Democrats & Liberals: Archives

And leaders capable of keeping there eye on the ball.

Hey Cohen,

If you are putting that much faith in our federal government you deserve to be let down…lol.

This statement was also taken from the website you provided:

“Similarly, Democrats are much more critical than Republicans of the federal government’s handling of the disaster. Roughly three-quarters of Democrats (76%) rate the federal government’s efforts in this area as only fair or poor. Most Republicans (63%) give the federal government positive marks for its response to the hurricane”. Makes a lot of sense to me. Do dems ever support what the President does?

And lastly, I don’t know how eduacated you are or aren’t but you may want to look over the sample of the population that was polled. 1,000 people does not represent the 200,00,00+ we have living here in the United States. The poll also does not state how many out of the thousand were Dems. and how many were Reps.

Funny thing about statitics that I learned a long time ago, you can bend them and twist them to fit whatever point you are trying to prove. But the validity of statistical analysis is based largely on the sample of the population that is polled. Try to not forget that the next time you want to run the numbers.

Thanks

These polls reflect public dissatisfaction with disaster relief efforts (at least for now) but it’s way too early to say that what the significance of that consensus is, especially since responses vary wildly depanding on how the questions are phrased.

There’s also a lot more of this story to emerge, and I suspect that the picture will change dramatically now that the New Orleans city officials are loudly blaming the governor’s office and the governor’s office is loudly blaming New Orleans officials.

As for polls. Speaking for myself, when I evaluate my political leaders (or co-workers, or people I’ve hired to perform a service—whatever), I don’t divide my judgements into either excellent/superior and terrible/unacceptable—give either an A+ or an F.

There’s a lot of middle ground there. If I’d give somebody an average evaluation, to me that means their work was acceptable—not that I’d never work with them again and want them fired, and also not that I wouldn’t hope things went better next time.

The polls are giving mixed messages—lets face it. And much has to do with how the questions are framed. The Gallup poll shows this, for example, as to who is to blame for the crisis.

—No One: 38%
—State/Local Officials: 25%
—Federal Agencies: 18%
—President Bush: 13%

The recent ABC poll asked if the administration did an “excellent job,” a “fair job” or a “poor job,” and more than half found the job at least excellent or fair.

If I was asked to evaluate the federal response, I would say “fair” instead of “excellent” myself.

Could the president himself have done more, as this Pew poll asks? I’m open to the possibility, though I’m not sure what “more” would have looked like. Sometimes a good job is not the same thing as a perfect job, and saying that the president “could” have done more doesn’t mean that I’m angry
that there wasn’t (or that I really expected) a superhuman performance for the ages.

So what’s the consensus? We have to wait and see.

Nathan, the Pew poll methodology is available and it is indeed highly unusual.

For one thing, it doesn’t poll either registered voters (which tends to produce results more favorable to the left) or likely voters (which tends to produce results more favorable to Republicans) but American adults.

It breaks down like this.

33% Democrat
33% Independent
27% Republicans

In the last election, 37% identified themselves as Republican, and nowhere near that number of people identified themselves as independents.

Also, the other questions sought to evaluate differences in racial attitudes, and so the poll oversampled African Americans by a considerable margin.

I would like to see an independent panel appointed similiar to the 9/11. Why I do not trust either side to get the answeres is simply Congress has shown over and over they can’t do it. I have no reason to see that this would change. There is no harm as far as I can see and much to gain.

Why did the Mayor and Governor fail so badly down in Louisiana? It is an embarrassment to Democrats. They knew clearly that 100,000 people would not be able to evacuate. It say’s right in their own evacuation plans. And it clearly states that the Mayor is responsible for the evacuation. What about the thousands of school and city busses that sat waiting to be flooded? You need to look at the link that posts New Orleans evacuation plan.
http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26
The plan clearly states what the Mayor and the Governor are in charge of, and neither one of them did any part of their job. The leadership of the local government is embarrassing and incompetent down there.
Below is a few clips off of New Orleans own website. Look who was not in control here. Check the link above and see the entire thing for yourself.

“â€â€â€The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.â€â€â€â€â€
V. TASKS
A. Mayor
* Initiate the evacuation.
* Retain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations.
* Authorize return to evacuated areas.
Shelter demand is currently under review by the Shelter Coordinator. Approximately 100,000 Citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation.

They knew all of this. Why did they not act?

Knoop,

Thank you. It’s up to locals to plan for disasters. We have annual disaster drills to test responses of various agencies - police, fire, EMS, hospitals, government, etc…- to natural and man-made disasters. Is this something that happens only in the midwest? We plan for plane crashes, tornadoes, blizzards and floods, multi-vehicle accidents, etc……
Granted, the evacuation of entire cities is extream, but when you live in an area that is 6 feet below sea level, wouldn’t it be wise to have a workable plan, with built in fudge factors. Of course. And that is what they had. A plan with a fudge factor of 100,000. That doesn’t sound like a good plan, does it?

Knopp, good observations.

For the federal goverment to have done more than they did in the first hours and days, George Bush would have had to totally strip the Democratic state and local officials of all authority, ignore their protests, and insert a massive military force into the city of New Orleans.

Had this happened, I think we all know that the attacks against the administration by the media and Democrats would now be even more shrill and unreasoning than they already are.

The city still would have been destroyed, and Bush would now be being accused of trampling the rights of state and local authorities—who if only left to their own devices (they and the media would now be telling us) would have snatched the rosiest of scenarios from the jaws of disaster.

The way the question is worded I don’t think President Bush would answer “I did everything I could”.

Craig

P.S. There is a item on Drudge right now that says he considered invoking and insurection clause to allow him to force federal aid into New Orleans and have the fed take over the whole situation. That would have been doing more!!

Local & state, as well as federal government, can be faulted for the situations surrounding Katrina. However, the nature of the errors which local & state officials committed before the hurricane differ substantially from the nature of the errors committed by the federal government after the hurricane.

The polls tend to ignore the nature of the errors.

Most of the errors committed by local & state agencies involved failures to follow their plan, and think through the logistics.

In their defense, the time to implement plans- for example, to fully utilize city busses, to provide food & water at shelters, and so on- was fairly short. The plans had to be implemented in a period of approximately 24 hours, beginning with the Saturday night before the Katrina struck.

Once Katrina struck, local and state relief organizations were overwhelmed or effectively destroyed by their inability to communicate & coordinate.

(There are exceptions, most notably the Coast Guard, which performed admirably throughout the crisis).

Federal government can be faulted for what happened after the hurricane struck. Individuals in LA & NO seemed remarkably willing to help one another. The federal government failure was not a failure to plan; it was a failure to respond once the hurricane did its damage.

The federal government’s failure to respond was chiefly a failure at the highest levels of management.

This federal failure to respond was televised, there for all the world to see.

Phx8, if you’ve decided that the inability to effectiviely coordinate and communicate at least partially exonerates local and state authorities, then why doesn’t the same thing apply to the federal authorities? After all, they were trying to operate in the same areas and under the same conditions.

Secondly, when you move to your criticms of federal authorities, I can’t help but notice your complete lack of even one example of a “failure.” You just say, as an article of faith (because you sure haven’t mentioned anything) that there were “failures of management” at the highest level.

Perhaps you have something specific in mind. I’d love to hear it. Otherwise it’s just another claim that can neither be accepted or refuted because… well, because it doesn’t contain anything.

William,

Can you tell me why they might have undersampled Republicans in this poll?

Republicans 27%
Democrats 33%
Indepenents 33%

Stop, stop, stop! Hold everything.

“Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina
President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas”

Source:CNN MONEY

http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/index.htm

WHAT! The bastard! Go-read this-then some editor start a thread PLEASE! Follow up here, I don’t care, but dammit, please, someone, talk about this! This administration cares not one bit for ANY of there fellow human biengs. How anyone at this point can miss how little their care is beyond me. Go on right wingers - keep drinking that kool-aid. Don’t belive me? READ:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/index.htm

*Sorry about the spelling
Here is where you can find out about this act (Davis Bacon Act) that has been in place SINCE THE 30’s!

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/statutes/whd/dbra.htm

Sanger,
For a specific example, anyone with a cel phone using a 504 area code lost service and the ability to communicate. This problem applied for local & state officials.

This problem did not apply to federal officials.

Sanger, I’d be happy to provide examples. How many do you need?

“The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.”

“Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.”

“The airline industry said the government’s request for help evacuating storm victims didn’t come until late Thursday afternoon.”
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9233396/

Incredibly, Brown, the head of FEMA, was unaware of the thousands of people who took shelter at the Convention Center. Anyone watching tv knew about this situation, yet the head of FEMA was unaware. Incredible.

Eventually, the federal government did respond. The problem was in their failure to recognize the seriousness of the situation, the failure of the highest levels of management to assess & coordinate & react after the hurricane passed through LA. That delay & incompetence & neglect cost lives.

“The bottom line is that despite the fact the president was strapped with two governors who bungled this crisis badly, in the end it is the president who sends in the National Guard and FEMA relief. The president’s suggestion that the size of this storm caught all by surprise just doesn’t get it. His administration was 48 hours late sending in the National Guard and poor Americans got raped and killed because of those mistakes.”

— Joe Scarborough, MSNBC

Italian Buddha,

It would be advisable to do a little research on this before you get all excited.
Only 31 States adhere to the law:
The others:

10 States repealed the law
9 States never adopted the federal ruling.

It costs taxpayers an additonal 1 billion a year in additional expense.

Sounds like this “old” law should be repealed across the board. It is no longer valid in todays marketplace. Thanks IB for bringing this to my attention.

Check it out…

Research Council

I think the Feds should stop everything because the job they are doing is absolutely terrible.

From what I’m seeing and hearing, this has to be what everyone wants.

discerner, I think Italian Buddha’s point is that President Bush signed an executive order allowing Halliburton and other contractors to screw the workers. No surprises there.

What i found interesting in the days leading up to the hurricane was that the government’s position was focused around how the oil prices would jump because of the hurricane.

Even before hurricane slammed into New Orleans, government officials were already talking about the potential impact for increased prices at the pump.

Holly f__king crap!

OK - Bush’s answer to the crisis in New Orleans is:

Drop environmental protections

Allow drilling off the Gul coast

Drop average worker’s wages

—-

So - the oil companies and large construction firms that are reaping huge profits from this disaster get the sole focus of Bush’s help. (“We have the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-mores.’ Some call you the elite. I call you my base.” W. Bush)

OK - I’ve reached a consensus… George Bush is an elitist asshole. No more arguments for me: I now consider him Enemy of the State - I will do everything in my power to remove this swine from public office.

Mr. Sanger
Again your distortions and leaps of logic are amazing.
You take the criticism of Bush’s LACK of RESPONSE and conclude that his ONLY AVAILABLE OPTION is to “SEND IN FEDERAL TROOPS (military??) and STRIP STATE AND LOCAL authority.
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG
Bush could have ORDERED FEMA to get the Urban Task Forces MOVING WITH ALL DISPATCH — UTILIZE EXISTING CONTINGINCY PLANS
Move in and ASSIST local and state gov’ts that have been overwhelmed — by the way, the Lo Gov DID make requests stating that they were overwhelmed, BEFORE the hurricane hit.

Now about examples of HOW TO DO THIS??
Look up how the Coast Guard responded BEFORE THE HURRICANE.
the Commander in Charge said that he could see that Katrina was huge and he KNEW that when it hit land that all “heck” would break loose.
They got all their aircraft out of the area and staged ready to go
There were rescue helicopters from MARYLAND that were dispatched and CAME INTO THE AREA right BEHIND THE STORM.
In the immediate days afterwards EVERY RESCUE HELICOPTER ALONG THE EASTERN SEABOARD WAS DISPATCHED TO THE AREA
THERE WERE SUFFICIENT CREWS TO ALLOW AROUND THE CLOCK OPERATIONS WHILE ALLOWING CREWS TO GET SUFFICIENT REST
THESE MEN AND WOMEN RESCUED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
THE COMMANDER DID NOT WAIT FOR “REQUESTS FROM THE LOCALS”
NOR DO I THINK ANYONE BELIEVES THAT HE “STRIPPED LOCAL GOV’TS OF THEIR AUTHORITY”.
HE JUST DID IT.
THE COAST GUARD ROCKS!!!!
GIVE IT UP SANGER THE PRES AND HIS CRONIES HAVE BEEN EXPOSED FOR THE INCOMPENTENT POLITICAL HACKS THEY ARE.
THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL AT CHEATING AND LYING AND DESTROYING OTHER PEOPLE’S REPUTATIONS IN ORDER TO “WIN” (IF YOU CAN CALL THIS SLIMY ACTION A “WIN”)ELECTIONS — BUT TO LEAD A COUNTRY????
NO WAY.
GUESS WHAT, JUST HEARD THAT THE FALLOUT FROM ALL THIS IS THAT
IN THE PAST ELECTION IT WAS SAID THAT MANY PEOPLE VOTED FOR BUSH BECAUSE THEY “TRUSTED HIM TO WAGE THE WAR ON TERROR (OR IRAQ)”
BUT AFTER KATRINA, THOSE PEOPLE ARE RECONSIDERING THEIR TRUST IN HIS ABILITY TO CONDUCT THAT OPERATION AS WELL.
I.E. THE PRES CONNED THE PEOPLE INTO BELIEVING “TRUST ME TO KEEP YOU SAFE” (THAT WAS PART OF HIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN)
AND NOW THE COUNTRY IS SEEING FOR THEMSELVES WHAT WE KNEW ALL ALONG — THE LIE OF THAT.

Ok, trying to think like a Republican here…

Brain Dead Women in Florida Gets Unplugged- Feds must save her!!!

Massive Hurricane Hits Four States, Killing Thousands of People and Crippling the Oil Industry - Not a federal responsibility. See Section XXX…

On the basis of these examples, I guess the GOP line now is that the feds are only responsible for interfering in personal tragedies.

Didn’t members of Congress have an emergency session to try and intervene with the Terri Schiavo? Didn’t Bush fly back into DC to specifically deal with the Shiavo case?

But the destruction of a MAJOR US CITY (and destruction across State lines) does not warrant anywhere near a similar response?

“America needs a full bipartisan investigation”

Won’t happen.
FEMA failed the people when the floods of the 90’s hit and they failed the people now.
Ever hear anything about those floods?
I was there before, during and after. NO wasn’t a surprise.

Could the gov. of LA brought in the guard before the storm hit, or would that have been against the law?

Nathan,

You ask “Do dems ever support what the President does?” I’d ask, do Repubs ever criticize him? That’s why I explicitly listed the numbers for Independents, who mostly agree with the Dems.

Also, “I don’t know how eduacated [sic] you are or aren’t but you may want to look over the sample of the population that was polled. 1,000 people does not represent the 200,00,00+ we have living here in the United States.” Nathan, I’m a professor of computer science, and I’ve published 100+ papers in AI and machine learning, and area closely connected with statistics. I don’t recall the margin of error, but sqrt( p(1-p)/N ) is a good approximation, work it out.

Sanger, I don’t see why it’s unusual to sample adults rather than likely voters, given that they’re not trying to predict an election. The sample probably explains the difference in proportions of independents, dems and repubs.

Various - most years, most city governments are financially strapped. Half of local governments will be below average, and a few will be completely corrupt and broken - and few hours on the web will tell you which ones are worst. Terrorists could easily maximize damage by hitting the least-prepared cities. Post 9/11, does it really make sense giving local governments such heavy responsibility to respond to a wide-scale emergency? If that really is the situation now, doesn’t that seem like a horrible instance of a pre-9/11 mentality? Why hasn’t that been fixed over the last 4 years?

CLO, “I would like to see an independent panel appointed similiar to the 9/11.” - great idea, I’m with you. Maybe Bush will go along with that, as he (eventually) did on 9/11.

I recommend this fairly informative article as a summary of the many problems: Multiple failures caused relief crisis

William,

The poll conducted by the Gallup organization for CNN and USA Today found that 13 percent of Americans think Mr. Bush is “most responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane.” Eighteen percent said “federal agencies” are most to blame, and 25 percent blamed “state and local officials.” Thirty-eight percent said “no one is to blame.”

Obviously the effort has a way to go to achieve it’s goal of reaching a consensus that matches your view.

eric, according to the latest Pew poll, two thirds of Americans don’t believe President Bush did all he could to mobilize relief efforts.

Cohen,

So you are saying based on your formula that 1000 people is a good sample? Are you kidding me? Fomulas or no formulas, how many people live in the US? You take 1000 of those people and that is supposed to represent over 200,000,000 peoples attitudes and beliefs?

If you are a professor then I will give you credit for being an educated man (though staing how many papers you have wrote does not impress me—was it supposed to?)

You seemed to avoid many of the points that I made.

I wish that you would have commented on this sattement as well,

‘Funny thing about statitics that I learned a long time ago, you can bend them and twist them to fit whatever point you are trying to prove. But the validity of statistical analysis is based largely on the sample of the population that is polled.

1000 people does not represent 200,000,000+ (the reason I keep using this figure 200,000,000 is because I don’t know what the exact number of our population is. I know it is high though.

That is the simple truth. You can throw out all the formulas you want, but that does not mean that 1000 people was a good sample.

Nathan -

—-
That is the simple truth. You can throw out all the formulas you want, but that does not mean that 1000 people was a good sample.
—-

It’s basic stats. At a certain size, the sample population will very closely match the population as a whole. I would suggest you look at many different polls - you will notice that they all hover between 950 - 1400 people polled. It’s the sample size required to get a good reading… you can go over that number by as much as you like, but the results will not change much if any at all.

“It’s basic stats. At a certain size, the sample population will very closely match the population as a whole. I would suggest you look at many different polls - you will notice that they all hover between 950 - 1400 people polled. It’s the sample size required to get a good reading… you can go over that number by as much as you like, but the results will not change much if any at all.”

Exactly right, Tony. This is one of those surprising but true math things, like the fact that in a room of 30 people, the odds are >50% that two will have the same birthday.

Put it another way, there are millions of poker hands. If you deal out 1000 poker hands from the top of a freshly shuffled deck, and 70% of them don’t beat three aces, then you can be pretty sure that the number of poker hands that don’t beat three aces is pretty close to 70%. You don’t need to try all 52*51*50*49*48 different hands to be sure.

Also…

If, in any given election, >= 51% of the population votes Republican, the average American will get screwed within the first 30 days of that Administration.

(WOW - I had no idea math could be so political…)

:)

Eric, you need to start adding links. I can’t find the original poll but part of the difference might be recency: the Pew Poll was from 9 6-7, the Gallup poll a day earlier. We’re learning more each day. The Gallup was also somewhat smaller, 670 people.

Most of the difference is probably the question: “did less than he could” is quite different from “was most to blame”. In the Gallup poll, 42% believe Bush handled the situation poorly, and only 35% believe he handled it “favorably”. (According to Google’s cache of http://www.thepoliticalpitbull.net/’s discussion.)

I’d argue there is consensus building in the mainstream. Stay with me here: let’s say for the sake of argument that about 20% of Dems will blame Bush no matter what — that would about explain the difference between dems and independent, and bring the fraction of of “mainstream”, non-rabid Dems that think bush “did all he could” to about about 1 in 3. If you assume 20% of Repubs will exonerate Bush no matter what, you get an approval rate among about 3 in 7 for mainstream Repubs, or about 43% instead of 33% for mainstream Dems, not all that different.

Right now, I just want to see momentum build for a real bipartisan 9/11 style investigation - rather than an internal Republican whitewash and forcing out an obvious scapegoat or two.

On a partisan note, though, after spending so much time burnishing their “bring it on” tough guy image, the Repubs have got to worry about the last tidbit I noted:

…among those that say that Katrina has effected their answer to the question “Can the government handle a major terrorist attack?” the vast majority are less confident, not more. More than three times as many Republicans are “less confident” than are “more confident”, and more than six times as many Dems or independents have lost (rather than gained) confidence.

As I see it, the arguments and local vs state vs federal are missing the real point. People vote for mayor because of party affiliation, property taxes, all sorts of stuff, but Americans elected Bush mainly because they thought he would keep them safe from terrorists. Now we find out - no, there is no coherent national plan for reacting to a major urban disaster, and Republicans apparently don’t even think there should be! Does that make sense to you?

How can they keep America safe with this kind of mindset? Maybe sometimes the best defense is a good offense, but no matter what offense you use, you’re gonna be just plain f-cked if your defense is a bunch of amateurs and your campaign manager’s old college roommate.

William,

The poll conducted by the Gallup organization for CNN and USA Today found that 13 percent of Americans think Mr. Bush is “most responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane.” Eighteen percent said “federal agencies” are most to blame, and 25 percent blamed “state and local officials.” Thirty-eight percent said “no one is to blame.” washtimes

Obviously the effort has a way to go to achieve it’s goal of reaching a consensus that matches your view.

So you are saying based on your formula that 1000 people is a good sample? Are you kidding me?…1000 people does not represent 200,000,000+

Nathan,

You are incorrect. William is right. I understand that you might not understand the math behind statistics, but their validity has been well established.

Beyond a certain point, the validity of a statistical sample depends on the size of the sample, not on the size of the total population. And, 1000 is good enough for 95% certainty within about 4 percentage points (assuming that the sample was even reasonably well chosed).

Jarin and I had a big debate about this last year. It would be worth reading.

William,

Link was to Washington Times article, I hit post too quickly.

No matter how you slice it the Democratic response to this is disgraceful.

If the motivation for blaming Bush is accountability, can we expect democratic officials to also be savaged in the same manner?

the Democratic response to this is disgraceful.

Of course, since this is Eric’s response to anything ever done by any liberal, it’s hard to take the complaint seriously.

“Link was to Washington Times article, I hit post too quickly.”

I found that Eric, I just couldn’t find the actual hard data from the poll - eg the questions and methodology - without which it’s useless since as Nathan said “Funny thing about statitics that I learned a long time ago, you can bend them and twist them to fit whatever point you are trying to prove”. Probably the same holds for statistics also :-)

“can we expect democratic officials to also be savaged in the same manner?” - oh, like that’s not happening? Seriously, Eric, I don’t live or vote in NO or LA, so that level of accountability is less of an issue for me personally than the federal government response. Unless there are Dems actually in charge of FEMA or DHS that you know about?

Eric, your poll is way out of date. According to the most recent Pew poll,

Two-thirds said the president could have done more to get relief efforts going quickly, according to the survey.

I think there’s consensus. And I think the Democrats are doing a fine job of shaming the Bush administration into taking action.

Home school here (shrugs) online betting site and shoved it in his pocket before the teacher could see it He stared .