I complain about Christians who talk a good game but refuse to actually engage in any action that's good for their community: unfortunately, this includes many of the Christian community's so-called leaders. Your post here does a good job of reminding everyone that those folks are, however powerful, generally the exception and not the rule.

TWL

Anybody have a subscription to TIME magazine? I'd like to see the context for this paragraph about Gov. Blanco quoted by several bloggers:

The day the storm hit, she asked President Bush for "everything you've got." But almost nothing arrived, and she couldn't wait any longer. So she called the White House and demanded to speak to the President. George Bush could not be located, two Louisiana officials told Time, so she asked for chief of staff Andrew Card, who was also unavailable. Finally, after being passed to another office or two, she left a message with DHS adviser Frances Frago Townsend. She waited hours but had to make another call herself before she finally got Bush on the line. "Help is on the way," he told her.

Yeesh. I REALLY hope that this isn't true....that the White House is more organized than this...or that the response plan was better conceived than this....

I can't find anything with those direct quotes but it may be a new enough story that it has not hit the web yet (so how did the bloggers get it?). I do wonder about the timing--asking for help "the day the storm hit" seems odd--until the storm passed there was not much anyone could do. Nobody should expect fireman, cops, military etc to be out there during a hurricane.

Well, if nothing else, this will put the lie to the old saw about failure being an orphan. Looks like this one has quite the extended family.

Iowa Jim--If I'm reading PAD right it isn't that he thinks that the Bush Administration is playing the Blame Game, it's that they are NOT seeking out who deserves blame. In other words, the term "blame game" itself is used as an excuse not to seek blame (presumably because much of it will fall on them).

Your points about the efforts of religious groups is valid; too bad we will hear much more about the puny efforts of celebrities. But that's the way things are. Tim's points are also, as usual, good ones and illustrate that while we may disagree on who will end up deserving the lion's share of the blame, people of good will should at least be able to recognize those who have done well in this disaster. It would be too bad if their decency and heroism got lost amid the angry calls for accountability. (as PAD says, we should be able to do both).

"I do wonder about the timing--asking for help "the day the storm hit" seems odd--until the storm passed there was not much anyone could do."

Not really that odd. Since the start of Gulf War Two there have been a number of protests held in the Richmond area and at the Capitol itself. We've only had one that was really large and got out of control in all that time. But for each one we've pulled our riot team together for briefing at least two days in advanced and, for one group's protest, contacted the State Police the day before and requested backup. We always have medical and other resources on standby for the "oh, s**t!!!!!!!!!" chance an hour before.

Not quite the same thing here but close. Give us what you've got now. They don't need to go in but they need to be headed our way or just shy of here and on stand by. We'll use them the second we can but get them to us before we need them. Waiting until after the event to set that stuff up will only create a late response and cost lives.

Here's what happened:

In 2000, George W. Bu$Hitler & Dick Cheatey looked into their Future Prediction Globe and saw that George would be re-elected by a small margin in 2004. So Dick Cheatey got his friends in Halliburton on the phone. Together, they planned to set up faux-oil platforms off the southern coast of AmeriKKKa. The platforms were actually set up to test atmospheric electromagnetic experiments. Bu$Hitler and Cheatey knew that they could re-direct horrific weather patterns using this Tesla-derivative technique. They chose New Orleans because of its history of Mardi Gras debauchery. The fact that towns along the southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama were also hit did not matter to Bu$Hitler and Cheatey. They got what they wanted for their friends in Halliburton:
Lucrative rebuilding contracts and higher oil prices.

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Buy one. It will keep the Mind Control Telepathy of KKKarl Rove from invading your minds!!!!

Yeah because arguing that our federal government should do its job, as well as wanting to hold Bush accountable for being the head of a federal government that didn't do it's job is similar to what you're saying.

If you're so partisan you equate the two, then you need to take a moment and reflect about your worth as a human being.

"Now I see that Bush is being blamed for FEMA tardiness... to do so, I think, would require forgetting that FEMA is not intended as a first response"

No, to do so would be to remember that Bush took steps to make DHS a pro-active agency in times of natural disaster as seen in the DHS's own plans and documents. The "not a first response" thing is just spin, spin, spin, spin.

I have a question for all the Repubs. on the board.

Why is it OK, for all you government waste haters, for a federal agency to exist that doesn't even do ANYTHING before it is begged by a state/local government? Are you telling me that you are fine that tax dollars are going to an agency to basically do nothing with faced with days and days of knowledge that a hurricane may hit a major US city?

I find all the blaming tiresome. Pots calling kettles black, that's all it is.

It's rather odd that nobody on the right wing seems to want to realize that Gov. Blanco asked for Federal Assistance *over 24 hours before the hurricane even made landfall!*

http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976

And she had declared a "State of Emergency" the day before!

Now, just *when* did any assistance start arriving? Almost a week later? And how long did it take for assistance to arrive to Brother Jeb when hurricanes hit Fla? About 24 hours?

Yet all the idiots on the right can say is "She didn't ask for the help".

Sure. Pull the other one.

>>It's rather odd that nobody on the right wing seems to want to realize that Gov. Blanco asked for Federal Assistance *over 24 hours before the hurricane even made landfall*!

They have been, till at least they are confronting this information, then they shift the finger in another direction.

I dont get all this denial, is it that hard for some people to admit the President being a lousy leader got more Americans killed, this time poor civillians? And its not like the storm killed these people, it was the damn aftermath and the lack of help these people got. Its like if they admit that Bush screwed up, the sky is going to open up and rain fire and homosexuals down upon them.

Guess what Republicans and anyone else who thinks the Goverment is using our Tax dollers to protect us better after 9/11. We're F**ked. If something did happen, the initial incident may be the least of your worries.

Its like if they admit that Bush screwed up, the sky is going to open up and rain fire and homosexuals down upon them.

It's raining men

I have a question for all the Repubs. on the board.
Oh great. And I didn't study at all...

Why is it OK, for all you government waste haters, for a federal agency to exist that doesn't even do ANYTHING before it is begged by a state/local government?

It isn't.

Are you telling me that you are fine that tax dollars are going to an agency to basically do nothing with faced with days and days of knowledge that a hurricane may hit a major US city?

No, I'm not.

Hey, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Now, just *when* did any assistance start arriving? Almost a week later?

Umm, I'm pretty sure that isn't true. It's too late to look it up but I'll check it out tomorrow. Claiming that nothing was done for a week is as wrong as claiming that everything was done.

And its not like the storm killed these people, it was the damn aftermath and the lack of help these people got.

Since we don't even have a count of the dead it's a bit early to say what killed them, don't you think? Most of the dead I've seen confirmed were killed by the storm.

Its like if they admit that Bush screwed up, the sky is going to open up and rain fire and homosexuals down upon them.

Bush screwed up.

(pause)

Damn! A burning homosexual just landed on my roof! Thanks a lot nivek!

Having put out my roof and sent the homosexual (nice guy btw) on his way, a few last links of the day:

Senator Landrieu, Democrat, in an appearance where she says that we should not point fingers, seems to be blaming Mayor Nagin, saying several times that he ""had trouble getting his people to work on a sunny day"
http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/11/landrieufns/

"his people"??? What is she, a racist?

Those who want Bush to be the source of all trouble should avoid http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/10/AR2005091001529_4.html which includes the following mind blower:

Nagin said that by daybreak, he might have to order the first mandatory evacuation in New Orleans history, although his staff was still checking whether that would pose liability problems for the city. Nagin did not tell everyone to leave immediately, because the regional plan called for the suburbs to empty out first, but he did urge residents in particularly low-lying areas to "start moving -- right now, as a matter of fact." He said the Superdome would be open as a shelter of last resort, but essentially he told tourists stranded in the Big Easy that they were out of luck.

"The only thing I can say to them is I hope they have a hotel room, and it's a least on the third floor and up," Nagin said. "Unfortunately, unless they can rent a car to get out of town, which I doubt they can at this point, they're probably in the position of riding the storm out."

In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a "dead-head" train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "The city declined."

So the ghost train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board.

Meanwhile Jack Kelly claims that compared to earlier disasters, the Feds did pretty well here
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

Incidentally, there are 21,000 registered buses in New Orleans.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/state_transportation_profiles/louisiana/html/fast_facts.html

Incidentally, there are 21,000 registered buses in New Orleans.

Not according to the link you posted, there aren't. It says there are 21,000 in all of Louisiana.

A little more digging shows that there are (were) something between 1500 and 2000 buses in New Orleans and environs; there's not yet any reliable information on how many were used, could have been used, and so on.

Somewhat related: regarding the infamous submerged school buses, the only information I'd trust at this point is that from Snopes. http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/buses.asp

Not according to the link you posted, there aren't. It says there are 21,000 in all of Louisiana.

Oops! You are correct, sir. I've had to catch myself from calling it the state of New Orleans more than once.

Still, it would seem that there were plenty of buses available before the storm hit. The New York Times portrays a frantic Gov. Blanco asking for buses after the flooding, when they were considerably less available (and, given the state of the roads, considerably less useful).

The question I still haven'tr seen answered is why the New Orleans emergency plans were not followed. Were they no good to begin with or did the people in charge just not follow them?

The question I still haven'tr seen answered is why the New Orleans emergency plans were not followed. Were they no good to begin with or did the people in charge just not follow them?

It's a question Nagin will have to answer when he goes before the voters again - if and when there is a city for him to govern again.

"his people"??? What is she, a racist?

Honestly, Bill, your efforts to tag all democrats as racist is getting desperate now. Lawson's actions are despicable. But first you say that democrats are too "on message" to ever criticize other democrats, and then you quote a democrat criticizing another democrat.

I watched the video. She was speaking of mayors of major cities in general ("Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country). When she said "his people", she was clearly referring to getting city employees to work, not "his people" as in his race. And looking at the full context, she wasn't calling city employees to lazy to get to work. She was talking about the mass transit problems that majory cities often face.

That's a real reach, Bill, and I expected better from you.

The question I still haven'tr seen answered is why the New Orleans emergency plans were not followed. Were they no good to begin with or did the people in charge just not follow them?

Yeah, good question. the Suspect device blog mentions that the New Orleans and Louisiana plans were known to be bad, and their revision was outsourced to a private firm. Funding for the revision was cut. However, the state head of disaster preparedness was indicted for corruption, and the current plan seemed to have joined the revised plan in limbo.

I don't know how much stock to put in that, but it still shows the local people to be sleeping on the job (with the feds not taking things too seriously....)

Question: does anybody have a link to the news story from over the weekend about how all these companies with links to Bush are getting these nice "rebuild NO" contracts from the government?

The ones about Halliburton getting a contract right away (perhaps even before FEMA could show up in NO) are easy to find, but not the others.

Also, while trying to search news articles through Yahoo, I came across an interesting comment about the fact that, 4 years after 9/11, we have yet to rebuilt anything on Ground Zero, yet we some how expect to rebuild the entirity of NO.

Heard on news radio this morning, I'm skeptical, but not yet in my outright condemnation mode on the contracts, yet. A number have apparantly been awarded, and this morning's TV news had a listing of some of them, and the connections to the current administration.

Now, nothing wrong with contracts going to guys the President knows and trusts...when those contracts are awarded after a bidding process, are fair, and don't last forever and a day. These contracts are being reported as short term, although I didn't catch if it's known what work they are for.

Here's where I have concerns: first, it's being reported that these contracts are not part of a proper bidding process, and also are not part of a larger planning effort. The problem with the first is that it's improper: this is tax-payer money being handed to a private firm, without a competitive bidding process to prevent waste and fraud. The problem with the second is that this kind of rapid contracting leads to waste and inefficiency. We're liable to end up with 2 or 3 contractors working on the same thing, or worse, working on conflicting projects, leading to a lot of wasted taxpayer dollars.

And maybe the most troubling aspect of the early reports (on the radio again, so don't go asking for web links) is that these contracts have guaranteed profit clauses, meaning that no matter how much the company spends over the amount set forth in the contract, they are guaranteed some profit, from the taxpayers. If this is true, this is the worst kind of government administration possible.

On the plus side, these contracts are reported as being short term, so that lessons the chance for abuse. It does strike me as an administration attempting to react to all the negative comments it's gotten on a slow initial response, by reacting too quickly in order to appear to be making progress. If the contracts are to provide temporary homes for the displaced, then I would agree that there's a need for urgency. But if it's to rebuild the casinos, hotels, and other damaged buildings in town, why the rush? What harm would there be to take a week to develop a comprehensive rebuilding plan, including what to do about the levee and future flooding issues, and then take another 3 or 4 weeks to hold a competitive bidding process? The government doesn't have to take the lowest bid, as it can consider other things like quality of work and such. But at least have an open process to reassure the public that this administration isn't just abusing this disaster to make even more money for their corporate buddies.

"Also, while trying to search news articles through Yahoo, I came across an interesting comment about the fact that, 4 years after 9/11, we have yet to rebuilt anything on Ground Zero, yet we some how expect to rebuild the entirity of NO."

Well, I think that's partly from the fact that no one can agree on what should go in to the area of the WTC, to say nothing of special interest and protest groups who all have their own POV as to what's appropriate and respectful since we're talking about three thousand murder victims in the heart of the city. I really don't think anyone's going to grind the rebuilding of New Orleans to a halt for a year over, for instance, a proposed exhibit in a museum.

PAD

Here are links re: Bush's buddies getting contracts:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/10/katrina.contracts.reut/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050910/pl_nm/contracts_dc;_ylt=AriIiBLY1z8kOHr9B0endJIDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

bush also wasted no time suspending wage rules:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3405350a12,00.html

The following timeline might be useful in discussing just who knew what and who did what and when.

http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline

PAD

And from the right wing side...

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/

*sigh*

The more I read, the more it looks like everyone screwed up at different times, and everyone did things well at other times. And that goes for Nagin, Blanco, FEMA and the White House.

But what people remember (and, perhaps, what's more important) is when people screw up.

Bill -

I think I'd buy you a drink. For a Republican, you're pretty darn funny.

Everyone Else:
There should be accountability. Everyone says "Blame Bush" or "Don't Blame Bush." But as one of my Heroes, Harry S. Truman, had on the White House desk: "The Buck Stops Here."

But somehow, the buck hasn't stopped there for the last forty or so years....

Travis

Now, nothing wrong with contracts going to guys the President knows and trusts...

I think there is - we've seen what happens when Bush is more interested in appointing those he knows and trusts to positions of authority, like Brown as head of FEMA.

It's also a continual blatant conflict of interest that dates back to Halliburton & other Bush-friendly companies getting no-bid contracts for Iraq.

Not to mention the fact that Halliburton THEN overcharges (and thus commits fraud against the taxpayers) the government... but are continually awarded new contracts.

The Bush Administration just keeps finding ways of fucking things up and fucking this country over in the progress.

And for those that wish to look at federal response time for Katrina compared to other storms...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm

"I think there is - we've seen what happens when Bush is more interested in appointing those he knows and trusts to positions of authority, like Brown as head of FEMA."

This points out the rest of my quote, the part hinting that if the guy that wins the contract just happens to be the guy that the President knows, but also because his bid was reasonable, fair, and demonstrated a capacity to complete the contract, there's no problem. But all too often we've seen this adminstration award contracts without a public bidding process, blatantly mis-managing public funds, seemingly without accountability. It seems criminally reckless in my mind for an administration that touts moral and religious ethics as a way of generating votes to then turn around and essentially transfer public funds into the hands of a select few private enterprises.

And I know that this isn't something really new to politics: Friends of the President always do well. I'd be interested in seeing what people that were paying attention during the Clinton years recall of contracts and awards given out then...none come to my mind, but then again, we didn't invade another country, destroying it's infrastructure, we didn't suffer a devastating terrorist attack in the heart of New York, and Mother Nature didn't do her best to wipe out the most vulnerable city on the face of the planet.

One of the sites on the contracts awarded does indicate that at least one of them seems to be for emergency housing...which truly cannot wait, and has a basis for avoiding a public bidding competition.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/09/katrina.natguard.ap/

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum.

I just wanted to ask if you have ever heard of "State Sovereignty"? Which gives the Governor or ruler of that state supreme power.

The facts are the President calling the Governor (of everybodies new favorite state ;/ ) on Sunday morning and calling for an emergency evacuation, which she did not make till late evening.

The Governor also did not make any call to the National guard until Wednesday evening until till further talks with Bush after complaints from Fema scapegoat.

Let alone have any plan for the people she sent to the dome!!! No porta- potties, No food( she had not even contacted the local chain stores and requested the donation of their goods to temporarily feed the survivors before looting started!!)

I guess this would have been hard for her to do though since she has had little contact with the mayor of New Orleans ; after he endorsed her opponent of the last election!!!

And heck were was the mayor in all this , we now he saved his bony ass, we heard him screaming like the steward of Gondor " run flea were is the government?!!" I thought he was part of the Government?? And were where they??

Well they were trying to convince someone( our innocent Democrat) who was a political opposition, to give federal jurisdiction or at least take command of the situation but she was to busy talking through her lawyers!!! But hey every body knows that it doesn't matter who messed up because the Democrats control all the major networks (Fox news is one station on cable morons!) and the Democrats dont't turn on their own like Republicans do Even when A democrat compares the U.S. Military to Nazis or Bush to Hitler but or Hilary Clinton says she saw Gandi working at a gas station!!! Because if you want to hate a Republican President thats all that matters it does not matter Right Pete, Fucking Right!!!ASS-Hole!!!

By the way Louisiana, received more Federal funding this year than any other state in the union and decided to use that money on 2 new casinos instead of taking care of business!!

Here is a pretty concise defense arguing that the Federal response to this disaster was faster than any other hurricane in history:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm

Iowa Jim

Well, the good news is that Bush's little buddy "Brownie" has resigned as head of FEMA.

Now... what will his promotion be?

Apparently "nick" has some reading comprehension problems.

"nick", the governor of LA asked for federal help *the day before the hurricane arrived*, and had declared the "State of Emergency" two days prior...

The evacuation of *over one million people* was *already under way* before the Shrub *even became involved*.

And I've yet to see anybody answer the question of when good ol' Brother Jeb had to sign away anything to get FEMA to show up *less than 24 hours after FL got hit* by the hurricanes last year...

"nick", next time, wait until you finish kindergarden before asking mommy if you can post on the internet... you won't look like that much of a jerk...

The facts are the President calling the Governor (of everybodies new favorite state ;/ ) on Sunday morning and calling for an emergency evacuation, which she did not make till late evening.

Except, of course, that she and the other gulf coast governors made their first request for aid the previous Friday. I know, I know. Why mess up your hate-filled rant with facts?

http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050901-3843.html

As for Brownie's promotion, I'm guessing he'll get a recess appointment to a nice cushy post somewhere in the Pentagon.

Honestly, Bill, your efforts to tag all democrats as racist is getting desperate now.

Ho boy. First off, I thought it was an obvious joke. I mean, isn't it kind of obvious that by "his people" she meant the people he works with? I've heard others get tagged with the racist line for using "you people" or some variation (Happened to Perot oncem as I recall) and I tossed it in. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

As to my "efforts to tag all democrats as racist", please elaborate. When have I done so in the past? (and by the way even if I was serious that Landrieu was a racist, how the holy hell does that somehow translate to "all Democrats"? That's the problem with partisans on both sides, they see an attack on anyone on their team as an attack on all.).

Lawson's actions are despicable.

Honestly, Den, your efforts to tag all democrats as despicable are getting desperate now.

That's a real reach, Bill, and I expected better from you.

Well, that's the danger in making a joke. I guess this would be a good time to point out that there really wasn't a burning homsexual on my roof last night.

I think I'd buy you a drink. For a Republican, you're pretty darn funny.

Could use one. I was up late last night filming a zombie movie. You know what we ended up using for intestines? Pig intestines. Which is better than using real human intestines but not by a whole hell of a lot. And the actors were complaining. Boy, you get people to work for free and the next thing you know they are don't want to eat pig intestines. You don't see Sharon Stone complaining about every nasty thing she had to put in her mouth on her way to the top.

And I've yet to see anybody answer the question of when good ol' Brother Jeb had to sign away anything to get FEMA to show up *less than 24 hours after FL got hit* by the hurricanes last year...

I can think of several good reasons....but I haven't heard anything floated so far.

Nick, even if the local authorities are the first responders....what keeps the federal government from supplying food and water and helicopters when requested by the governor? Why were they screwing around with org charts before the hurricane hit?

Iowa Jim--If I'm reading PAD right it isn't that he thinks that the Bush Administration is playing the Blame Game, it's that they are NOT seeking out who deserves blame. In other words, the term "blame game" itself is used as an excuse not to seek blame (presumably because much of it will fall on them).

Obviously, that is not how I understood PAD.

I did look at the timeline PAD posted. I find it amusing the way statement are reinterpreted.

Example: 9AM CDT — BUSH BLAMES STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS: “[T]he magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need.” [White House, 9/3/05]

When I heard that, I did not hear it as blaming state or local officials. To portray it as such is to read into it something that I don't think it is saying. In fact, this statement is a perfect setup to ask what the Federal government is doing to fill the gap.

And that is just one example of how the quote given does not match the headline assigned to it.

Bottom line, the bulk of the blame game is happening on the local and democratic side. The governor of LA has refrained from blaming the president personally in a recent press conference, but she seems to be an exception.

What is fascinating to me is that Bush HAS said mistakes were made, that he was not satisfied, and he did not say the mistakes were all local or on the state level. He even had Brown removed as head of the effort over the local clean-up. For those of you who claim Bush never "learns from his mistakes," well, he seems to be this time. And I just heard that Brown has now resigned.

Bottom line, Bush is not perfect. I do think he also made mistakes in this. But I don't see him as leading the pack in the blame game. When you have a week of everyone and their brother blaming the White House, anything they might say, short of just laying the keys on the desk and resigning, would be seen as shifting blame. And to only point to Bush as playing the blame game is laughable.

Iowa Jim

Well, Bill, I did think you were serious. I guess I'm spending too much time reading blogs by rightwing nutjobs. :)

I saw your comments about Landrieu in the context with your earlier comments about the sheriff of Jefferson Parish, both of which you made a point of mentioning their party affiliation and mentioned race as a factor. I put two and two together and saw a pattern. So, if the second one was a joke, I apologize for misinterpreting.

Bottom line, the bulk of the blame game is happening on the local and democratic side.

Baloney. Chertoff was out in force blaming local (democratic) officials last week. And the rightwing pundit class has been beating the "the governor didn't ask for help" lie for over a week now.

And the rightwing pundit class has been beating the "the governor didn't ask for help" lie for over a week now.

To good effect, apparently. Still get people saying that, thanks to a...misquote...by an Administration source.

No, FEMA shouldn't get a walk on its game playing or its lack of coordination after it hit the scene nor its dunderheaded inability to use personnel appropriately nor its addiction to red tape. In the wake of a terrorist attack, that kind of performance isn't acceptable.

Den,

That is the best you can do? Do I need to begin posting the speech by Al Gore, statements by Michael Moore, the lunacy of Howard Dean?

And the fact is, the governor did delay in asking for certain types of help. It is not a lie. Perhaps some of it was miscommunication that should not have happened. But the governor herself and the mayor of New Orleans have said it was true she asked Bush for 24 hours to make a decision about aspects of help.

When you add up what reporters, Democratic leaders, actors, pundits, etc., are saying, the overwhelming bulk (perhaps 75to 80%) of what I am hearing is that the primary failure was by Bush and FEMA.

Obviously, until someone actually counts the news stories, etc., it is just my impression versus yours. But I would take it as a safe bet that I am right.

Iowa Jim

The titles in the timeline PAD cited were, to say the least, slanted. But reading past that, you still get a lot of instances of missed opportunities to provide relief and aid long before it actually was provided. Such as the Navy Hospital ship sitting empty, and only able to provide helicopter rescue service. Whether by accident or design, that ship was, in fact, on scene immediately after the hurricane passed.

And the comment about taking bong hits while getting a communication degree while "real" people were getting engineering degrees...I could counter that with a comment on the President holding a birthday cake, or playing guitar, or just sitting on his ranch on vacation while 2 states away, REAL PEOPLE were starting to die of thirst...but I won't. I'll just say that not all of us liberal arts degree'd people expect or even think that aid could have been delivered instantly. The levees broke Monday. By Tuesday, it was clear that the worst had happened, and that thousands of people were in serious trouble. The Superdome was expected to hold 10,000, with supplies for 3 days. Come Tuesday, that number had swelled to 30-50,000, consuming the resources there in a day. How hard would it have been for the Hospital ship sitting in the gulf, which apparantly can make 100,000 gallons of drinking water a day, to deliver a security and administration detail to the Superdome to provide temporary relief until the larger rescue units could be mobilized? It would have taken a phone call...and not one disabled by the devastation on land, but a satellite communication to a functioning navy vessal. Assuming anyone with authority knew the ship was there. Which, from all accounts, ws the problem. Despite the state asking for Federal aid on FRIDAY, Federal response didn't begin to mobilise until Wednesday.

While you're busy handing out "give 'em a break" passes to the Feds for a "quick" response, why not hand some out to the state and local officials. What for? Succesfully evacuating over 1 million people in 36 hours. Has there ever been such a large scale evacuation carried out more successfully in such a compressed time before? Or for the governor having the foresight to recognize the imensity of this storm, and asking for full Federal aid on Friday.

Which, by the way, had that Federal Aid begun a mobilization effort on Saturday, relief efforts would have begun on TUESDAY. Airdropped security troops could have provided on site security, cutting down looting and lawlessness. And maybe someone could have called those kids that managed to drive to the convention center, then drive out, in a rental car, on Tuesday, since the Feds seem to have had difficulty finding a clear road. And once the troops were on the ground with a secure area, food and water supplies, mobilized starting on Saturday, could have been provided to the area.

Am I playing monday morning QB? No, I'm just telling you the same things I was yelling at the TV on Tuesday over a week ago. Things that I must have learned sometime while getting my liberal arts degree (I must have missed the section of the course book that taught about bongs and other things like that) while "real people" were off learing how to sit around waiting for a beaurocratic process to get kick started before doing their jobs.

No, Jim. What GW needs to say is "You know what, you're right. FEMA fucked up and this is how. The government fucked up and this is how. And this is how we're going to fix it in the future." But none of that is forthcoming. Kind of like 9/11. The government should be ready to respond to tragedy. Under Bush, it simply is not.

This is quoted from Aviation Weekly:

In the Northcom [U.S. military's Northern Command] operations center, TV coverage of disaster zones was closely monitored, prompting the dispatch of relief missions prior to the receipt of official reports or requests. During past wargames, FEMA and other agencies have been reluctant to be drawn into "the 'CNN effect' and instead rely on standard National Response Plan reporting channels, because they were afraid they'd be sucked down a rat hole," says the retired officer. Players were concerned that critical resources could be diverted by low-priority regions, only because those areas were getting media attention.

I suspect that this has been a standard practice before this Bush adminstration. However, it might be indicative of the lack of flexibility or thinking under fire of the current agencies; once it was clear that communications was disrupted, the folks on the ground should have been looking for alternative communciations sources since their main ones were shot to pieces.

Too, if it's good enough for the US military...

Den,

Here's the thing--I'm perfectly happy to say no problem. It's no big deal. But when you are on the record as claiming "If they were white republicans, they wouldn't have been trapped at the Superdome in the first place. Bush would have had them airlifted from their homes." it kind of puts you in a bad position to being sensitive to unfair claims of racism.

I assumed what you said was a joke and I still do. Unfortuanately for us jokey types there are all too many who are dead serious in seeing racism in almost anything that happens. One of the problems I have with the Democratic party is the way I see it as far to willing to accept race hustlers in its midst--Al Sharpton being one of the more painfully prominant examples. (Yeah, I know, the Republicans have some black shee...uh, bad apples of their own).

Bad enough when these folks are bitching about unimportant crap like the number of minorities on Friends but the claims of racism in regards to Katrina (with a few notable exceptions, like the Lawson case) so far have had no solid basis in reality. I didn't see any massive airlifts of the mostly white populations of parts of North Carolina when they got flooded recently. Whatever the level of incompetance exhibited by Bush, Nagin, Blanco, Brown and others yet to be named, I don't think the color of the victims skin had anything to do with it. Those who feel otherwise have the obligation to prove it.

Bill,

Let's just say that we both made comments that could be misinterpreted and move on. And, as a show of good faith, I won't start a debate as to who is a bigger "hustler" Sharpton or Pat Robertson.

As for the issue of race, no I don't seriously believe that racism was the motivating factor in the problems with the response from FEMA. I do, however, strongly believe that class was a factor. This administration is very indifferent to the needs of the poor members of society. I don't believe that it's a conscious decision so much as a complete inability to perceive what life is like for people living at or below the poverty line.

And if Barbara Bush's recent Marie Antoinette-esque comments are any indication, such attitudes were learned at home.

"And, as a show of good faith, I won't start a debate as to who is a bigger "hustler" Sharpton or Pat Robertson."

Al Sharpton is funnier.

den,

Well, you might be surprised over who I think is the bigger hustler if it's between those two! :)

Whoa--there's a report of a big power outage in LA...right after a terror threat was made to the city a few days ago...Coincidence, I hope.

(upon further thought, wouldn't it make more sense to do the power outage at night if you wanted to cause the most damage?)

Well, the good news is that Bush's little buddy "Brownie" has resigned as head of FEMA.

Now... what will his promotion be?

"Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR this weekend had, as its "contestants make a prediction" question at the end, "what will be Michael Brown's next job?" The answers ranged from funny to not-so-much, but the runaway winner in my mind came from Adam Felber. Roughly quoted (i.e. as best as I can remember)...

"I won't say the name of his employer, but in a few weeks we'll hear him say to his boss, 'who could have POSSIBLY predicted that a customer who ordered fries would then want ketchup?'"

Bloody brilliant.

And on a more serious note, I too wish the cries of racism were rarer and more muted, because I'm with Den: I think classism (or just class cluelessness) was a huge, huge factor, and the fact that race was linked to it was an unfortunate but unintentional coincidence. Unfortunately, by giving Bush et al. a chance to decry any charges of racism, it'll obscure the class-specific point until he might more or less get a free pass there. (Very few media outlets of any kind dare to mention class. Race, sure -- but mention class and you get denigrated as a Marxist-in-training trying to "stir up class warfare.")

TWL

"(upon further thought, wouldn't it make more sense to do the power outage at night if you wanted to cause the most damage?)"

Not if you wanted to cause a distraction that would allow you to infiltrate otherwise secure areas. I have no idea what it would take to cause such an outage, and my suspicion is that, if you could arrange that, you wouldn't need a large distracting event.

Knowing what I do about the aging power grid in America (just enough to be dangerous or mis-informing) it wouldn't really take much for another serious outage like the one that hit the northeast a short time ago.

Knowing what I do about the aging power grid in America (just enough to be dangerous or mis-informing) it wouldn't really take much for another serious outage like the one that hit the northeast a short time ago.

So. Is this administration doing anything about it? And if not, why not?

Hey, guys, I'm trying to get in early on the blame game....

"So. Is this administration doing anything about it? And if not, why not?"

Well, this is the problem with letting utilities run as a government-sponsored monopoly. The cost of replacing/upgrading the transmission system would seriously cut into the profits. And no CEO is going to take away from those profits to upgrade the system and keep his job. So unless the government, either state or federal, does something about it, we're going to see an increasing number of outages that just happen. No reason, no real cause, might not even be on a very busy day. As things get old, they start to break down.

It's just part of the aging of the entire infrastructure system in America. With few exceptions, the effort being made to maintain the system (roads, bridges, etc.) is below what would minimally be required to keep us at a status quo.

>So. Is this administration doing anything about it? And if not, why not?

Well, the governor of the state does have an (R) next to his name... so FEMA probably had people on their way yesterday...

It's just part of the aging of the entire infrastructure system in America. With few exceptions, the effort being made to maintain the system (roads, bridges, etc.) is below what would minimally be required to keep us at a status quo.

Well, in that case, nothing's going to happen.

Even when it's put to the voters to pay for maintainence and repair, they're gonna vote it down, because they think there's too expensive or there's too much "waste" in government (even though they can't point to any of it).

Idiots are gonna reap what they so, and take the rest of us with them....

Not if you wanted to cause a distraction that would allow you to infiltrate otherwise secure areas. I have no idea what it would take to cause such an outage, and my suspicion is that, if you could arrange that, you wouldn't need a large distracting event.

Huh. Hadn't considered that. You're pretty smart--hopefully smarter than the terrorists.

(And yesterday marked 4 years of waiting for these idiots to follow up on their one success...did we just overestimate them or have their been attempts that were stopped before they could succeed and nobody is telling us about it?

Even when it's put to the voters to pay for maintainence and repair, they're gonna vote it down, because they think there's too expensive or there's too much "waste" in government (even though they can't point to any of it).

Sadly true...but they will be quick to blame the poor slob who is in charge when the deck of cards collapses

And yesterday marked 4 years of waiting for these idiots to follow up on their one success...did we just overestimate them or have their been attempts that were stopped before they could succeed and nobody is telling us about it?

They better NOT tell us about it; usually that stuff depends on human intelligence....and telling everyone about it also tells everyone who that human intelligence was. (And I use the past tense deliberately).

It's common sense not to do so. Which does not make me hopeful that some folks in this current administration would refrain from doing so (as they have in the past...and I'm not talking about Valerie Plame).

While you're busy handing out "give 'em a break" passes to the Feds for a "quick" response,

See, here's the thing. I was very clear that I am NOT giving the Fed's a break. I am saying let's be fair and objective and look at all levels of government. I have already said the Fed's dropped the ball. This post by PAD was based on solely looking at Bush and complaining that he was playing the blame game. That is not the same as saying I excuse ways the Fed's did fail to do their job.

Behind all of this there lies a fundamental difference in philosophy. As a conservative, I do start at the personal and local level and believe the government never replaces personal responsibility. I think the mentality that the federal government is ultimately responsible is a dangerous one. The mayor put people in the Superdome with the expectation that someone else (the Fed's) would eventually get supplies there. Whether the Fed's should have or not is really beside the point. The mayor should have done everything he could to have prepared for the possibility they could not do so. He had the option and chose not to do so, according to various reports I have read.

Dependence mentality is very detrimental. Yes, the government must be involved. Yes, I think FEMA could and should do better. I do not believe in the elimination of all government. But I do believe that responsibility starts with me, then locally, then state, and then Federal. That should be true in all issues, not just disaster relief. I am sure some of you would disagree with me (which might be part of the reason behind why I am a Republican and you who disagree are not).

Iowa Jim

"(And yesterday marked 4 years of waiting for these idiots to follow up on their one success...did we just overestimate them or have their been attempts that were stopped before they could succeed and nobody is telling us about it?)"

You mean like the failures that were the bombings in London and Spain?

"Behind all of this there lies a fundamental difference in philosophy. As a conservative, I do start at the personal and local level and believe the government never replaces personal responsibility. I think the mentality that the federal government is ultimately responsible is a dangerous one."

I think that saying liberals have the mentality that the 'federal government is ultimately responsible' is completely incorrect. Most liberals (that I know, anyway, as I happen to be one) feel that responsibility can be shared. Sure, the individual is responsible for themselves. But why can't the government be there to help them out in times of need when the crisis becomes beyond their management? I would say that this crisis met that end, and the government failed because it was ill-prepared to deal with the situation.

You mean like the failures that were the bombings in London and Spain?

Um, no. I meant in the United States. I sort of figured that was obvious.

While you're at it, don't forget attacks in Israel, Algeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Russia, India, Iraq, Sudan and other places, some of which killed more people than the two you mentioned (though they may have received less press).

And even if we want to limit it to those 3, they have gone from killing 3,000 to 191 to 56. Many of us expected after 9/11 that the subsequent attacks would be worse, not spread far apart and with diminished lethality.

And my question again is why? Don't worry, I'm not trying to force anyone to give George Bush credit, which might lead to a round of seppuku that would leave this board a sad and lonely place. Personally, I would lean toward the idea that the number of terrorists was less than imagined and even with many of the leaders still on the loose, they are not able to do much more than stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

At the very least, the idea that armies of suicide bombers were waiting to strike seems to have been incorrect.

just like a democrat never. picking and choosing what issues to respond to instead of fully addressing them all.

No, Bill, I think the point is that the US isn't the only target. I actually didn't expect that post-9/11 attacks would be worse. Hell, killing people isn't even the point of the Al Qaeda attacks, it's about creating fear. That fear took much more on the right than the left (or it certainly seems to have done so from all the people I speak with, post with, etc.).

So, I (for one) do not believe that the current administration's policies have actually secured the borders from terrorist attack. I don't think it's possible. I also feel that if anything, America is less secure since our invasion of Iraq simply because it has created an entirely new generation of enemies.

America is big, and I'm pretty freakin' confident that if someone wanted to set a bomb in LA or fly a plane into the Space Needle or (here's a shocker) bring in an army of suicide bombers in a freight container since hardly any containers are inspected, I'm sure they could. But I doubt they will. What they will do at some point is drop another attack somewhere just to let the world know they can.

The problem with the war on terrorism is that it isn't a war on what creates terrorists. And until the US government realizes that they need to pay every bit as much attention to that as they do to stopping current terrorist activities, there will be no end to it.

"just like a democrat never. picking and choosing what issues to respond to instead of fully addressing them all."

As long as you walk away completely satisfied, I feel good.

So heads were demanded to roll and now Brown has quit.

Is this what's called... wait for it... a Rolling Brown Out?

:)

When the pain wears off and the stunned brain areas begin to work again you can direct all jatemail for that pun to FEMA. It's their fault (blame gaming) for setting up such an obvious one.

;)

Sorry,

That was meant to be "hatemail."

just like a democrat never. picking and choosing what issues to respond to instead of fully addressing them all.

I see you don't have the grace to admit you got at least some of your facts wrong. Not very useful.

More proof that you might want to tale certin reports with a grain of salt:

From CNN:

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

One slight fact that might alter one's perception of this story: The Shaw Group is headed by the chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party who also served as co-chair of Gov. Blanco's transition team.

Somehow, these facts were deemed unworthy of mention.

Incidentally, I am not criticizing The Shaw Group. They may well be the best people for the job. I don't assume that just because a company has close ties to the Democratic Party they must be immediately suspect.

I think that saying liberals have the mentality that the 'federal government is ultimately responsible' is completely incorrect.

Well put.

I think the basic difference is that liberals, by and large, believe that government has a role to play in protecting and preserving the "public good", and conservatives by and large don't. Obviously there's some maneuvering room within both schools of thought for shades of meaning, but in general I think that's a key difference.

I think we as a civilization have a duty to help those who are less well-off: hence Social Security, hence Medicare, hence some form of welfare. Many, many conservatives opposed the formation of all three, and there are any number of conservatives now who want to kill at least one if not all three.

I don't believe this because I'm a liberal; I'm a liberal because this is what I believe.

I also think that by and large, pure market forces cannot be trusted to ensure things like worker safety, child safety (e.g. labor laws), environmental protection, etc. Unbridled market forces are as likely to create Enrons and Wal-Marts as they are responsible companies -- corporations that focus on nothing more than financial gain are much more likely to slash health benefits, to trash the environment, and to create unsafe working environments if it's going to save a few bucks.

I don't believe this because I'm a liberal; I'm a liberal because this is what I believe.

Now, one could certainly argue and I'd even agree that you can go too far in both of these areas. There is something of a risk of creating a "culture of dependency", as Jim put it, and it's certainly possible to over-regulate an industry (though I don't personally think it happens very often). Those are difficult questions filled with trade-offs, and ideally something that a sane tricameral government would wrestle with over time.

But I don't understand the mindset of those who think our society owes nothing to its constituents (or that those constituents should adhere strictly to the teachings of Blanche DuBois and depend only on the kindness of strangers), and I feel nothing but scorn for those particular conservatives like Grover Norquist who exude the "I've got mine, so go f*ck yourself" mentality out of every pore.

Whew. Where did that little statement of principles come from?

TWL

Tim, Brilliantly put.

Liberals and conservatives are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture. Liberals and conservatives are paradigms that mean nothing to anyone other than the media.

Go ahead keep playing into their (dems/repub) stupid politics.

I always pronounce it para-diggim, just so everyone knows that I have no idea what I'm spouting off about.

Extra points if you can slip pedagogy, genre, and archetype in there somehow.

I really miss those college days when I could write essays for Film Studies class with titles like "Leave the Gun, Take the Canolies: Pedagogical Archetypes in the Organized Crime Genre.

Let's not be ridiculous!

read this:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20050909.shtml

Charles Krauthammer is right, more or less. He lists what people we should blame and in what order, but the entire notion that the government has the resources to multi-task is somewhat wrongheaded. The massive bureacracy set in place so far is in part how and why the federal government screwed up in its intervention in the gulf coast. All in all it would have been more effective without the bureacracy and with a more streamlined and dedicated series of organizations.

and can anyone tell me what liability and responsibility POTUS had for knowing the status of the levees in N.O. and what levee design exists today that can withstand a category four or category five hurricane?

"All in all it would have been more effective without the bureacracy and with a more streamlined and dedicated series of organizations."

That goes without saying. I mean, are there really people (besides the bureaucrats, at least) who actually say: "Gee, I think a top heavy response run by people who first instinct is CYA really has a better response time than a lean, well designed bureau with a clear cut chain of command?

"Liberals and conservatives are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture."

I would agree with you if you slip the word "radical" in there. People who are afraid of, and actively target, rational speech exist on both sides of the aisle. You can get all worked up about 'em, or you can ignore them and listen to the rational side. Your choice.

Krauthammer does an excellent job of summarizing everyone's blame who was involved. However, I'd like to know his scientific basis for dismissing the idea that of a correlation between the Greenhouse Effect and the strength of the hurricane in a single sentence (He said he was going to spend a paragraph on it, but it was only one sentence).

Mind you, I'm not 100% convinced that there is a relationship. I just want to know what criteria he used to dismiss it.

Krauthammer does an excellent job of summarizing everyone's blame who was involved. However, I'd like to know his scientific basis for dismissing the idea that of a correlation between the Greenhouse Effect and the strength of the hurricane in a single sentence (He said he was going to spend a paragraph on it, but it was only one sentence).

I'm not sure ANY political pundit understands science (see intelligent design); certainly, a lot of the right wing commentators treat science issues as if they were political issues, searching for pro and con spokespersons, and ignoring the body of evidence.

Charles Krauthammer is right, more or less. He lists what people we should blame and in what order, but the entire notion that the government has the resources to multi-task is somewhat wrongheaded. The massive bureacracy set in place so far is in part how and why the federal government screwed up in its intervention in the gulf coast.

Well, part of the reason the bureaucracy is so ridiculously huge is thanks in large part to the post-9/11 reconstruction of FEMA, rolling it under the umbrella of the DHS. The president is responsible because the president is the one that pushed the bill through.

Just for the record, Bush did say the equivalent of "the buck stops here":

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush took responsibility on Tuesday for failures in the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20050913/ts_nm/katrina_bush_responsibility_dc_1

I am sure it still won't be enough for a few of you, but I am not sure if his even resigning would be enough! ;-)

Iowa Jim

Jim:

>"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

It sticks out more in print than it does when heard, but essentially the guy says he takes responsibility and then feigns ignorance. While I've no doubt about the validity of his statement of ignorance, it is a classic dodge.

>I am sure it still won't be enough for a few of you, but I am not sure if his even resigning would be enough! ;-)

Nope, that would certainly be enough... as long as he took Cheney with him. :p

Fred

"...and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility"

Nice way of leaving himself the out of laying the blame on everybody else.

Since his spin machine has been working overtime to lay the blame on Blanco and Nagin (and since having "Brownie" fall on his sword didn't affect anything), he still won't admit that his gutting of FEMA in the first place was the majority of the problem.

That, and playing politics with Blanco, when good ol "Brother Jeb" barely had to lift a finger to get aid after hurricanes struck FL.

Truth be known, Jim, I almost crapped myself when I read that. Then I read the language he used: "...to the extent that federal government didn't do it's job right..." That is not taking responsibility for much of anything, but it's closer to it than anything he's ever said before. And why did it take him 8 days to say it?

... and more frightening, if it is true, why after all of this time does he not know exactly what went wrong?

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility," Bush said. "I want to know what went right and what went wrong."

Well, first, I think talk is cheap. Let's see if he's still singing that song when Congress is asking the hard questions such as, "Why the hell did you hire someone who clearly was spectacularly unqualified?" And second, it's shocking to me that a professional news organization doesn't know that there's no apostrophe in the possessive form of "its."

PAD

Oh, and Tim, if I may hearken back to your earlier post that should be entitled "I'm a Liberal Because This is What I Believe", I'd like to add a hearty "Ditto" and a hearty "Word!"

Great stuff, Tim.

Bush's comments are a start. Of course, I'll be surprised if it actually translates into a concrete look at the people at top levels of government instead of a whitewash where fingers were pointed at lower level civil servants and anyone else who wasn't a Bush appointee (See the 9/11 investigation, the intelligence failure in Iraq investigation, the Abu Graib investigation).

Most likely, Brownie has already been tapped to be the fall guy for everything, which would make it the first time a Bush appointee was held responsible for anything.

Progress, I guess.

If the liberals on this board don't read Michael Berube, you should.

I’ve got one more outrage to get to before I turn in for the night, so let me take this opportunity to say the obvious. The Bush Administration’s failure to provide adequate relief for victims of Katrina is a political issue through and through. Timorous Democrats, please take note. Bush/Cheney based their entire 2004 campaign, at least the official version, on the premise that they and they alone could protect Americans from terrorist attacks, and they slandered your ticket accordingly. (The unofficial version of the campaign, you’ll recall, involved the Swift Boat Vets—see “very slimy waters,” above.) Cheney gave the speech time and again: electing Kerry meant certain, fiery death. Remember those wolves gathering in the forest? The extra wolves they didn’t use in The Day After Tomorrow? Well, it turns out that the Bush crew can’t protect you from wolves. It can’t even get pallets of food, water, and medicine to sick, starving people in New Orleans. It can’t plan for a disaster that everyone, everyone in “disaster management” anticipated. It can’t even answer the goddamn phone when Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the U.S.S. Bataan, is calling to offer aid, medical services, and fresh water to the hurricane victims. (And check out the date on that military press release in the hyperlink! August 29.)

I remember the Republican National Convention. I bet you do, too. And I remember Ahnuld saying:

If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.

Don’t forget it for an instant: they ran on this. Security, defense, accountability. That’s what Democrats have to say and say and say again in the coming weeks. Otherwise, this crew of criminals and incompetents will start calling for “accountability” in the form of Ray Nagin’s head on a platter.

Damn. I didn't put the entire body of the message in bold. The last four lines are all Berube as well.

"I remember the Republican National Convention. I bet you do, too. And I remember Ahnuld saying:

If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican.

Don’t forget it for an instant: they ran on this. Security, defense, accountability. That’s what Democrats have to say and say and say again in the coming weeks. Otherwise, this crew of criminals and incompetents will start calling for “accountability” in the form of Ray Nagin’s head on a platter."

Otherwise, this crew of criminals and incompetents will start calling for “accountability” in the form of Ray Nagin’s head on a platter.

Or, to put it another way, I'd be VERY disappointed if it was JUST Nagin's head that was on the platter now...

"...and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do it's job right, I take responsibility"

Nice way of leaving himself the out of laying the blame on everybody else.

Ok, let's be objective for a second. I know you can do it. Let's use an example from the world of PAD. This is not a criticism or a slam, just a way to illustrate a point. Fallen Angel sales were not as much as DC wanted. Should PAD say all of the blame is his? Should he take full responsibility? He has little to no control over the marketing at DC, etc.

In the real world it is no different. There is very clearly at least 3 different levels of government agencies involved. Short of completely violating any semblance of state's rights, it is impossible for Bush to have had sole responsibility in this matter.

Implicit in his statement is that in at least some areas the Federal government failed. Is this a political answer? Of course. Is he covering himself? Yes, the same as virtually any other person in political office.

PAD's comment has some merit in that Bush's actions in the coming months are more important than just saying he takes responbility and the federal government shared in the failure to help the victims. The same is true for the rest of those involved. I may have missed it, but I have yet to read or hear the mayor clearly acknowledging mistakes were made under his watch and to take responsibility. The governor came close in one statement I read. But to expect Bush to take sole responsibility is not only absurd, it would be to ignore the areas that clearly need to be fixed at the local and state levels.

Iowa Jim

In case any of you read too much into my example, I am saying that the poor marketing by DC, etc., proably did play a role in poor sales for Fallen Angel. PAD could write the best comic book ever, but it takes the support and work of the publisher to help it succeed.

Iowa Jim

Jim, the only difference I'd make to your analogy is that to make it fit on any levelwith the disaster situation and response, you'd need to put PAD in Brown's position and DC Editorial (or president even) into Bush's.

Fred

James and Knuckles -- thanks for the kind words. It just kinda spilled out.

TWL

Also, it depends on what kind of consequences there are. For Nagin and Blanco...they should be out of office. The folks at the local disaster management agencies should be fired if they did nothing [obviously, if they knew and tried to get things changed, they shouldn't get the entire brunt of criticism]. The FEMA folks who didn't give a high priority toward revising plans should be disciplined, as should the folks who didn't think that red tape should be relaxed in the wake of an emergency.

Bush bears ultimate responsibility for his strategy that emphasized terrorism response over disaster mitigation and recovery; he also bears responsibility for not getting FEMA and Homeland Security up to speed to serve the needs of disaster victims--no matter if the larger responsibility lies with the state and local authorities, it's still the federal government's job to make sure they are adequate. The consequences for him are to go back to the drawing board, rethink his strategy and get something that works.

Jim, the only difference I'd make to your analogy is that to make it fit on any levelwith the disaster situation and response, you'd need to put PAD in Brown's position and DC Editorial (or president even) into Bush's.

PAD also isn't incompetent, unlike some of Bush's appointees.

Oh, look. More stuff debunking the myth that Gov. Blanco didn't do squat before the storm hit and that Bush was the big mover and shaker here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard

Just a short bit from the piece:

"Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday."

The Report on Blanco

Hope my HTML is right. I hate these anchor tags.

The long and the short of the above document is this: Blanco actually did her job, if you assume that the Congressional Research Service actually knows how to do theirs.

Thanks for the quote from Bush, Iowa Jim. While it did have a couple more equivocations in it than I would like to hear from the President of the United States, it's still the most responsibility I can remember ever hearing the Administration take for ANY mistake. And if the mayor hasn't stepped up to accept his responsibility yet - especially in light of failures like not accepting the Amtrak offer to use their supply train to evacuate people which Bill alerted us to above - that is disgraceful.

(I did briefly get one favorable impression of him when I heard that he wrote a letter to the New Orleans Saints which was so emotional that head coach Jim Hasslett was unable to finish reading it to the team, and the assistant who followed also had difficulty. Of course, much of that emotion could be from what the Saints themselves have experienced, thinking about their families and all of the people they've met who've been affected by Katrina. The NFL coverage over the weekend showed that they've been doing what they can to help - including winning the game, which the displaced Louisianians in Houston made clear was important to them. After the game, Joe Horn - the Saints wide receiver maybe best known to some [including me, to some extent] as "the bozo who hid his cell phone in a goalpost for a touchdown celebration" - but who was among the many Saints who brought supplies and gifts to the Astrodome this past week - said that if stealing a flat screen TV from his house could help feed your family, take it; take everything.)

Anyway, to get back to the mayor, I really dobut that he'll ever be re-elected. I wonder, would there be any provisions to remove him from office before the decisions of rebuilding have to be made? (For that matter, could there be a case for criminal negligence, in the cases of the train and the buses, for example?)

Well, if the bad publicity, public pressure, and "blaming" can actually get the Bush Administration to admit to a possible error, maybe it's this "blaming" isn't all a bad thing ;)

And Bill, it occurred to me, too, when I was writing that previous post (expressing respect for your posting of evidence of Bush cronyism) that the common meeting ground of "A lot of our people suck, too" isn't really the ideal one :( But maybe, if the people who make up both sides can start looking critically at their own officials, as well, maybe we can weed out enough of the rotten ones that someday we can get a majority of representatives whom we can actually be proud of? (Okay, it's pretty sad that it's hard to keep a straight face while typing that.) Maybe? Someday?

I am sure it still won't be enough for a few of you, but I am not sure if his even resigning would be enough! ;-)

Well, hari-kari would be the honorable thing ... :D

Jerry C. - Ugh. If Gov. Blanco accepted an offer of aid the day before - but couldn't receive it for FIVE DAYS because of slow-to-arrive paperwork from Washington - that is a disgusting failure of the system, and one for which the state level would certainly appear to be blameless. (In fact, can states-righters be happy if the states do in fact need federal permission to send emergency aid to each other?)

I also heard reports that the main problem was communications.

Much of this certainly falls on the city and state. There was no redundancy in the city communications system, and when that failed, there was no manual backup (using non-police personnel as runners, etc.). And apparently, there was supposed be FEMA communications equipment to be used (not sure if it was for local providers or for FEMA efforts), but funding for that was apparently cut.

I'm not sure who was responsible for the reported fact that there was only one satellite radio for the Louisiana and Mississipi National Guard combined (the rest were off in Iraq), state or federal.....

Another "blame the local guys" gets debunked.

Heard the one being put out hard by Fox News and others about how the mayor and Gov. Blanco fell down on getting people out because they let their 2000 (or 3000 depending on who is telling the lie) school buses/buses sit and get flooded out as people who could have been taken from the area in them died? This is really getting pushed hardest by Sean (I couldn't tell the truth with a gun to my head)Hannity but it is being reported as fact in their news reports as well.

I had a problem with that one from the fact that I had already seen reports about how the mayor had used the public bus system to get people out of the area. Now this pops up.

http://www.doe.state.la.us/lde/uploads/2253.pdf

As of 2003 (the most recent year for the data available) New Orleans' public schools owned a grand total of 324 school buses. That must have been a one hell of an increase in buses in just 24 months. Plus the data shows that 70 were broken down.

Would the buses of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority added in been a huge increase to the total? No. A Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development profile of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, last updated on May 5, noted that they owned only 364 public buses. This brings the total to 688 buses (minus whatever number may have been on the shelf.)

So, unless I or somebody else finds a link showing that NO had an increase of 1312 buses (or 2312 buses for the extreme liars) in the last 24 months and how many actually worked, we show again that Fox News likes to lie like no other news organ since the fall of the USSR.

>This is really getting pushed hardest by Sean (I couldn't tell the truth with a gun to my head)Hannity but it is being reported as fact in their news reports as well.

And he's also continuing to spew the lie of "There was no evacuation" - when LA managed to move *over one million people* out of the path of the storm.

Of course, it's Faux News, so "All Lies, All the Time" is expected from them...

The long and the short of the above document is this: Blanco actually did her job, if you assume that the Congressional Research Service actually knows how to do theirs.

Well, since a Democrat's name is on it, it may just get dismissed by wingnuts...

But I'm not sure she should be excused for some of her poor decision making, like the delays in signing necessary orders, some of the dithering that was apparent, and the lack of back up planning.

From what I'm reading in this report, that's simply not the case. The delays in signing came from DC, not from LA.

I meant other signings, such as the signing for out of state doctors to be allowed to work in the area and the order to allow National Guard forces to commandeer trucks.

Now those are levels of bureaucracy that the DHS was supposed to eliminate when it was implemented. One of the selling points of the whole idea of "Homeland Security" is that it would put every element of homeland protection under one umbrella and cut through the red tape. From what I'm seeing here, it hasn't done that. If anything, it's quite the opposite.

Huh. Interesting, if true (and not surprising considering the red-tape addiction of FEMA)(that would come, I would think, with the itnroduction of leadership that wasn't so versed in disaster recovery nuts-and-bolts).

On other fronts, here's an interesting post from the guy who was present at the Hurrican Pam simulation:

http://suspect-device.blogspot.com/2005/09/in-wake-of-poseidon-how-it-all.html

And here's thinkprogresses.org's spin on the blame game:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/13/katrina-myths-debunked/

As always, take this with a grain of salt. But it seems to me that the talking-points gang is going to oversimplify and miss all the subtle interactions that multiplied the incompetency...

Awp. Another interesting post. This time from Jeffrey Itell, the guy who led the GAO's investivation of FEMA's work during Hurricane Andrew event:

http://www.theinformationist.com/

The upshot is that the 2nd Bush Administration took every single recomendation of that GAO report and undid them, so that the failures of FEMA could be repeated.

Jerry, however many buses there were (and it tells you something about the place if 20% were broken down) the point is that they should have been used!

Ditto with the trains.

No, it would not have been enough to get 100,000 people out. Maybe "just" another 10-15 thousand. Isn't that something? (they could also have gotten more buses into the city, since it took a while before Mayor Dimbulb thought to make all the lanes outgoing).

Stuff du jour:

While I love to spot egregious examples of bad reporting in America, you really have to look outside the country to see how bad it can get. From England's The Sun comes one Jeremy Clarkson who states:

"On the streets you've got some poor, starving soul helping themselves to a packet of food from a ruined, deserted supermarket. And as a result, finding themselves being blown to pieces by a helicopter gunship. With the none-too-bright soldiers urged on by their illiterate political masters, the poor and needy never stood a chance. It's easier and much more fun to shoot someone than make them a cup of tea.

"Especially if they're black."

Anybody want to fill me in on what I missed? Gunships blowing people to pieces?

Gov. Blanco should know by now that just because the you aren't on television doesn't mean that camera isn't on: http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/12/blancocnndaybreak/

Add Louis Farrakhan to the list of idiots who see divine intervention in New Orleans' destruction: "New Orleans is the first of the cities going to tumble down... unless America changes its course. It is the wickedness of the people of America and the government of America that is bringing the wrath of God down." Gee, and he seemed like such a sweet guy.

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, Palestinians showed why the expression "they will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity' is so apt; give the chance to show how well they can act when given a victory they responded by burning synagogues.

Yes, those hundreds of buses could still have withdrawn thousands of people from harm's way ... which is one of the reasons why grossly exaggerating the numbers of buses available is NOT helpful. The fact that gross incompetence or negligence may have occurred here gets obscured by the lying tactics of Hannity and other pundits. They already have a good point, if they would just make it. Instead, through either dishonest inflation of numbers or, at best, incompetant failure to check the facts in the hurry to bleat out their opinions, they obfuscate the inportant truth of the situation while continuing to add to the reasons to distrust them, and not helping in reducing partisan disturst, either. So, the important fact is that, as far as we know, the mayor of New Orleans totally failed to use available resources including Amtrak and hundreds of buses to rescue people from Katrina's path; but, as being demonstrated right here and now, exaggerated propoganda is getting in the way of that truth being recognized.

So.....I guess it >IS

So....I guess it is true that Gov. Blanco had to leave a message at the White House when she was asking for more help when the storm hit....

Bill,

It still makes a big difference when people are throwing accusations around. The fact is that Fox News has been telling quite a few lies about this. Hannity has been telling many lies about this.

Maybe the buses could have been used but you still needed drivers to do it. By most accounts, published and broadcast, most of the qualified drivers disappeared when the State of Emergency and the evacuations were called. That left more buses then drivers. Most people, despite your earlier postings regarding your bus driving skills, end up more like Otto of the Simpsons then you the first time they try and drive a bus. And that's in good conditions. Put a person who has never driven a bus behind the wheel, throw them into an area with tight turns and narrow streets and add in the weather condition brought on by an approaching category 5 hurricane and you have a situation where unskilled, unqualified and inexperienced drivers are likely to be as deadly as they are helpful.

Plus, I hate this lie because it's an attempt to create a straw dog for Bush backers to battle. If you dig around the Nworleens posts you will find one of mine pointing out to somebody that a comment on the TV that they didn't like (something about people not wanting to leave) was somewhat true. During the pre-landfall of Katrina evacuation (you know, the one Hannity and crew claim never happened) the Mayor and other officials ordered the public transit system to use their buses to aid in evacuation and later moving people to areas of less risk. The complaint/statement that many of the officials made was that the buses were running half empty even when they should have had full loads. Why? Because many people were too damned stupid or stubborn to leave.

Let us just pretend for a moment that the Fox News lie was the truth. Hell, why not expand it. NO had 10,000 buses and enough drivers to run them all but let 9,750 sit empty and unused. What good would the extra 9,750 buses be if, by the end of the evacuation and the start of landfall, the 250 running buses were only getting one to ten riders? What, maybe you put 9,750 drivers in the danger zone that you didn't need to?

The point is that Fox, Hannity, Drudge, Rush, etc. are lying through there teeth and, seemingly, just making stuff up as they go along. I'll point that out when I see it just like I'll point out the stupidity of the ignorant a**holes going around claiming that bush knew this would happen this way and let it because he hates black people or the ones throwing out wingnut ideas about how they let it happen to wreck the oil production to net huge profit$. But, yeah, I'm more critical of the lies from people like Hannity and crew because the wingnuts' stupidity is trying to point out evil by stating opinion about what they think Bush and crew thought or felt while Hannity and crew are lying about times, dates, figures and facts and MAKING UP THE NEWS. The wingnuts are idiots pure and simple. The Hannities are cold, calculated, manipulative liars. The wingnuts I'll tolerate but won't deal with that often. The Hannities I simply hate.

Oh, come on. Saying England's The Sun is like saying The Weekly World News. I've two english friends who say that the only reason it sells at all is because it's cheaper then the kittie litter it's used as.

What if the house next door to mine is on fire. Do I call the local authorities or someone in Washington DC?
Before Bu$Hitler gets nailed, I think we ought to take someone to task for another natural disaster that killed 525 people in only 5 days here in the United States.

"The heat wave in July 1995 in Chicago was one of the worst weather-related disasters in Illinois history with approximately 525 deaths over a 5-day period. As noted by Changnon et al. (1996), "The loss of human life in hot spells in summer exceeds that caused by all other weather events in the United States combined, including lightning, rainstorms/floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.""

http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/atmos/statecli/General/1995Chicago.htm

We know the weather days in advance!! We should have had US Military Forces on the streets of Chicago with air conditioners, fans and coolers filled with ice and cool drinks!!

What if the house next door to mine is on fire. Do I call the local authorities or someone in Washington DC?

DId you read the GAO report from 1992?

The point is that Fox, Hannity, Drudge, Rush, etc. are lying through there teeth and, seemingly, just making stuff up as they go along. I'll point that out when I see it just like I'll point out the stupidity of the ignorant a**holes going around claiming that bush knew this would happen this way and let it because he hates black people or the ones throwing out wingnut ideas about how they let it happen to wreck the oil production to net huge profit$. But, yeah, I'm more critical of the lies from people like Hannity and crew because the wingnuts' stupidity is trying to point out evil by stating opinion about what they think Bush and crew thought or felt while Hannity and crew are lying about times, dates, figures and facts and MAKING UP THE NEWS. The wingnuts are idiots pure and simple. The Hannities are cold, calculated, manipulative liars. The wingnuts I'll tolerate but won't deal with that often. The Hannities I simply hate.

Fair enough, though I always thought that "wingnut" was reserved for right wingers. "Moonbat" is the term for left wing crazies. Not that this is written in stone anywhere. :)

Clearly Hannity is in the wrong here but what did Drudge get wrong?

I'm less tolerant of the moonbats because I think that their attempts to play the race card contribute to racial hatred in our society.

Oh, come on. Saying England's The Sun is like saying The Weekly World News.

Well, that explains a lot. I thought they were legit. Glad to hear otherwise.

And I'm still saying that it isn't that damn hard to drive a bus. I'm assuming that the buses there are like the ones I drive--automatic drive. If they are stick shift, sure, that would be hard. Otherwise, I just don't get what the problem is. No tougher than driving a moving van. Easier than maneuvering a U-Haul, in my experience.

I may be way off base here but I'd gladly put my kids on a bus driven by a sober person even without bus experience, if the alternative were to keep them in a city that's below sea level during a category 4 hurricane. But you are absolutely correct that all of this may be for nothing; if people did not wish to leave it really does not matter how many buses there were. But this is not quite the story we have been hearing, which is that poor people were left to face the fury of the hurricane while the wealthy were able to leave.

(and get shot up by gunships)

One bit of good news--the people who ran that Nursing Home where 30+ people died were arrested.

More good news--it looks like Mayor Nagen pulled those fatality numbers out of his ass. So far the numbers have remained mush lower. Of course, as always, one horrible discovery could change all that so lets keep hoping.

I can't take credit for it, and I apologize if it's been posted before, but I thought this somewhat apropos of this conversation:

How many Bush administration people does it take to change a light bulb?

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished';

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time;

8. One to viciously smear No. 7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country."

I may be way off base here but I'd gladly put my kids on a bus driven by a sober person even without bus experience, if the alternative were to keep them in a city that's below sea level during a category 4 hurricane. But you are absolutely correct that all of this may be for nothing; if people did not wish to leave it really does not matter how many buses there were. But this is not quite the story we have been hearing, which is that poor people were left to face the fury of the hurricane while the wealthy were able to leave

Well, there's the timing in all this. For 24-72 hours before the storm, I doubt that anybody would be taking the bus; it's in the 12 hours before and maybe during the first parts that people would change their minds and try to get out...

Roger, i think your argument only works if you don't think there were people who all along wanted to get out but couldn't for lack of transportation.

a point that was mentioned much earlier was whether they had fuel for the busses. in a disaster situation it's conceivable that they didn't have access.

i've heard stories of people who had cars but couldn't get gas to leave town.

sadly, though, it does sound like the busses were underused. or, if the stories of busses being half full are true and the stories of people who wanted to get out are true, they were mismanaged.

Well, as long as we're discussing jokes, I saw the following:

Q: What is Bush's opinion of Roe Versus Wade.

A: He doesn't really care HOW people get out of New Orleans.

PAD

Actually, my point was that a lot of people may have delayed getting on the bus until they saw what they were actually facing. Underutilized at the beginning, then a higher demand as time got closer (to protect their homes, not believing it'd really be that bad, etc.). But it's not something I'm holding that strongly.

Has there been discussion of this passage from the NY Times:

The power-sharing arrangement was by design, and as the days wore on, it would prove disastrous. Under the Bush administration, FEMA redefined its role, offering assistance but remaining subordinate to state and local governments. "Our typical role is to work with the state in support of local and state agencies," said David Passey, a FEMA spokesman. With Hurricane Katrina, that meant the agency most experienced in dealing with disasters and with access to the greatest resources followed, rather than led.

FEMA's deference was frustrating. Rather than initiate relief efforts - buses, food, troops, diesel fuel, rescue boats - the agency waited for specific requests from state and local officials. "When you go to war you don't have time to ask for each round of ammunition that you need," complained Colonel Ebbert, the city's emergency operations director.

Hrm. Maybe the deference to the locals looks good in theory, but really didn't work out in practice....or that the implementation in this case was all wrong headed.....

Long as we're allowed to joke about it...

http://intherightplace.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-orleans-rhapsody.html

New Orleans Rhapsody
[Sung to the tune of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody]

Time for more left wing
Paranoid fantasy,
Caught in the flood tide,
Out of touch with reality,
They spin their lies,
They just criticize and seethe,
"Hicks from those red states, show them no sympathy!"
"Because they're filthy scum, we all know!"
"Hit 'em high, hit 'em low!"
They can't shut their blow-holes,
They've got Bush Derangement you see, you see

Dubya's, the one they blame,
They're all calling for his head,
"There's 10,000 people dead!"
Dubya, Schumer's raising funds,
And Landrieu's gonna punch you in the nose!
Dubya, ooo
Nagin let the buses drown,
And Blanco barred the Red Cross from New Orleans,
But to Dems, but to Dems, the facts never seem to matter

Look out, the storm has come,
It's a category five,
Need big-screen TV's to survive!
Goodbye, everybody - you've got to go,
Better leave that loot behind and save your tush!
Dubya, ooo (Hurricane force winds blow)
"Kyoto went unsigned!"
"It's all his fault the levees weren't improved!"

[Guitar solo]

"I see a little Chimpbushitler of a man!"
"Dubya Bush! Dubya Bush! Sole cause of global warming!"
"FBI hunts Nagin!" "Cannibals crave Cajun meat!"
Media drones, (Media drones)
Media drones, (Media drones)
Media drones, inundate the Superdome!

"They're just the black folks, Bush never loved them!"
"They're just the poor folks, come from poor families -
Bush wants them dead, he's a monster you see!"
Sean Penn's got a boat, cannot make it float!
Not Nagin! No - It's Bush's fault you know - not Blanco
Not Nagin! It's Bush's fault you know - not Blanco
Not Nagin! It's Bush's fault you know - not Blanco
Bush's fault you know - not Blanco (Never, never, never)
Bush's fault you know - not Blanco-o-o-o-o
No, no, no, no, no, no, no -
"Oh, Where's FEMA? Where's FEMA?"
"Where's FEMA? Where'd they go?"
"George Dubya Bush bombed the levees and let in the sea!"
"The sea!"
"The sea!"

[Begin Wayne's World head bang...]

So you think you can snow me with all of your lies?
You're all so full, there's brown in the whites of your eyes!
You're crazy - can't believe you're this crazy!
Just cut it out - just cut it right out, ya hear!

(Too bad, so sad...)

None of this stuff matters,
Anyone can see,
No time for the blame game - while we've still got people in need

Time to shut your blow-holes...

[Gong!]

Adn I thoght my Rolling Brown Out pun was painful to read.

"And" & "thought"

:(

I'll wake up in a bit.

"however many buses there were (and it tells you something about the place if 20% were broken down)"

I just find the last part of this comment to be crass. Anyone with school-bus motor pool experience care to let us know, on average, how many busses in the pool are in need to operational maintenance at any one time? If 20% out of service is high, low, normal? Assuming that 20% out of service busses means anything more than just what the facts state is just that...an assumption. And you know what assuming does to people.

And while people are busy castigating the mayor for his total faiure "to use available resources including Amtrak and hundreds of buses to rescue people from Katrina's path," remember that over 90% of the people in the area were successfully evacuated...over 1 million people, in 36 hours. Can anyone site to a successful evacuation of this scale, in this timeframe, from this heavily populated an area, from any other point in history? This isn't like a high-school fire drill, where you need to get a few hundred kids out into the parking lot.

As easy as it is to criticize the Feds' slow response during this crisis, it's even easier to ask "why not use all those busses?" As others have pointed out, by the time the evacuation became mandatory, many of the qualified bus drivers had fled the area. And while some may think it's an easy thing to drive a bus (it's like a big car, right...well, not really), I doubt very much that it is. There was at least one bus accident during the evacuation after the storm struck, where I believe 5 people died. Now, imagine that a bus overturns during the pre-storm evacuation occurs because of an inexperienced driver...on the main route out of the city. Precious time is lost as that bus needs to be cleared from blocking the lanes, the result being that thousands more people are stuck on a bridge, in their cars, when the storm surge hits. Then we'd have people blaming the mayor for allowing untrained drivers to operate those busses, endangering thousands more in a reckless effort to evacuate 40 more people.

Adding to the joking nature of the morning.....

The Sun: Headlines from 9/14/05.

PETROL PROTESTS FAIL TO BITE
FEARS of blockade of fuel centres eased as few protesters turn up - but long queues petrol stations

MANY KILLED IN IRAQ OUTRAGES
MORE than 100 people have died in four suicide attacks and series of executions in Baghdad

Murder in Harvey Nicks
Gunman kills ex-lover then himself at store

Flintoff in £3m cash bonanza
But Ashes hero says riches will not change him

Kate & Pete's fashion duet
Couple record track in bid for style success

CAT FIGHTS ON THE CATWALK
Tears & tantrums as babes battle for model crown

ANT & DEC'S BIG CONFESSION
Duo say they're to blame for Jordan's Chavfest wedding

Nicola T, 22, from Croydon
See loads more girls on our super cyber site

Your say about Sun Online

Funeral for tot in concrete

Brit Paras 'beat me up'

In the name of Gord

Dome chief's £4m rip-off

PS2 power pack recall

Diana's role for William

Cheque out Sun Money

Send us your photographs

Great news from The Sun

Got a story for The Whip?

That's the front page. It goes down from there. And that's not even counting the ads and links for stuff like Super Babes and bizarre Exposed Celeb Snaps. I would have loved to have posted some of the sports stuff but I'm not sure that it's in anything like English. Maybe it's Cockney slang but it damned sure aunt English.

Can ANYONE pleasetell me why more heads aren't rolling over this DISASTER made WORSE by incompetent leadership?!?!?

When Do The Saints Come Marching In?
A Very Different Picture of post-Katrina New Orleans

EDITOR'S NOTE: Redbone Press publisher Lisa Moore has been telling a very different story about the armed denizens of New Orleans.

I heard from my aunt last night that my cousin Denise made it out of New Orleans; she's at her brother's in Baton Rouge.

Her mother, a licensed practical nurse, was called in to work on Sunday night at Memorial Hospital (historically known as Baptist Hospital to those of us from N.O.). Denise decided to stay with her mother, her niece and grandniece (who is two years old); she figured they'd be safe at the hospital. They went to Baptist, and had to wait hours to be assigned a room to sleep in. After they were finally assigned a room, two white nurses suddenly arrived after the cut-off time (time to be assigned a room), and Denise and her family were booted out; their room was given up to the new nurses. Denise was furious, and rather than stay at Baptist, decided to walk home (several blocks away) to ride out the storm at her mother's apartment. Her mother stayed at the hospital.

She described it as the scariest time in her life. Three of the rooms in the apartment (there are only four) caved in. Ceilings caved in, walls caved in. she huddled under a mattress in the hall. She thought she would die from either the storm or a heart attack. After the storm passed, she went back to Baptist to seek shelter (this was Monday). It was also scary at Baptist; the electricity was out, they were running on generators, there was no air conditioning. Tuesday the levees broke, and water began rising. They moved patients upstairs, saw boats pass by on what used to be streets. They were told that they would be evacuated, that buses were coming. Then they were told they would have to walk to the nearest intersection, Napoleon and S. Claiborne, to await the buses. They waded out in hip-deep water, only to stand at the intersection, on the neutral ground (what y'all call the median) for three 1/2 hours. The buses came and took them to the Ernest Morial Convention Center. (yes, the convention center you've all seen on TV.)

Denise said she thought she was in hell. They were there for two days, with no water, no food. no shelter. Denise [was with] her mother (63 years old), her niece (21 years old), and two-year-old grandniece. When they arrived, there were already thousands of people there. They were told that buses were coming. Police drove by, windows rolled up, thumbs up signs. National Guard trucks rolled by, completely empty, soldiers with guns cocked and aimed at them. Nobody stopped to drop off water. A helicopter dropped a load of water, but all the bottles exploded on impact due to the height of the helicopter.

The first day (Wednesday) four people died next to her. The second day (Thursday) six people died next to her. Denise told me the people around her all thought they had been sent there to die. Again, nobody stopped. The only buses that came were full; they dropped off more and more people, but nobody was being picked up and taken away. They found out that those being dropped off had been rescued from rooftops and attics. They got off the buses delirious from lack of water and food, completely dehydrated. The crowd tried to keep them all in one area; Denise said the new arrivals had mostly lost their minds.

Inside the convention center, the place was one huge bathroom. In order to [defecate], you had to stand in other people's [feces]. The floors were black and slick with [feces]. Most people stayed outside because the smell was so bad. but outside wasn't much better: between the heat, the humidity, the lack of water, the old and very young dying from dehydration ... and there was no place to lay down, not even room on the sidewalk.

They slept outside Wednesday night, under an overpass.

Denise said yes, there were young men with guns there. But they organized the crowd. They went to Canal Street and "looted," and brought back food and water for the old people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days. When the police rolled down windows and yelled out "the buses are coming," the young men with guns organized the crowd in order: old people in front, women and children next, men in the back, just so that when the buses came, there would be priorities of who got out first.

Denise said the fights she saw between the young men with guns were fist fights. She saw them put their guns down and fight rather than shoot up the crowd. But she said that there were a handful of people shot in the convention center; their bodies were left inside, along with other dead babies and old people.

Yes, a few men shot at the police, because at a certain point all the people thought the cops were coming to hurt them, to kill them all. She saw a young man who had stolen a car speed past, cops in pursuit. He crashed the car, got out and ran, and the cops shot him in the back. In front of the whole crowd. She saw many groups of people decide that they were going to walk across the bridge to the west bank, and those same groups would return, saying that they were met at the top of the bridge by armed police ordering them to turn around, that they weren't allowed to leave. So they all believed they were sent there to die.

Denise's niece found a pay phone, and kept trying to call her mother's boyfriend in Baton Rouge, and finally got through and told him where they were. The boyfriend, and Denise's brother, drove down from Baton Rouge and came and got them. They had to bribe a few cops, and talk a few into letting them into the city ("come on, man, my two-year-old niece is at the Convention Center!"), then they took back roads to get to them.

After arriving at my other cousin's apartment in Baton Rouge, they saw the images on TV, and couldn't believe how the media was portraying the people of New Orleans. She kept repeating to me on the phone last night, "make sure you tell everybody that they left us there to die. Nobody came. Those young men with guns were protecting us. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have had the little water and food they had found."

As easy as it is to criticize the Feds' slow response during this crisis, it's even easier to ask "why not use all those busses?" As others have pointed out, by the time the evacuation became mandatory, many of the qualified bus drivers had fled the area.

Sorry, but that doesn't get a pass from me. Keeping qualified drivers until the last moment should be part of the plan, shouldn't it?

"Sorry, but that doesn't get a pass from me. Keeping qualified drivers until the last moment should be part of the plan, shouldn't it?"

And how exactly do you do this? School bus drivers are like my neighbor...retired plumbers, housewives, regular joes. For many of them, driving a bus is their second, maybe third job. They have families, children, wives and husbands to care for. These aren't emergency personnel, police officers, fire fighters, or national guard. They aren't trained to respond to emergencies, they drive a bus. And they aren't paid more than a pittance to do that. So, what are your ideas to making sure this group of normal people, with families of their own to care for, stick around until the last minute, endangering their own lives, and maybe the lives of their families, so they can drive the busses? Hell, if trained police officers broke ranks and fled, how can you expect a bus driver to stand his ground?

Remember, we're talking about moving a few thousand more people, maybe just a few hundred people. Around 1%, likely less than that, of the area's population. Why focus so much on this one small "error," when there was so much about the evacuation that went right?

And how exactly do you do this? School bus drivers are like my neighbor...

Well, for one thing, I would use school bus drivers in the initial phases, and use other personnel in the later phases (because more than likely you're not getting return trips that late in the game); those other personnel should have training to drive busses.

It's part of the details of an evacuation plan.

The military/National Guard/sheriff's department/police/whoever-was-in-charge DOESN'T have ANYONE that can drive buses? Geez.

How do they transport prisoners from jail to prison? Outsourcing that has gotta be DAMN expensive.

And, no, I dont consider the evacuation plan particularly successful; it's not as well conceived as the Florida plan, where there's an ongoing database of old and handicapped indviduals, which evacuation personnel can consult as they execute the plan.

At least local politicians wouldn't take the national guard and other troops away from rescue operations for their own personal use.

Or would they...?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1123495&page=1

Well, here's the thing- the City of New Orleans had a plan and it involved using the damn buses! I would consider it backseat armchair quaterbacking to be pushing the bus issue otherwise. It's easy to come up with should have been done afterwards. But when there is already a plan and then it is ignored or turns out to have been so badly planned that it might as well not have existed, then it's perfectly legit to ask why.

If the city had a plan to use the buses but none to provide drivers or gas to them...what good was it?

As for my being crass on the issue of the 20% disabled--if I spoke out of turn I apologize. The school I work at has a whole parking lot full of busses and after inquiring, I find that we have exactly one that needs some work done on it to make it useable. So 20% seems quite high to me but maybe it is typical of city schools.

"I'm less tolerant of the moonbats because I think that their attempts to play the race card contribute to racial hatred in our society."

Bill: That is crap. People on BOTH sides play the race card all the fucking time. Right-wing people play it by accusing left-wing of shouting "RACISM!" and left-wingers play it by accusing right-wingers of racism. It's complete and utter bullshit on both sides, and played equally by both sides. You're doing it right now.

Keeping qualified drivers until the last moment should be part of the plan, shouldn't it?

And how do you propose to do that? Imprison the bus drivers when a storm approaches, until you're sure you don't need them anymore?

Set up a 'watch list' and have everyone leaving the city go through checkpoints & identify themselves so that bus drivers can't leave the city?

And how do you propose to do that?

It's called planning. Using people who are doing other things who are cross trained to do something else. Last ones out, who aren't as important as police, to be the drivers.

"If the city had a plan to use the buses but none to provide drivers or gas to them...what good was it?"

Not very much, as we're seeing. And while this aspect of the emergency plan wasn't very effective, focusing on it overlooks those aspects of the plan that allowed the greater mojority, over 90%, of those in harms way to evacuate.

How's the old military plan saying go? Something like every plan is perfect until the fighting starts? At all levels, this storm has proven that, again and again. This isn't the first time a monster storm has struck this country. It won't be the last. And while lessons learned in other areas were obviously not incorporated in New Orleans' evacuation plan, the evacuation was not a total failure. It was nearly a total success, with less than 4% of the population remaining.

Out of curiosity, I've contacted a used school bus vendor, asking what the range of a typical school bus is. If I get a response, I'll pass that along here.

According to thisL http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:E-yOmvAp3G0J:www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20050825/NEWS01/508250342/1006/NEWS+school+bus+%22mpg%22&hl=en

"The average school bus -- make that gas hog -- weighs about 28,000 pounds, carries a 60-gallon gas tank, hauls about 70 students and gets only about 6 or 7 miles per gallon."

60 times(best case scenario) 7 mpg = 420 miles.

I would imagine that city buses would be about the same and if anything, would get fewer MPG. Heavy duty armored national guard vehicles even less.

If the city had a plan to use the buses but none to provide drivers or gas to them...what good was it?

They did use buses! They used city buses! In particular, city buses were used to shuttle people(reg required) to the Superdome. Of course it would have been better to shuttle them out of town, but where? Chances are, a lot of these people had nowhere to go.

"Right-wing people play it by accusing left-wing of shouting "RACISM!" and left-wingers play it by accusing right-wingers of racism. It's complete and utter bullshit on both sides, and played equally by both sides. You're doing it right now."

OK.

Sooooo... You admit the left wingers use the race card. You then point out that pointing out the use of the race card is itself using the race card and thus we who point it out are as bad as the ones using it.

I'm not drunk enough to get that logic.

I like this comment from suspect-device:

Well, sure. But by the time anyone realized the feds weren't going to come through, it was too late. They should have been putting people on the NOLA buses -- and the amtrak -- on Sunday at the latest, preferably starting on Saturday. The reality of the situation seems to be that everyone was waiting for someone else to pick up the ball, and no one -- local, state, or federal -- did so.

I saw another blogger say (wish I could remember --2millionth?) say that he figured Nagin would come out of this pretty badly bruised and battered and wounded, Blanco damaged but salvageable, and the feds looking worst of all. I think that might be about right, but they all shared the same problem: stage fright.

Yeah, geez. Why would leaders want to use the buses to get people the hell outta dodge? For that matter, why the hell are these people complaining about not having water for four days? At least one account I read had a helicopter dropping a load of water at the Convention Center. I mean, geez, they dropped it from forty feet up and all the bottles exploded, but, hey, we tried. And that's all that matters, right? RIGHT?

Jerry, thanks, I was trying to figure out that one myself.

I mean, I know that there are LOTS of racist right wingers but among other conservatives they are usually treated as embarassments. Al Sharpton gets a free ride, treated as someone worthy of being on stage with the presumed nominee for president. Anyone who lived near Glenns falls when this criminal was doing the Tawana Bawley fiasco...the sight of him makes me want to turn away.

I don't blame all liberals just because some nut blogs in the Huffington Post that blacks are eating each other after 4 days in New Orleans. I do blame them if this kook is ever again treated as a serious man by liberals. I mean, it didn't take too many stupid statement by Pat Robertson for me to figure out that he isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. How many dumb things will it take for the moonbats to do the same with their crazy aunts in the closet?

A question re: buses:

What if they had used the buses to remove the people, but then couldn't get them all out of the city because of all of the roads blocked by police who wouldn't let the NO people into their cities? Then what? Leave the busses on the highways or go to the superdome which is what was done?

The point I'm trying to make is that Bill is accusing liberals of using the race card to foment racial hatred and that it's a liberal specific issue. I say, "Bullshit." It is used equally on both sides. Now, in my further attempt for clarification, I hadn't had my coffee yet.

>What if they had used the buses to remove the people, but then couldn't get them all out of the city because of all of the roads blocked by police who wouldn't let the NO people into their cities? Then what? Leave the busses on the highways or go to the superdome which is what was done?

Well, just a thought here, but the buses were LEAVING, police were trying to stop vehicles from ENTERING. Wouldn't they just get out of the way and let the buses through?

Clarifying my thoughts: I think the race card is used by liberals, I think the race card is used by conservatives. I think both groups use it irresponsibly and recklessly, for the sole reason of appealing to their base. I think liberals use it to show just how little conservatives (in this case meaning the current administration) care for minorities, and I think that conservatives use it to prove "Oh yes we do."

However, I also think that conservatives try to downplay issues that can and are race-related, simply by denying they exist. Do I think that the end results of Katrina are race related? Absolutely. Is that a conscious choice on the part of anyone involved? I seriously doubt it. But when the poorest areas of a city are the hardest hit by a Cat5 hurricane, and those areas are overwhelmingly populated with minorities, AND those areas are the last to receive aid, it would seem that the "race card" (which, as a term, is every bit as fucking annoying and trite as "blame game" - thank you, Johnny Cochrane) is perhaps not inappropriate to those who live at the mercy of relief efforts. Poverty may be colorblind, but it seems to be fairly heavily biased towards specific groups.

In the words of Kanye West:

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us! George Bush doesn't care about black people!

I don't know West's politics, but I'd be willing to bet that you, perhaps Jerry, Iowa Jim etc. would classify him as a liberal based on that statement. Me, I think of him as an African-American with a legitimate complaint and a legitimate opinion.

K-Nuck:

Kanye (based solely on the statement you provided) isn't an African American, conservative, liberal, martian, whathaveyou.

Mr. West is what I would call a "good person."

Right you are, bb. I'd also call him a "good American".

"Well, just a thought here, but the buses were LEAVING, police were trying to stop vehicles from ENTERING. Wouldn't they just get out of the way and let the buses through?"

Not if you were trying to head west. The Gretna police were on that bridge, armed, and turning people attempting to flee the city back.

Just because they were part of the plan doesn't mean they get used. Going back to my military strategy comparison, you spend a lot of time planning, but once the battle starts, you don't just stick to the plan because it's there. You go with what you are able to do, with what is working, and you dump everything else.

Why the hell would they turn them BACK?!?!?

Kevin Drum is currently debunking myths on his blog. I'd like to see what the reality is of all these different police stories.

How many dumb things will it take for the moonbats to do the same with their crazy aunts in the closet?

Hey, we gave you Zell Miller, what more do you want?

Seriously, there are people who say stupid things on both sides. After all, it wasn't that long ago that Pat Buchanan all but single-handedly sank the Bush I's reelection with his "cultural war" convention speech.

I have no more use for Sharpton then you have for Robertson, but both men still command loyal followings in their respective parties.

Then there's my current favorite wingnut, Rick Santorum, who feels that getting stranded in your antic for five days without food or water isn't enough of a punishment for refusing to evacuate when told.

The point I'm trying to make is that Bill is accusing liberals of using the race card to foment racial hatred and that it's a liberal specific issue. I say, "Bullshit." It is used equally on both sides. Now, in my further attempt for clarification, I hadn't had my coffee yet.

In my defense, I was talking about "moonbats", the extreme unthinking liberals, the polar opposits but intellectual equals of the conservative "wingnuts". I certainly did not say racism is a liberal specific issue. In fact I think that more hardcore racists are "conservative" rather than "liberal" (though most of them probably don't think hard enough to qualify for any philosophy).

As for the lack of coffee, amen, my brother. 3 cups a day of powdery Mexican expresso is all that stands between me and unconciousness.

But when the poorest areas of a city are the hardest hit by a Cat5 hurricane, and those areas are overwhelmingly populated with minorities, AND those areas are the last to receive aid, it would seem that the "race card" is perhaps not inappropriate to those who live at the mercy of relief efforts.

Maybe. Is there evidence that the white families that fled the city got aid before the black families that stayed? Is there evidence that white families that stayed got aid before black families did? I saw whites in the waters of New Orleans as well and, despite what some have predicted, no army helicopters swooped down and carried them off to Branson MO for the 9 o'clock Tony Orlando show.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food."

Ok, snopes.com has a good piece on this. Money quotes:

Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by [photographer Chris] Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.
The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:
I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow.

We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us! George Bush doesn't care about black people!

Even beyond the incoherance...what exactly is he saying, that he wants even MORE National Guradsman to be available to shoot Blacks?--there is no evidence of truth here. Please provide evidence that orders were given to shoot black looters. Otherwise, this "good man" is just spouting off racial hatred.

(And, yes, I know that Blanco did mention something about shooting to kill. West is psecifically saying that "They" have permission to shoot "us". Us? Million dollar rock stars who have to ask their managers how much they can give? Blacks? Time magazine cover subjects? Who?)

Reason isn't necessarily the point, Bill. Perception is. This is how many blacks in America view the governments policies (as embodied by GWB) as directed towards them. Now as to the difference betweein "looting" and "finding", I disagree. Someone's in the store grabbing objects of necessity: food, water, etc. I see little difference between that and the guy grabbing floating loaves of bread and Twinkees. Now if they are in the sporting goods store taking boxes of Nikes, then I would agree.

"I don't know West's politics, but I'd be willing to bet that you, perhaps Jerry, Iowa Jim etc. would classify him as a liberal based on that statement. Me, I think of him as an African-American with a legitimate complaint and a legitimate opinion."

"Mr. West is what I would call a "good person."

Mr. West is what I would call a "well meaning but uninformed idiot."

**I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food."**

On what planet? First, most the footage has been of blacks because they are about 90% or more of the victims still in NO. I haven't seen that many white families on TV because there aren't that many there. Plus, I saw more then a few media reports talking about families looking for food when they were taking food items. The news reports about looting have mostly been back dropped with footage of electronics and other like items being walked out of stores and floated down the street.

**And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black.**

No, it was five days because people tripped all over themselves. Some of those trippers on the local level were, if I may point it out, black themselves. What, they hated blacks too?

**... and those are my people down there.***

Funny, as an American I always thought of the people down there as my people as well. Guess I should quit caring now since they're not.

**America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible.**

BS. Sorry, but I've been part of rescue and emergency situations in the past and no one ever acted any differnt or with less effort due to any of those factors. The only thing we ever saw was human lives. Period.

Oh, and is America right now earmarking all its aid money and relief for rich white people only? Are there black people being cut out of the loop right now so that the well off can get aid? Are Americans donating with strings so that only 5% of what they give goes to black families and the poor?

**...they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!"

Really? Mr. West is looting electronic stores, jewelery stores and banks? Mr. West is shooting at rescue workers and law enforcement officers to cover for those looting those stores? He must be if he's claiming to be part of the "we" that can be shot at. No one has issued a single order to shoot some one for just sitting on their front stoop. No one has been told to kill anybody just because they're putting wood up over their house window. No one has put out an order to shoot on sight anyone just because they happen to be black. Find me that order and I'll join you in outrage.

**George Bush doesn't care about black people!**

Bush is an idiot who lives in a protective bubble. There are lots of people he shows little care for. It's not a black thing.

This is a perfect example of the race card. Somebody like Sharpton is a calculated, manipulative liar who uses the race card for power and gain. Mr. West is an idiot.

He also has no tact. He can use his fame to express his opinion at anytime in the media. The fund raiser was not the place to do it. I know many people who aren't right wingers who were turned off by that comment and turned the show off.

Since I haven't commented on West here yet:

He's entitled to his opinion just like everyone else. My only objection was his choice of forum. The telethon was a live broadcast intended to help raise money to help people suffering. To go "off script" just to score some political point was tasteless and inappropriate.

And, as I said earlier, it's not black people Bush doesn't care about. It's poor people. He's an equal-opportunity classist.

Den

"Reason isn't necessarily the point, Bill. Perception is. This is how many blacks in America view the governments policies (as embodied by GWB) as directed towards them."

Ok. Now turn the argument around.

David Duke comes out and says that most blacks are thugs and just live to bleed the life off America. He also says that most Latino males are lazy and worthless. I post that Davd Duke's comments show that he is in fact nothing more then 20 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag.

Are you then going to post a defense of Duke by saying...

"Jerry, reason isn't the point. Perception is the point. That's how he and some others see it so it's actually right of him to say it."

I don't think so.

Here's what I think re: the whole race thing. No one was sitting around thinking "oh, it's just a bunch of poor, black folk, no need to hurry." And I don't think things would have been different had the majority of Nawlens poor happened to be white...meaning, rescue administrators wouldn't have said "dang, we need to mobilize NOW because them thar white folks is in trouble." The disconnect, at least at the Federal level, wasn't racist or even classist, it was just part and parcel of how this adminstration is run, heavy on the beauracracy (not unique to this administration) but also heavy on letting states deal with issues.

But that doesn't mean racism isn't involved. You do see it in the way the 2 photos were captioned, "found" as opposed to "looting." It's not a conscious thing, but like racial profiling (or as it used to be called, prejudice). If you see a pair of whites with a case of water, and you didn't see them take it from a store, it's "they found it." Which is technically true, but where did the photographer think they found it at? On the public Dasani tree? Even if it had been washed out of a store by floodwaters, it still didn't belong to them in the first place, and "finders keepers" is not a binding legal premise. By choosing to use such disparate labels, the photographer displays an underlying racial bias that most of us probably bear to some degree, even if we don't realize it.

Now, those that get up on a soap box and claim racism, that's a different matter. Kanye may mean well, but he is acting rather irresponsibly. Inciting any group of people into an antagonistic political stance, I don't think, is warranted here. Although there is a part of me that wouldn't mind seeing the GOP lose ground because of this.

Why the hell would they turn them BACK?!?!?

Probably because they didn't want "those people" in their town. I'm not sure, but I don't think Gretna was the only one that did it.

=====================

RE: finding vs. looting: AP put up 2 photos of people with food, one had white people & said they found the food, the other had black people & said they were looters. The photographer disavowed the captions, but I don't know if AP said anything.

The disconnect, at least at the Federal level, wasn't racist or even classist, it was just part and parcel of how this adminstration is run, heavy on the beauracracy (not unique to this administration) but also heavy on letting states deal with issues.

Hm. There's a quote floating around there that the emphasis was that it didn't matter if there was a less than competent head, but that the WHITE HOOUSE could handle it, then it didn't matter. Part and parcel of the implication being that they would let them cut down on the bureacracy in the agency; what they perhaps didn't realize that what got left in the bureaucracy after the cutting were all the administrators and rule-enforcers and NOT the people who could perform the substance and guts of what the agency was supposed to do.

Roger, I think you summarize it well. Too many middle level managers that needed to get the thumbs up from higher up the chain. From what I've read, under Clinton's administration, the head of FEMA reported directly to the President, meaning simple phone call was all that was needed to get direct presidential authority. When Bush moved FEMA to DHS, he put one level of beauracracy into that chain. And while it seems that Bush was hard to reach by phone, if can't have helped that Brownie used a freaking memo to request a go ahead from Chertoff. And while it could be that Brown did in fact also use the phone, I've not seen that documented anywhere, and high level calls of that sort do get documented.

It's not bureaucracy per se that's bad; after all, ALL large organizations depend on it to some extent or another. It's how you organize it that's key.

I am less than convinced that this current administration knows how to do this; Bush the younger was less than an stunning success as a businessman and it's not his expertise. Their approach to government is leavened with a great deal of contempt for the mechanisms of government, without realizing that a) mechanisms rely on people with expertise, knowledge and experience that are vital to running government and b) an efficient government runs along the same lines that an efficient corporation runs along.

RE: finding vs. looting: AP put up 2 photos of people with food, one had white people & said they found the food, the other had black people & said they were looters. The photographer disavowed the captions, but I don't know if AP said anything.

This is commonly reported but untrue. One was from Ap. The other was from AFP.

This is commonly reported but untrue. One was from Ap. The other was from AFP.

And this small fact makes a difference, because...?

"And this small fact makes a difference, because...?"

Because we have 2 different perspectives from 2 different people from 2 different companies, you race-baiting goofball.

The photographer who described the white humans stated that he saw many humans of many colours in the area and yes the frocery store was flooded and food was flowign freely throuhgout.

They found it.

While the other photog stated that he witnesed looting.

Racism racism everywhere, if we can't find it, we'll pull it from thin air.

And this small fact makes a difference, because...?

Ummm...well, the implication was that the same company was taking essentially the same photo and giving it a different captian based solely

Now we discover that:
A- the photos do not show the same thing, according to witnesses
B- it was NOT the same company that labled them
and
C- none of this will matter to those who are bound and determined to see a racial angle in as many events as possible, facts be damned.

Except, Bill, the only impliocation that I ever heard, referred to 'the media', in general, making those distinctions. Not the same company, or even the same person within that company.

TonyPseudonym, unless your position is that each news agency only has one person doing the captions, then much of the point being made is the same, regardless.

Unless, of course, one company was the media branch of the KKK and the other a branch of the Rainbow Coilition. Then it might be a distinction worth making... *g*

See, this is why I hate the race card and its use so much. It gets overplayed to the point of utter uselessness and nonsense.

I've come across racists of all colors and backgrounds in my life. Since joining the force I've even met a few officers (thankfully almost all from other agencies) who had racist tendencies that made them, shall we say, not my favorite people. I know that racism is alive and well out there amongst whites, blacks, hispanics, asians and others. But I also know from experience that it is the minority of each group that holds these ideas.

So what do the Jacksons, Sharptons and far left do whenever they open their mindless rhetoric spewing mouths? They play the race card. They play it for everything. And they dilute the strength of any real argument that they might have on any given subject and give the other side a whole lotta ammo.

There are people out there who are middle of the road in their politics or who are really nonpolitical in nature. Sway that group and you get the majority vote. The far right wingers have been stomping the far left wingers to death in that fight and, by extension, stomping the moderate left as well.

How? Simple. The far right, even when it lies, sounds sane compared to the far left. Look at the stories of the buses or the levees. Play with numbers and dates just enough to look good and shift the truth. Look at global warming. Play the most out there voice for the position and then present an argument that, even if it is absolutely meaningless and wrong in every way, is against the position but sounds good.

The left anymore comes off sounding like an escaped mental patient or a paranoid delusional. Why? One of the main reasons for this is the far left's need to play the race card in every argument. Even for a hurricane it seems.

*What happens if Roberts becomes a Supreme Court Justice? Why, he'll roll back civil rights at every turn! He'll make life for blacks in America just like it was before the marches!

*What'll happen if the Republicans can take more seats in the next election? Why, they'll be stripping rights from blacks so much that it'll be slavery again for all that it really matters.

*Why is Bush letting so many people die in New Orleans? Why, it's because Bush hates black people and wants to see them die. It's because he and Cheney and Rove worked out that, if they let enough blacks die today, they can win the future elections later because the Dems will have less of a voter base.

*Why is Bush pushing the bad strategies that are killing so many in Iraq? Why, because we all know that most of the people in the army are poor dumb black people who only joined to escape the government inflicted poverty of their inner city neighborhoods. plus, while Bush is letting the blacks (who he hates) die, he gets to see lots of brown people in Iraq die too. Double fun!!!

*Why did those cops shoot the guy holding a gun and committing a crime? He was black!!! We all know cops are all racists and having standing unwritten orders to kill and harass as many blacks as they can to fill their "quota."

*Do you know why, if your poor and black, you shouldn't bother trying to get a job anyhow? It's just gonna go to whitey to keep you down.

*Do you know why the government has been sitting on an AIDS cure for fifteen years now? Because AIDS was introduced into the poor black communities to "thin the herd" a bit. It was government sanctioned genocide against blacks in Africa and America. Once the racist government fell that enough blacks have died... Well, then the cure will come out.

I hear all of that at least once a week because of where I work. I see it on the TV when I turn on the chat shows and the news. Do you know what it's doing? It's numbing the mainstream to the charge of racism to the point that even any charge with merit just gets met with rolled eyes. Oh, look. The left is crying wolf about racism and playing the race card to get attention and smear someone. What's new?

The far right (hell, the moderate right) is laughing its ass off. Because, on top of the left beating that card to death, the far left is handing them loads of ammo. The best trick the right has right now is finding a large enough group or a public enough figure crying "race card" (or some other wingnut thing from the playbook) and painting the entire opposition with that brush.

*The Right: "Hey, look at those nuts on the left. Bush caused Katrina to kill black people? Bush caused the people to stay and held up relief just because he hates blacks and wanted them to die? You wanna be associated with that kind of loony tune space case? No? I don't blame you. Neither would I nor any other sane person."

The vast majority of Americans don't hold racist views and the vast majority of Americans know this. Part of that vast majority is the sane middle ground and the apolitical masses. They would not let a handful of people bring back slavery, kill blacks for fun, strip away civil rights or turn their backs on dieing people because of their skin color. When your biggest gun is something as far fetched as most of the race card charges are.... Well... You don't win people over. As a matter of fact you begin to piss people off to the point that they stop listening (even at times of real crime or need involving race) at best or you push them to the other side at worst.

You guys wanna help Bush get out of this with less damage then he might otherwise do? Yes? Then keep beating that race issue into the ground and making yourselves and the side you're on look stupid. Then pat yourselves on the back when 2008 rolls around and give us a third glorious term of Republicans in the White house and running the House and Senate.

Except, Bill, the only implication that I ever heard, referred to 'the media', in general, making those distinctions. Not the same company, or even the same person within that company.

Well, if you read the email that snopes has at its site, it states that The Associated Press has separately captioned two photos of looters in the wake of Katrina. The photo of a black man refers to his "looting," and the photo of a white pair refers to their "finding." I would like to know why this happened.

I first saw the photos at Wonkette's site, where she asked for an "apology" from AP. The site now has been amended to make her look less foolish.

The original complaint was actually against Yahoo News for carrying both pictures. Later it was against AP. Otherwise it's just the amazing, unbelievable story that two different events witnessed by two different reporters and published by two different companies have, wait for it, two different captions.

And this is the outrage that Mr. West saw fit to mention.

Jerry C. You're very smart.

They probably won't listen. Right now that suits me fine but in the long run it will be bad for us all so the better part of me hopes the sane left smartens up.

Kudos, Jerry -- well said.

Considering how good this administration is at drumming up attention-getting events that just happen to distract from whatever scandal they're currently working through, the last thing we need is to hand them a free source of ammunition. I'd much rather focus on all the things they're obviously doing wrong than drum up conspiracy theories.

TWL

Eh, I still greet your amazing 'news' with a shrug, Bill. But then, I haven't really followed that particular incident with the same dedication you have, so...

I feel I should probably also mention that I'm not exactly in full agreement with Kanye West here, as I realize that I may be giving the impression otherwise. (I'm also tired to the point of loopiness, and this, combined with my normally hamfisted way of stringing words together, makes me suddenly very wary of the way I may be coming across... *g*)

I don't think Bush hates black people. I don't think he's really given much thought to anyone outside his very small bubble world, but that's a very different thing from being racist.

Personally, I think the whole thing can be ascribed much more reasonably to incompitence on pretty much every level of government involved. Though there may very well have been a dose of indefference there as well.

Also, Jerry, I pretty much agree with your points about the overuse of race. I'd go into more detail, but my eyelids are starting to do that thing where they meet in the middle of my eye, and it's making it hard to see the screen...

"David Duke comes out and says that most blacks are thugs and just live to bleed the life off America. He also says that most Latino males are lazy and worthless. I post that Davd Duke's comments show that he is in fact nothing more then 20 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag."

Am I going to post an argument against that? No. He's certainly welcome to his opinions, however. And one has nothing to do with the other.

For christ's sake, give West a break. The guy was speaking from the heart. Whether or not it was the most succinct argument ever made in defense of his belief that George Bush and the White House are persecuting blacks doesn't really matter. It's what he felt (and it echoes the sentiments of many). I agree with Bill, Den, et. al.: Bush's lack of caring is colorblind, as long as the color is green (meaning hefty campaign donations, not bribing the guy before someone gets all up in my piece).

Now to Jerry's piece: What I find interesting is that he hears the "rantings of the loonies on the left", but what about the rantings of the loonies on the right? No offense, dude, but when Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity go off about the people who were stupid enough to stay behind they are (whether we like it or not) making racial generalizations. The MAJORITY of those affected by Katrina are black. Yes, Katrina really didn't give a shit if you were white, black Puerto Rican, green, or from Mars. If you were a human, and you were still in Katrina's path, Katrina would fuck you (bonus points to anyone who knows the song that I cribbed that from, and even more bonus points if anyone can explain the irony of me quoting it in my post about racism).

I don't disagree about the rantings of the left. However, I feel just as strongly about the rantings on the right. Ann Coulter is a fucking homicidal nutjob who should be incarcerated. Michael Savage should be taken out of by the Mossad and sent to a re-education camp. Bill O'Reilly is just a blowhard asshole, and Sean Hannity is a fucking idiot (much more so than Kanye West, thank you very much).

The left's problem isn't just their loony rantings, the left's problems is their unwillingness to get their hands dirty. We Washington State Democrats haven't got any such problems on a statewide basis (but please, don't get me started about the PC-a-riffic morons in the city of Seattle). Hell, we just stole ANOTHER election from the Republicans, and I'm damn proud of it. The left also is unwilling to take the fight to the Repubes. The GOP frames the debate in terms of fear: who we should fear, why we should fear them and how we can stop fearing them. Unfortunately for everyone in America, they haven't the faintest idea how to deliver on those promises. The Dems either need to re-frame the debate on why we shouldn't fear anyone, and how we are going to make the US and the rest of the world as safe as can be. They haven't done it worth a shit, and I fear they probably never will.

Al Sharpton rules.

I'm assuming this is a fake, but that doesn't make it any less amusing. Read the note that GW is writing:

It's a good thing the study hall teacher didn't catch him...

(again, hope the HTML is correct)

The guy was speaking from the heart. Whether or not it was the most succinct argument ever made in defense of his belief that George Bush and the White House are persecuting blacks doesn't really matter. It's what he felt

See, that to me is one of the problems we have today--people can talk without any concern for facts as long as it's hat they feel. Big frikkin whoop. I can feel any and all sorts of useless things but if I can't back them up with some hard facts I can't think of any reason why anyone should give a rat's ass.

when Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity go off about the people who were stupid enough to stay behind they are (whether we like it or not) making racial generalizations. The MAJORITY of those affected by Katrina are black. Yes, Katrina really didn't give a shit if you were white, black Puerto Rican, green, or from Mars. If you were a human, and you were still in Katrina's path, Katrina would fuck you).

I don't see how that could be legitimately considered a racial generalization. I also disagree with the premise--not everyone was as informed as most of here were. Yeah, i would have gotten the hell out of Dodge and I would hope that anyone who knows the facts as I do would make the same choice--but I can't know what it was that the folks left behind knew.

Ann Coulter is a fucking homicidal nutjob who should be incarcerated. Michael Savage should be taken out of by the Mossad and sent to a re-education camp

I'll assume you're joking since it has to be a basic tenant of liberalism that you don't incarcerate or kidnap people just because they disagree with you, even if they use harsh language and hurtful words when doing so.

Hell, we just stole ANOTHER election from the Republicans, and I'm damn proud of it.

Well, I have to admire the honesty! :)

Bill and Tim,

Thanks for the kind words.

"For christ's sake, give West a break. The guy was speaking from the heart. Whether or not it was the most succinct argument ever made in defense of his belief that George Bush and the White House are persecuting blacks doesn't really matter. It's what he felt (and it echoes the sentiments of many)."

Why? I'll no more give him a break for being an idiot then I ever have given a break to all the righties you mentioned in your post. Saying something stupid is saying something stupid.

Again, you use an argument that cuts both ways. Why don't you give Savage a break. The guy speaks from the heart. Whether or not its always the most succinct argument ever made in defense of his beliefs about race, America and the world (and it echoes the sentiments of many by the look of his ratings) it doesn't really matter.

It's a weak defense for what West said. You talk about taking a stand and make snide comments about the PC-a-riffic morons in the city of Seattle as though you're not being PC-a-riffic here. You are. West said something stupid and said it at a stupid time. Don't be PC and excuse it. Refute it.

I'll give my last breath to argue against the stupid comments about race from West, Duke, Savage, Sharpton and any other twit you care to mention. I've posted more then a few times about what a**holes I think O'Reilly, Savage, Hannity, Coulter and Rush are. Several of those posts are in this thread. I'll do the same against comments like those of West.

You excuse it all you want. Just know that your part of the problem that helps to facilitate the use of the race card and the continued belief of some people in its charges by your actions.

"What I find interesting is that he hears the "rantings of the loonies on the left", but what about the rantings of the loonies on the right?"

Gee, 90% of my posts are about the rantings of the loonies on the right(many of the same you mention yourself.) I post one thing about the biggest bonehead argument the loonies on the left use and all the other posts fall down the memory hole.

"No offense, dude, but when Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity go off about the people who were stupid enough to stay behind they are (whether we like it or not) making racial generalizations."

OK. Another race card were there isn't a race issue. There were some people (not all mind you) who were stupid enough to stay by choice. People were dumb enough to refuse to leave when rescue came both before and after landfall. That's a fact that was shown on live TV before and after Katrina hit.

How is pointing out that some of the people in NO were stupid a racial generalization? Was it a racial generalization when they pointed out what thugs and idiots some people (mostly all white)were after they became a mob riot after a rock concert? How was it a racial generalization when they pointed out what criminals people (again, mostly white) were at the some of the WTO riots? I think those guys are pinheads but you can't slam them for pointing out a fact. Now, if they had said that people stayed because they were black and blacks were stupid then you might have a case. But they didn't and you don't.

Plus, you seemed to have missed a big point. The right has really good liars. I said as much. The left however has really bad liars. I hate both crews. But when you look at how the right has learned to lie smart while the left just screams "race" so often..... And here you stand defending both West and the continued use of the race card. Well done.

Step one on that need to re-frame the debate thing is quit excusing the race card or the people who use it. Until you do you just hand the right more ammo and line yourself up against the wall.

i think West's statements are important because they're a symptom of a problem.

there is a lot of subtle racism out there. the sort of thing a moderate white guy wouldn't notice.

i don't think it's necessarily that there are that many white guys intent on keeping the black man down. one hundred years of slavery and another hundred or so of seperate but equal knocked him down. so far down that getting back up requires a herculean effort. they have to overcome the terrible inertia of black american history.

then every once in awhile a story comes along like the CIA being complicit in running drugs in the inner cities. a story that seemed obvious tin-hat territory until the CIA admitted it was true. now , i don't think this was part of a conspiracy to keep the black man down. i think it was a case of the government choosing allies poorly (in this case, the Contras). however, you can see how this sort of a revelation feeds suspicion.

people grow up in poverty seeing their peers struggling so hard just to get along. a lot of people give up.

now, it's their choice to give up. but i would say that every black person who gives up (turns to crime, drugs, etc . . .) that makes it harder for everyone in their community. the downward spiral gains momentum.

those of us more fortunate have a duty to do what we can to help. not guilt because of our history, but responsibility because of our present. as our fellow human beings, they deserve our help.

to get to my point. the level of poverty in black (and other minority) populations is a problem.

saying it's their fault for being stupid/lazy or saying that it's because all white people are racist are both easy but misleading answers. they are simple answers to a complex problem, and because of their simplicity, they're attractive.

their oversimplicity also makes them destructive.

i don't have a solution, but i think it's important that people recognize that there is a problem, and not just point to over-the-top statements by people like West or Farrakhan and say, "those people are crazy." yeah, there's a madness there, but there's method in it. we have to remember that the boy crying wolf may actually be right that one time.

btw, i know Sharpton's past is a little checkered, but his 2004 DNC speech just rocked.

Jerry C. made a lot of points about how race is injected into a lot of issues that don't seem to be racially connected. I'd agree with that. But the bigger point of Jerry's comments is that the GOP is winning elections on perceptions, not facts. They've become exceedingly adept at the sound byte, repitition, and subtle undermining of the opposition, and it's secured them an increased presence in the government.

So, two points. First off, while many times when the race issue is injected into a political statement, there's no actual connection to the discussion (such as anything Katrina related is a racial issue), the fact that it's very easy to raise the issue of racial prejudice indicates to me that it is still very much a serious problem that this country faces.

Second, perceptions. In some way, maybe the minority left has picked up on the GOP's strategies, although they aren't very good at it. If they scream "racism" often enough, sooner or later, enough of the voting public is going to take that to heart, and into the booth with them. Watching the CNN coverage of the hurricane, and listening to some of the comments from Bush, Brown, Chertoff, and others, at some point I looked at my wife and said "the GOP just lost a good portion of their black vote." Not because I think this administration is racist, but because you could see that the perception that they were racist has not been created, and it's going to be an extremely uphill battle for the GOP to recover from that.

Here's the thing about basing your elections on misdirection, manipulation, and subtle lies: sooner or later, the voters are going to catch on. If Bush had avoided accepting any responsibility for the lethargic Federal response to Katrina, I think that would have broken the GOP hold on the government. As it is, we may still see a swing during the next elections, and the next GOP presidential candidate does face a stiff challenge. Because the past 5 years have really strained the credibility of the GOP, and unless they start taking steps now to get some public confidence back, all the repitition and cute catch phrases in the world won't help them win another round of elections.

I don't disagree about the rantings of the left. However, I feel just as strongly about the rantings on the right.

That's because the right has better propoganda writers than the left.

Why do you think Bush flip-flopped on firing the leaker in the Plame probe? The man can't live without Karl Rove.

Bill Mulligan: I'll assume you're joking since it has to be a basic tenant of liberalism that you don't incarcerate or kidnap people just because they disagree with you, even if they use harsh language and hurtful words when doing so.

Jerry C.: Again, you use an argument that cuts both ways. Why don't you give Savage a break. The guy speaks from the heart.

Of course I'm joking, Bill. But neither action would break my heart.

Jerry: The difference between West and Savage is that I don't believe that Savage is speaking from the heart. I don't think he actually has a heart. I think everything he says is calcuated to help feed the rage that the right feels about the left.

I don't see how that could be legitimately considered a racial generalization. I also disagree with the premise--not everyone was as informed as most of here were. Yeah, i would have gotten the hell out of Dodge and I would hope that anyone who knows the facts as I do would make the same choice--but I can't know what it was that the folks left behind knew.

Well, ask the blacks that do see it that way. You and Jerry both seem to be saying that there is NO possible way that anyone should be able to interpret the actions of the government post-Katrina as being racially guided. Sitting here, behind my computer in Seattle I can see quite plainly that the recovery efforts weren't racially motivated. There was no Grand Wizard of FEMA sitting somewhere saying "Get the white folks out first." But keep this in mind: over 80% of the population that lives below poverty-level in NO is black. The majority of that population lives in the areas that were the hardest hit. These are people that have felt persecuted their entire lives because of their skin color. It really doesn't matter if it's logical, it's how they are going to interpret it. They don't need Al Sharpton out there saying "It's the white man trying to put the brother down" for them as that is how they already feel.

I post one thing about the biggest bonehead argument the loonies on the left use and all the other posts fall down the memory hole.

Actually, that's not true. I probably didn't read them in the first place. Sorry about that.

And here you stand defending both West and the continued use of the race card. Well done.

I'm defending a guy who said what he really felt, and said what I think is in the minds of many blacks throughout the country.

How is pointing out that some of the people in NO were stupid a racial generalization? Was it a racial generalization when they pointed out what thugs and idiots some people (mostly all white)were after they became a mob riot after a rock concert? How was it a racial generalization when they pointed out what criminals people (again, mostly white) were at the some of the WTO riots?

You discount the power of television. Hannity and O'Reilly's coverage of the looting showed almost exclusively black offenders. What were they taking (for the most part) in those videos? Food. Water. Necessities of survival (from what I saw). I didn't see anyone taking a big screen TV or a pair of Adidas (although I'm sure it happened). How were they referred to? As looters. In MY mind, that's racial bias. Do they need to start referring to them as "darkies" or something equally noxious? No. It's how you frame the image and the debate. So yes, I do think I have a point. I was here for WTO, and it was the most annoying display of reactionary liberalism ever. The sad thing is that all of the trouble was caused by a few groups of people that showed up for the sole purpose of destroying property. And if the two-headed moron of Paul Schell and Norm Stamper had had an ounce of foresight between them, they could have prevented almost all the chaos.

Here's one fun experiment you can try at home while watching the news: if a person is white, see if their color or ethnicity is mentioned. If a person is non-white, see if that is mentioned. Count the number of times skin color or ethnicity is mentioned for both.

I'm not being PC and excusing West's comment. I think he has a valid point. Period. You disagree. When I talk about the PC-a-riffic politics in Seattle, I'm talking about the city that won't allow circuses in the city limits because they are cruel to animals. I'm talking about the city that had a 17 year long moratorium on strip clubs. I'm talking about the city that embraces green building, yet can't get a public transit system worth a shit built. I'm talking about a city that wants to put a four foot ban between strippers and patrons in place.

"You and Jerry both seem to be saying that there is NO possible way that anyone should be able to interpret the actions of the government post-Katrina as being racially guided."

No, I'm saying that people out there do believe it. I'm also saying that anybody who doesn't (as you just stated you don't) should argue the point with them rather then excuse their use of the race issue.

The race card is, to me, just as bad as racism and should be treated the same. When you see it you speak out against it and fight it. Anything less is allowing it to continue and grow and is inexcusable in my book.

"You discount the power of television. Hannity and O'Reilly's coverage of the looting showed almost exclusively black offenders."

No, I'm not. And, as we coverd before, that's bacause most the victims still there are black. I would think it would be a wee bit more racist if 98% of the victims were black but we kept being shown the few remaining white families 90% of the time. "Screw the black suffering in NO. Go find me same footage of WHITE people to show on TV. Then maybe our viewers will care." Yeah...

Two issues with looting here. Looting is a word that by definition applies to what is going on. Would it be nice if more on Fox news pointed out that the looting was an act of survival when it came to food? Yeah. But the hamfisted nature of Fox News on issues like this and the general a**holeness of the two you point out are part of the reason I don't watch Fox that much anymore and slap them around whenever I get the chance. That and the fact that they started reading G.O.P. talking points on air as though it were news. Looting is also being done with non-food items. That's what is getting most the air time elsewhere. It's also not played up the way some on Fox have done. Food looting is being described as an act of survival. Turn Fox off some evening and somebody else on.

"I think he has a valid point. Period. You disagree."

But half of your own argument says that he doesn't have a valid point. You state that you know that there was no race issues involved with Katrina. He says there is. If there wasn't then he doesn't have a valid point. All he has is idiocy.

I come out and say that I feel that you're ripping me off and holding me down. We've never met. This is the only exchange of any kind we have ever had. But, damn it, I feel that you're doing me wrong. I percieve it as that. It really doesn't matter if it's logical. That's what I feel. Are you going to say that I have a valid point? Are you going to come out and say that I'm right even though the facts show that I'm 100% wrong but my feelings are all that matters?

It's the same thing here. He is speaking with no facts to back what he is saying. Half the problems with race and PC in this country is that no one will hold statements about race to the test of facts. It's all about feelings. Screw that. You wanna fix things you start fighting it and you speak out against it rather then excusing it. If you don't... Well, then you're part of the problem too.

"No, I'm saying that people out there do believe it. I'm also saying that anybody who doesn't (as you just stated you don't) should argue the point with them rather then excuse their use of the race issue."

Gosh. I'm sorry I'm not living up to your expectations. I don't argue emotive points. You simply won't win anything (see O'Reilly, Bill; Coulter, Ann; Hannity, Sean; Huffington; Arianna; Sharpton, Al).

"But half of your own argument says that he doesn't have a valid point. You state that you know that there was no race issues involved with Katrina. He says there is. If there wasn't then he doesn't have a valid point. All he has is idiocy."

When I get the opportunity to spend my life as a black person experiencing things like not getting a job over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a promotion over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a home loan even though I should qualify, or being pulled over for no discernable reason other than my skin color, then I'll know what he's talking about. Until then, I'm going to assume that he's experienced it. I have not.

What you have to realize is that in politics, perception = reality. Whether people's belief in Bush's attitude towards minorities is justified or not, the belief itself has real implications and power in the political arena.

In this case, Bush really didn't do himself any favors. The day the hurricane him, he went to Colorado and talked about medicare. When he mentioned Chertoff, he said they talked about immigration. The day the levee broke, he was in California, still talking about medicare. When he finally did cut his vacation short, he did a flyover of New Orleans rather than make a personal visit. When he finally did visit, he made a joke about getting hammered at Mardi Gras and talked about how great Trent Lott's new porch was going to be. Then there was the infamous, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" quote, just as Brown was being universally pilloried in the media for his own cluelessness of the situation in New Orleans.

At every step during the first week, Bush created a perception that he wasn't taking the disaster seriously at all. When you have a city that is arond 70% black, it isn't much of a leap for people there to think that Bush's callousness towards their plight is based on racism. Especially given the history of the region.

In 1927, during a previous flood in Louisiana, the city deliberately flooded black neighborhoods to divert water away from the other parts of the city. Rescue boats passed stranded black people by to rescue white people.

Now, you can say, "that was then, we do things differently now," but you'll be hard pressed to find many people left stranded by Katrina who would believe that.

In that context, rational or not, it is easy to see how the residents of New Orleans, when they see Bush making jokes and praising a man no one else thought was doing a good job, that they might feel that, had they been white and middle class, rescue and relief supplies might have arrived faster. "Bush doesn't care about black people" may not be an accurate reflection of his views, but his own actions helped to create this perception.

Well, ask the blacks that do see it that way. You and Jerry both seem to be saying that there is NO possible way that anyone should be able to interpret the actions of the government post-Katrina as being racially guided.

"no possible way that people should be able"...? Huh? People can feel anyway they want. I'm not advocating re-education camps. But if they want me to take them seriously they had better have arguments to back them up.

Feeling are fine. They have their place. They make life worth living. They are, however, no substitute for thought and reason. In an emergency like this, feeling are about as valuable as prayers, without the outside chance that they may actually turn out to be useful.

It really doesn't matter if it's logical, it's how they are going to interpret it.

It matters to me. I mean, you are correct. I don't deny that. But as far as it being something I am willing to expend any effort on...I don't know how to deal with irrationality in a world that operates by rational rules of nature.

Here's one fun experiment you can try at home while watching the news: if a person is white, see if their color or ethnicity is mentioned. If a person is non-white, see if that is mentioned. Count the number of times skin color or ethnicity is mentioned for both.

Actually, it's gotten to the point where the New York Times and other newspapers sometimes don't even give the ethnicity of criminals-- "Police were on the lookout for two men in their 20s, one wearing a red jacket." Gee, thanks.

When I get the opportunity to spend my life as a black person experiencing things like not getting a job over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a promotion over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a home loan even though I should qualify, or being pulled over for no discernible reason other than my skin color, then I'll know what he's talking about. Until then, I'm going to assume that he's experienced it. I have not.

Umm, no. Sorry, I can't accept that as a rational concept. Being black does not entitle one to uninformed opinions that should not be challenged as such.

I mean, I haven't lived life as a tertiary stage syphillic moron but that doesn't stop me from judging Fred Phelps.

What you have to realize is that in politics, perception = reality.

While there is truth in this, that is one phrase I'd love to see eliminated. Reality is reality. As Phillip K Dick said, it's still here even when you stop believing in it.

I don't like the truism myself, Bill, but the truth is, people's perceptions do influence the political reality.

For example, say I wanted to invade a third world country because, well, I thought my dad should've done it 10 years ago. I know I can't convince the American people to support an invasion for that reason, but if I cook a bunch of intelligence reports and repeat the country's name in the same sentence as "9/11" over and over again, suddenly, the perception among the majority of people is, this country is the greatest single threat to our survival and must be destroyed immediately.

Thus, I've created a new reality.

"but if I cook a bunch of intelligence reports and repeat the country's name in the same sentence as "9/11" over and over again, suddenly, the perception among the majority of people is, this country is the greatest single threat to our survival and must be destroyed immediately. Thus, I've created a new reality."

I don't think Bush created a new reality. I think bin Laden and his people created a new reality. Bush just exploited it.

PAD

Here's the thing about basing your elections on misdirection, manipulation, and subtle lies: sooner or later, the voters are going to catch on. If Bush had avoided accepting any responsibility for the lethargic Federal response to Katrina, I think that would have broken the GOP hold on the government.

Heh, why do you think he mea culpaed? :)

I don't doubt there exists some sincerity in his admission of culpability, but I suspect that avoiding a wholesale populist shaking off of the GOP was a strong factor, if not the primary one.

"When I get the opportunity to spend my life as a black person experiencing things like not getting a job over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a promotion over someone less qualified, or being turned down for a home loan even though I should qualify, or being pulled over for no discernable reason other than my skin color, then I'll know what he's talking about. Until then, I'm going to assume that he's experienced it. I have not."

The greatest PC straw dog of them all. "You're not black. You can't say anything until you've lived black."

Yeah. Let me tell you two things about that.

1) I grew up in an area where the majority of the people on my block, on my bus, in my school and at my first two work places were black. I've dealt with the crap that my friends were handed more then a few times. But I also saw a lot of people using that tired old line as a crutch for not trying and not doing. I saw guys walking around talking about how they didn't get a job at this place or that because they were black. Thing is, I knew some of the people who ended up with those jobs and they were, surprise, black as well.

I'll even do you onw better on the "you have to have felt it to talk about" front. From that time in my life, I was judged, attacked, put down and mistreated based only on the color of my skin. By blacks. I think I can speak on the feeling quite well. I know what racism feels like. I know the scars that violent racism can leave (and I'm talking real ones here.)

2) That is the biggest load of BS that the PC crowd throw out when their argument starts to fail them. Under that rule, no one can speak on anything that they have never done or experienced.

Knuck, stop talking about the President and what he did wrong. Have you ever been President of the U.S. of A.? Have you ever been the leader of any country? Well, what the hell do you know about it then? Have you ever run an operation of the size and scope of FEMA? Have you ever headed up an effort like the on going on down in NO? Then stop talking about those people in such a negative way. It's obvious that you don't have the knowledge or experience to say diddly squat about anything that those people are having to deal with.

You should also avoid posting about anything more then what you think about PAD's work or when he asks what people think about a movie, TV show or book. Anything else like politics, police work, military and such you don't have the experience to speak on with any kind of true authority.

Actually, you probably shouldn't post on PAD's subjects either. Are you a professional writer, actor, director, artist or producer? No? Well, then you probably don't understand the creative process, not having lived your life dealing with it, to properly critique anything you see beyond a simple, "I liked that."

West felt bad. Fine. His right to do so. But once he states his feelings in a public forum and has zero facts to put behind the accusations he makes based on those feelings then he shows the world that he is an idiot. And he is.

"West felt bad. Fine. His right to do so. But once he states his feelings in a public forum and has zero facts to put behind the accusations he makes based on those feelings then he shows the world that he is an idiot. And he is."

but i think it's important to address West's views because they are so widely held and destructive.

if you just dismiss them as idiotic, you can get unfairly lumped in with all the people who deny that racism is still a problem at all. and then you miss the people who need to be told that this guy is wrong.

i think it's important to construct a counter argument to his idiocy that addresses the audience he appeals to. just saying, "you're an idiot for thinking that" doesn't win hearts and minds.

if it did, there would be no Bush supporters anywhere ;)

i'm not saying it's your job to construct that argument. i'm just saying that even stupid ideas have to be dealt with when they're influential. just writing that off as idiotic is the strategic equivalent of the Kerry campaign figuring no one would take the Swift Boaters seriously.

indestructibleman, you make a good point.

"if you just dismiss them as idiotic, you can get unfairly lumped in with all the people who deny that racism is still a problem at all. and then you miss the people who need to be told that this guy is wrong."

Yeah, I know.

In his little mini debate, I have pointed out that I know that real racism is out there (if only in a minority of the population.) I pointed out that I've seen it directed at friends I grew up with in the same posting you pasted from. I've also come across a wee bit more buttheaded about it then when I'm dealing with it in real life.

On a local or personal level I deal with this in a slightly more even handed way. With this I just get a bit pissy because you have something as massive as Katrina being turned into a race card issue by some out there and then you end up with excusers ready, willing and able to do what they can to tell them that it's perfectly fine for them to believe that this entire thing is one big black hating crusade by the government and media.

Maybe I'm just overly sensitive to the issue. But I think I have a right to be. Do you know what it's like to have a small child cower away from you and then tell you, when you ask them what they're afraid of, that they think you want to hurt them because momma or daddy or big brother has told them since they could first remember that police officers want to hurt, harass or kill them just because they're black? I don't know one police officer who sets out at the start of shift wanting to kill a black man before the nights end. But I see more and more young blacks being told that by "leaders" and ignorant pinheads like West. There are times that I go well beyond the call of duty to help someone else and it gets met with suspicious looks or open anger because of the uniform I'm wearing.

Not all the time mind you. And I do keep in mind that I'm dealing with people who often see police only at the worst of times (that sin thing I mentioned in an above posting.) But I still get pissed with the race card and the use of it more then anything else in politics because I see it and its results in real life 40 to 72 hours a week. I see how it's played for power games in the seat of Virginia's government. I see it on the job and I see it when I'm home and just biking through the neighborhoods.

I get frustrated as hell when explaining to someone that they aren't going to get anywhere if they don't even try to begin with. If you don't try to get what you want and claim that it's not worth the try because the system is designed to keep you down then you prove yourself half right. The system is designed that way. But it's you who designed the system that's trapping you. But you try explaining that to some people and you get the mindless crap that Knuckles finally resorted to. I don't understand anything because a) I'm white and b) being white made everything easy for me. Yeah, right.

It's frustrating when you live in the state that, at a time when it was heavily majority white, elected Doug Wilder as the first black Governor in the country and you would still see local level black leaders talking about how the white man wanted to keep the black man poor, dumb and without any power. It was more frustrating to see so many believe it when they could see the leader of both his party and his state, a black man elected by all colors of people in VA, on the TV every night.

It's frustrating to me to see, with so many people bending over backwards to prove that they're not racist and walking on eggshells with race issues, so many black leaders and public figures making the statements that the Wests, Jacksons and Sharptons make and so many others believing it. And making charges without having to back it up with so much as one bit of evidence.

It's even more frustrating to see people, like Knuckles, who say that they know it's bogus but fight with every breath to excuse or allow the bogus idea to be spread unchallenged by the Wests of the world. Refusing to fight against a lie is as good as lying yourself. In this case the lie is so evil and vile that it destroys lives. I kinda think that's a lie that's worth fighting against.

And why am I so frustrated on such a personal level? The far left guys usually try to claim that I'm just tired of having the responsibility or the guilt or the whatever of my race's crimes pointed out to me. They're idiots. I grew up with some good people. I've watched some of them become more successful in life then I may ever be. I've watched many of them not make it as well. But the ones that didn't make it weren't held down by anyone but themselves. They had lots of people giving them an excuse to cling to and they used it. But the excuse became an anchor and dragged them deeper and deeper down. And I've watched one die. I saw a life leave this Earth for no other reason then he could have been more then he was if he had tried. But he didn't and he played real stupid games instead and it cost him his life. It also cost a huge amount of joy to leave the life of a woman, his mother. She was one of the kindest souls I ever knew. She didn't deserve to go through that.

That's what gets me so frustrated. That's what gets me so angry on this issue with idiots and power seekers alike. I knew people who should have been every bit as successful as I am or more so and they flushed it all by themselves. No one held them down but themselves in the end. And I just keep seeing more and more people milking this crap for power and money and more and more people buying it while, it seems sometimes, more and more people keep their mouths shut and refuse to speak out against it because it's just too unPC to say anything.

well put, Jerry.

Amen, Jerry.

I totally missed or forgot that you were a cop. People on this board have said very nice things about teachers and they are appreciated. I'm sure that just as many would thank you for what you do. Personally, I think that police and fireman are WAY more deserving of our gratitude--not to denigrate my own profession but it's a rare day that I ever put my life or health on the line. Sanity, sure.

As to your points, you said it better than I ever could. The one hope I have is that the next generation, even when they play the race card, seems to know it's just a game. I've had kids try the old "It's because I'm Black. right?" routine on me and 9 times out of 10 when you call them on it they crack up and admit that they are full of wild strawberry muffins (or something more pungent).

Bill,

I would have to disagree with you. I first set out to be a teacher. Going into the family trade came after I realized that teaching was too stressful for me.

Plus, some of my basik gremmar, spulling and wuhtnot bloz.

:()

The greatest PC straw dog of them all. "You're not black. You can't say anything until you've lived black."

It’s not a straw dog at all. And from your comments below, you prove that.

Yeah. Let me tell you two things about that.

1) I grew up in an area where the majority of the people on my block, on my bus, in my school and at my first two work places were black. I've dealt with the crap that my friends were handed more then a few times. But I also saw a lot of people using that tired old line as a crutch for not trying and not doing. I saw guys walking around talking about how they didn't get a job at this place or that because they were black. Thing is, I knew some of the people who ended up with those jobs and they were, surprise, black as well.

I'll even do you one better on the "you have to have felt it to talk about" front. From that time in my life, I was judged, attacked, put down and mistreated based only on the color of my skin. By blacks. I think I can speak on the feeling quite well. I know what racism feels like. I know the scars that violent racism can leave (and I'm talking real ones here.)

You seem to think I equate victimhood with genuine racism. I don’t. Victimhood = Race Card. It’s an excuse. Apparently you have a similar background to West. I don’t. You don’t like what he said and are able to back up why you think it’s bullshit. Great. I can’t.

2) That is the biggest load of BS that the PC crowd throw out when their argument starts to fail them. Under that rule, no one can speak on anything that they have never done or experienced.

Come on, Jerry, don’t be a jackass. That’s not the point at all and you know it.

Knuck, stop talking about the President and what he did wrong. Have you ever been President of the U.S. of A.? Have you ever been the leader of any country? Well, what the hell do you know about it then? Have you ever run an operation of the size and scope of FEMA? Have you ever headed up an effort like the on going on down in NO? Then stop talking about those people in such a negative way. It's obvious that you don't have the knowledge or experience to say diddly squat about anything that those people are having to deal with.

Now there is a frequent conservative criticism. One I (and many other liberals) have received quite a bit. It has the same level of cognitive dissonance about it that “If you don’t support the war, you don’t support the troops” does (For the record I have one brother, one brother in law, one uncle and one cousin who served in the first Gulf War; I also have numerous friends as well as the same cousin who are either currently serving in Iraq or have rotated out. I do not support the war, but oddly enough, my friends and family feel quite assured that I do support the troops.). There’s a difference between common sense (you know, something you’d use in a disaster – like a hurricane, preparing for war, cutting taxes). I criticize things that I would handle differently if put in the same situation. You know what? I’ve never been in West’s situation. I’ve never been in yours. You think he’s an idiot because (apparently) you come from a similar background. Great. As mentioned before, you have grounds to criticize him. I don’t. So I won’t criticize him because he has led a life that I can’t relate to whatsoever. Just like I’m not criticizing you for being an asshole to me (apparently due to your life experiences). You’ve led a life that I simply haven’t. This clearly pisses you off, and apparently my lack of outrage to West’s remarks pisses you off even more.

You should also avoid posting about anything more then what you think about PAD's work or when he asks what people think about a movie, TV show or book. Anything else like politics, police work, military and such you don't have the experience to speak on with any kind of true authority.

Actually, I do, but that is neither here nor there.

Actually, you probably shouldn't post on PAD's subjects either. Are you a professional writer, actor, director, artist or producer? No? Well, then you probably don't understand the creative process, not having lived your life dealing with it, to properly critique anything you see beyond a simple, "I liked that."

I was at one point, but got over it. I write database code now.

West felt bad. Fine. His right to do so. But once he states his feelings in a public forum and has zero facts to put behind the accusations he makes based on those feelings then he shows the world that he is an idiot. And he is.

The difference in our interpretation of his comments is this: Apparently you see him presenting this as fact. I don’t. I see him presenting it as opinion.

My background: white, surburban youth. Raised in Seattle. Father remarried when I was 5, they’ve stayed married ever since. Went to public schools, started in community college and then graduated eventually from university in Montana. What common ground do I have with West (or you) to criticize either what he said or your reaction to what he said? Nothing whatsoever. I can, however, criticize your reaction to my apparent lack of outrage. And I have. You want to call my reaction “mindless”, fine. You apparently operate on a higher moral and intellectual plane than I do. At the end of the day, however, I still think you are (quite unnecessarily, mind you) being a dick. And you really don’t need to be.

Bill: The left doesn't excuse Sharpton, they ignore him. Like it or hate it, Democrats aren't in the business of shutting people up just because they've got a big fucking mouth. Yes, I think the Al Sharpton of 20 years ago was incredibly divisive. I also think he's made great strides over the past decade or so to try and (at the very least) moderate his vitriol. I also think trying to group Al Sharpton, Kanye West and Louis Farrakhan into the same group is like trying comparing Sinbad, Howdy Doody and Ronald Reagan. Three great tastes that don't taste great together.

Jerry: Clearly I haven’t been able to take the time to try and clarify my point at all, either that or I’ve pissed you off enough that you simply haven’t read it (I am more inclined to believe that I simply haven’t made it clear). All I’m saying is this: I firmly believe that there are people in Louisiana who, as a result of their life experiences, legitimately feel that they weren’t helped because they were black. They aren’t being victims, they aren’t using race as a catch-all, this is something that they legitimately feel and could back up with anecdotes from their lives, just as you have done.

As I have stated before: I do not believe that any relief efforts were prioritized, executed, whatever based on race. And I can say it all I want to whomever I want: “No, the lack of aid from the government wasn’t because you were black, it was because the response was executed by a bunch of fucking morons.” Who is going to listen to that? Well, you are, I am, Bill, PAD, indestructibleman, etc. But I’m thinking that the urban poor who are currently living in the Astrodome (or Reliant Arena or whatever) probably don’t have an internet connection, so maybe they aren’t paying real close attention. They aren’t in a position to be logical, they are in a position to be emotional. I also feel that based on their social background, their response makes perfect sense. Is that contradictory? Perhaps so. Is it mindless? No. Not at all.

What I do hope is that the response of the people of America does more to show these people who might be crying race now that they are mistaken. The actions of America will speak louder than anyone’s words. I’ve donated to the Red Cross, and my wife has volunteered with the county government to go down to New Orleans to be part of the recovery efforts. I’ve got friends who are driving down to Houston to pick up a family to bring home with them for a while. I appreciate what West said, and will defend it simply because I think it’s his right AND I think it’s something he legitimately feels. But I also think that what I, you, and my friends and family are doing speaks far louder than anything any freaking rapper says on TV.

If I may iterate: I am white as white can be. I grew up in a very white part of a fairly white city. I have a half-sister and brother in law who grew up in Cleveland. She is half-black, he is not. They both could speak to your experience far more than I could. Were my parents trying to shield me from harsh urban realities? No. Housing was cheaper. But that’s my background. Have I ever been discriminated against? Not really. I had long hair for a while in high school, and on more than one occasion had a VWF guy come up to me with those flags that they sell at fairs and festivals, tap me on the shoulder and say, “Excuse me, miss?” I was also once on the receiving end of a skeptical look at a bed and breakfast in Scotland. Other than that? Nothing.

Do we have race issues in Seattle? Sure. The SPD, like almost any other police department is continually accused of racial profiling, typically by a shit-spouting firebrand that cries “RACISM!” at every possible moment. When you consider that the head of the union, and many other highly ranked officers in the force are black and Asian, it’s a claim that is treated with derision as a general rule. Does anyone pay any attention to him? I suppose a few do, but not many. Everyone has their constituents. Have I ever written a letter to the editor of the local paper calling this guy out on his bullshit? Absolutely, but I can sort of speak to the realities of growing up in Seattle (even the poorer neighborhoods, as I had many friends from those areas and went over to their houses a lot). I haven’t the faintest fucking clue what it’s like to grow up dirt poor in the south (regardless of my skin color). You go right ahead and criticize West, you apparently have the background.

But you try explaining that to some people and you get the mindless crap that Knuckles finally resorted to. I don't understand anything because a) I'm white and b) being white made everything easy for me. Yeah, right.

I didn’t say I don’t understand anything: I said I wouldn’t judge him. I understand plenty, thanks. If you see that as a cop-out, well, too bad. And I never said that being white made everything easy for me. That’s your interpretation.

Knuckles, I'm sorry, because you make some valid points even if I don't agree with them, but your statement that "The left doesn't excuse Sharpton, they ignore him" truly shows a healthy dose of ignorance. He was a valid contender for the Democratic nomination. He participated in the debates. He spoke at the convention. Don't think for a minute that he doesn't entertain a healthy modicum of reverence and respect from the "general" left.

And please don't turn what I just said around and point out people that the right don't condemn enough. That's not what I'm talking about...simply your singular statement that I feel needs to be refuted.

As for the perception vs. reality argument, I point you to the rather surprising ABC post-presidential interviews:

http://newsbusters.org/node/1201

"He was a valid contender for the Democratic nomination. He participated in the debates. He spoke at the convention. Don't think for a minute that he doesn't entertain a healthy modicum of reverence and respect from the "general" left."

If you honestly think that Sharpton was a valid candidate for the Democratic nomination, you weren't playing really close attention to the party itself. He had just slightly more of a chance of getting nominated than Carol Mosely Braun and Dennis Kucinich. His campaign was primarily about salvaging his image amongst the party moderates.

Don't get me wrong, people love Sharpton. I love Sharpton. I think his speech at the DNC kicked ass. He's a hellraiser of the first order, and that's something the Democratic party needs. But he is very much like the little boy who cried wolf when it comes to issues of race. After Tawana Brawley, no one in the party will ever take him seriously again. And that is what I meant with that statement.

And to further clarify my statement on Sharpton: Yes, he still has his constituents when it comes to issues of race. But they are not legion, nor are they a force within the Democratic party. This is not a statement of ignorance, this is a statement of fact. Al Sharpton's presidential campaign was about salvaging his political image, not about being a legitimate contender for the nomination. You want to see an African American force in Democratic politics, you look to Barack Obama and Harold Ford. For better or for worse, Al Sharpton is a social activist.

Getting back to the original topic for a moment, the administration that won't "play the blame game" is looking to blame environmental groups.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/NEWS0110/509160369/1260

Try this again...

AZTeach: Aside from the fact that link takes me to a site dedicated to refuting the "liberal media bias" (which I find every bit as ridiculous as Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy), it doesn't take me to anything about the post-presidential debate interviews. It takes me to something about Katrina victims loving Bush and blaming Nagin. That's all well and good, but doesn't have much to do with the good Reverend Al.

Here's a link to Media Matters, just so I can do a tit-for-tat:

Media Matters For America

Not that the Media Matters page has anything of relevance to Al Sharpton on it either...

Not that the link works either. Oh well...

Well, Knuckles, I honestly think here what we have is a disagreement in terminology, which is OK. I didn't say Sharpton had a chance to win the election, I said he was a valid candidate, but I guess that just means different things to you and me. Just as you don't see a disconnect between "Don't get me wrong, people love Sharpton. I love Sharpton. I think his speech at the DNC kicked ass" and "The left doesn't excuse Sharpton, they ignore him." I see them as polar opposites.

As far as the video goes, it's fairly obvious you didn't watch the video or read the transcript, so there's no point discussing it other than to say that my post never said it had anything to do with Al Sharpton, and I specifically tagged it is as refering to the perception vs. reality debate, but perhaps I should have made them different posts to accentuate that.

Ah. My mistake. I thought it had something to do with Sharpton. I'll check it again.

Definitely a difference in terminology. To me, a valid candidate is one with a legitimate shot at winning it. He had no chance. There were really only two or three candidates at most who had any sort of legitimate chance. Al Sharpton was not one of them.

Text of Al Sharpton's Speech to the DNC

I absolutely think this speech kicked ass. Read it. You may disagree with everything he says in it, but he is a man who knows how to speak in public (although I still cringe when I think of his response to a question from an American Indian regarding tribal sovereignty at the debate in AZ). He's great at getting people riled up. He got me riled up. And I stand by my statement with a slight modification: the left doesn't excuse Sharpton, Nor do they condone him. It is really all the party can do to acknowledge his existence. "Ignore" was too strong a word, and I retract it.

(Total DNC aside: the worst follow up act at that convention was Joe Lieberman to Wes Clark. Clark was a little raw on the circuit when he started, but by the time he hit the convention he was firing on all cylinders and gave a fantastic speech. Then came Lieberman, and everyone I know turned off the TV, and read the transcript the next day.)

As to the transcript, I have now read it, and nothing in it really surprises me. For every lambaste of the federal response that I've read in the paper, I've also read similar criticisms of Nagin. I didn't read the responses as overwhelmingly in favor of Bush and his address, but they were generally favorable. I don't have this perception that everyone affected by Katrina somehow hates Bush and think he hates blacks. I've gone overboard trying to express that. I would assume that, since this is a country of hundreds of millions of people with hundreds of millions of opinions, that opinion amongst those affected would be varied. This strengthens that assumption.

Getting back to the original topic for a moment, the administration that won't "play the blame game" is looking to blame environmental groups.

I saw that on TalkingPointsMemo this morning, Michael. Gotta admire the chutzpah...

I would have to disagree with you. I first set out to be a teacher. Going into the family trade came after I realized that teaching was too stressful for me.

Teaching was too stressful, so he became a cop. THANK you, ladies and gentlemen!

Between this and my new discovery that driving a bus puts me in the elite among drivers I think I qualify for The Avengers. Or at least Justice League Unlimited but hell, who doesn't?

The difference in our interpretation of his comments is this: Apparently you see him presenting this as fact. I don’t. I see him presenting it as opinion.

Well, that does explain things a bit. For me, I heard him say nothing that would make what he said opinion. He stated it as though it were fact and nobody who has any respect for him could be blamed for assuming he knew what he was talking about.

Bill: The left doesn't excuse Sharpton, they ignore him
uh huh. The guy who spoke at the Convention?

Yes, I think the Al Sharpton of 20 years ago was incredibly divisive.

No argument there: From wikipedia:
it is also alleged that after calling a Jewish shopkeeper a "white interloper," he looked on while an associate of his suggested the Jew's shop should be burned down. When a black member of the crowd did so, killing several including himself, Sharpton initially denied having been present. When confronted with a video tape showing his presence, he said: "What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?"

I could accept that he's cleaned up his act if he could come clean about his past. he hasn't. he still thinks that Tawana Brawley was telling t he truth. This after he was found guilty of libeling people with his accusations. The republicans have problems but I think they would be unlikely to put up with a proven race hustler like Sharpton.

Knuckles, you are obviously a good guy. Not trying to butter you up or anything. You are a better writer than you give yourself credit for and it obviously pains you that some of us are taking offense at what you wrote. I think we may be talking past each other here--when you say that "I firmly believe that there are people in Louisiana who, as a result of their life experiences, legitimately feel that they weren’t helped because they were black." I have to wonder--what, exactly is an illegitimate feeling? If facts don't matter, how can any feeling, as long as it is sincerely felt, be unworthy of respect, from your point of view?

If you honestly think that Sharpton was a valid candidate for the Democratic nomination, you weren't playing really close attention to the party itself. He had just slightly more of a chance of getting nominated than Carol Mosely Braun and Dennis Kucinich. His campaign was primarily about salvaging his image amongst the party moderates.

Well, ok, but in return you have to promise never to refer to Pat Robertson as a valid candidate for the Republican nomination!

As for the blaming of environmentalists, two points--either you are FOR finding blame or against it. If it turns out that environmental groups prevented the kinds of development that would have stopped it, well, that's where the chips will fall.

My second point though...maybe the environmental groups were right. there may be a limit to how much we can be willing to change nature to fit our desire to have New Orleans be a city of several hundred thousand instead of a much smaller, environmentally feasible city.

At the very least, I hope there will be some consideration to preventing certain things from being allowed in the New New Orleans. A city that will flood--and it will--is no place to, say, store toxic wastes. They should look at the sources of the toxic pollutants in the waters they are pumping and do what is needed to be sure that the next time they will not be added to the flood waters.

Wish I could be optimistic but I think that we will soon be seeing corruption on a level that will be truly breathtaking--Louisiana politicians with a blank check. It's gonna be wild.

I have to wonder--what, exactly is an illegitimate feeling?

This would be the oft-repeated playing of the "race card".

Well, ok, but in return you have to promise never to refer to Pat Robertson as a valid candidate for the Republican nomination!

Never have, never will (the Republican voters of Washington felt differently some years back, but that's because the caucus was unexpectedly flooded with Robertson supporters).

As for the blaming of environmentalists, two points--either you are FOR finding blame or against it. If it turns out that environmental groups prevented the kinds of development that would have stopped it, well, that's where the chips will fall.

Can't argue with that. What I take issue with is that this appears to be the FIRST course of action the administration is taking.

Well, that does explain things a bit. For me, I heard him say nothing that would make what he said opinion. He stated it as though it were fact and nobody who has any respect for him could be blamed for assuming he knew what he was talking about.

There is a huge difference then. I heard him giving his opinion. He may state it flatly: "George Bush doesn't care about black people", but it's still his opinion. I, for one, haven't declared him a sociologist of record, but he very well may know what in the hell he's talking about. I'm not about to say he doesn't, because I haven't the evidence to refute it. I may think he's wrong and may say so, but that ALSO is my opnion.

My second point though...maybe the environmental groups were right. there may be a limit to how much we can be willing to change nature to fit our desire to have New Orleans be a city of several hundred thousand instead of a much smaller, environmentally feasible city.

What you say here is something I accept as fact: There IS a limit to how much we can change nature to fit our desire to do anything. It has been repeatedly demonstrated in the past that nature can, and will, kick our asses. If you are going to attempt to modify it, I personally can't stop you. But you'd best be prepared to handle disaster (New Orleans and the US Government was NOT, in this particular case) and deal with the aftermath. Or, you could try doing something else. Unfortunately, we rarely try doing something else.

I could accept that he's cleaned up his act if he could come clean about his past. he hasn't. he still thinks that Tawana Brawley was telling t he truth. This after he was found guilty of libeling people with his accusations. The republicans have problems but I think they would be unlikely to put up with a proven race hustler like Sharpton.

Now, that's not what I heard in some post-debate interviews with him. He was questioned about it, and his defense (as lame as it was) was that "he was coming to the defense of a defenseless young, black woman". No contrition, I'll grant you, but he didn't defend the girl. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the Republicans welcomed David Duke in a somewhat similar relationship (yeah, you can be Republican but no, we're not going to help you out much).

Katrina: What Happened When
It will take months to get the full story, but meanwhile here are some of the key facts about what happened and when officials acted.

http://www.factcheck.org/article348.html

Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?
He did slash funding for levee projects. But the Army Corps of Engineers says Katrina was just too strong.

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html

" And correct me if I'm wrong, but the Republicans welcomed David Duke in a somewhat similar relationship (yeah, you can be Republican but no, we're not going to help you out much)."

The reaction was a weebit stronger then that.

Duke's beliefs and his running as a Republican were condemned and repudiated by every major figure in the party at that time. His biggest critic was the sitting President of the U.S., George Bush.

Duke is also a lousy choice to hold up as an example of the Republican party's version of Sharpton. Duke made many bids in a relatively short time frame as a Democrat, an Independent and as a Republican. Sharpton has always claimed the Democrat party as his home.

And Sharpton still defends the Tawana Brawley case, her claims and his actions in it from time to time. If I can find a link to a recent story I'll post it for you.

That'd be great, because all I've got is the interview that I saw with him after the debates of last year.

And actually, both of you are right. I should have gone for the easy mark: Pat Robertson. Other than some semi-harsh words from the current administration regarding his comments on assassinating Hugo Chavez, he has never been repudiated by the GOP that I am aware of. I'd love to see if if he has.

Here's a piece on Sharpton from 2003:

Profile on Slate

And the below is almost verbatim what he said in the post-debate interview:

Sharpton stands by Brawley's story. In May 2002, when the Associated Press asked whether he would apologize to Pagones, Sharpton replied: "Apologize for what? For believing a young lady?" Referring to his incipient presidential campaign, Sharpton continued, "When people around the country know that I stood up for a young lady ... I think it will help me." In March 2003, when the Washington Post asked whether Sharpton could have expressed sympathy for Pagones after the prosecutor was cleared, Sharpton replied that Brawley "identified Pagones. I was her spokesperson. I cannot turn around in what I said I believed." As to the jury verdict against him, Sharpton told the New York Daily News in July 2003 that "a jury said in the Central Park jogging case … that I was wrong, and it was just overturned 13 years later. Juries can be wrong. I've stood by what I believe. Juries are proven wrong every day."

knuckles, my objection to West was not his statement about Bush not caring for Black people. That's obviously opinion. It was still a dumb time and place to say it and illustrates that West cares more about himself than the people he was supposedly trying to help but it's his opinion.

What I objected to was his statement of fact that **...they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!". Indefensible race baiting.

It also occurs to me that the fact that pictures of poor Black people suffering has resulted in the single greatest amount of charity donations in our history. This should give people like Mr West pause. Perhaps the country isn't as predisposed to hating and harming minorities as he believes.

I doubt that will happen but they say he's smart so there's hope.

I don't think Bush created a new reality. I think bin Laden and his people created a new reality. Bush just exploited it.

Bin laden just opened our eyes to the reality that was already there. Bush's reality is the one that's an artificial creation.

"Reality, what a concept."
Mork from Ork.

It also occurs to me that the fact that pictures of poor Black people suffering has resulted in the single greatest amount of charity donations in our history. This should give people like Mr West pause. Perhaps the country isn't as predisposed to hating and harming minorities as he believes.

I doubt that will happen but they say he's smart so there's hope.

Hey, that's what I said.

What I do hope is that the response of the people of America does more to show these people who might be crying race now that they are mistaken. The actions of America will speak louder than anyone’s words. I’ve donated to the Red Cross, and my wife has volunteered with the county government to go down to New Orleans to be part of the recovery efforts. I’ve got friends who are driving down to Houston to pick up a family to bring home with them for a while. I appreciate what West said, and will defend it simply because I think it’s his right AND I think it’s something he legitimately feels. But I also think that what I, you, and my friends and family are doing speaks far louder than anything any freaking rapper says on TV.

It may be cliche, but it's true: actions speak louder than words.

Bill, re:

"Teaching was too stressful, so he became a cop. THANK you, ladies and gentlemen!

Between this and my new discovery that driving a bus puts me in the elite among drivers I think I qualify for The Avengers. Or at least Justice League Unlimited but hell, who doesn't?"

LOL!

And also, we've learned that you've got that whole movie-making thing going, too ... you might be even more qualified for superhero groupdom than the guy on that commercial who they let into a super group because he could turn objects into beer ....

you might be even more qualified for superhero groupdom than the guy on that commercial who they let into a super group because he could turn objects into beer ....

A- I've never seen this commercial and just from your description it may be one of my all time favorires
and
B- I disagree; truly, he would be the most beloved superhero of all time.

Well, the only object we saw him transform in the commercial was a running shoe, but on the other hand, he did turn it into Heineken...

Heh. If true, gotta love this one:

http://ksdk.com/news/us_world_article.aspx?storyid=85020

FEMA sends ice trcks for Katrina victims to Maine.

Leave it to good ole Fred to find the true perspective...

Whimpering About Poverty

Maybe You Should Try The Real Thing

Septmber 25, 2005

Repeatedly I hear that the misbehavior in New Orleans sprang from the exigencies of poverty. I would offer a countering view. Permit me to start with the family of Violeta, mi pareja in Mexico. I know them well. Listen, and judge.

Her father was born poor 78 years ago. Poor in Mexico in the twenties meant poor--dirt-floor poor, village well with typhoid and no sewerage poor, no safety net, no medical care, and government by caciques who had unlimited power and didn’t care whether you lived or died. It was hookworm, roundworm, pinworm, tapeworm poor. It was louse poor. Obesity from eating at McDonald’s was not a concern. Just eating was a concern.

Her Dad learned to read from an aunt who had learned in a Catholic school. In Mexico then, as in the United States now, the Catholic schools were better than the public, when the latter existed. He then apprenticed himself to a primitive machine shop, the only kind available, and became a valve-maker.

Eventually he hired on with a company, saved hard over the years, and bought a house, now paid off, in which he still lives. Buying a house for a Mexican worker then required grim determination. After thirty-six years he retired with a pension adequate to support life. In all this time, he did not sack a single city.

Poor doesn’t mean ignorant. He read whatever he could find, to include newspapers daily. He knows a lot of history and geography. If you mention, say, Ceylon, he knows where it is, and the capital. Do American college graduates?

He wasn’t shiftless, you see. Poverty is a condition characterized by a lack of money. Shiftlessness involves a lack of backbone, morals, independence, self-respect, and drive. They are not the same thing. Of course, if you are shiftless, you are likely to be poor.

((The rest of it is here...))

http://fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/26/frist.blindtrust.ap/index.html

I guess Martha Stewart should have run for the Senate.

Oh, come on!!!

Former FEMA Director Places Blame

(CBS/AP) Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown defended his role in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and put much of the blame for coordination failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together," he told a congressional panel. "I just couldn't pull that off."

more at

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/27/katrina/main886469.shtml

And more at

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9496474/