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Honore serves at the pleasure of the President. This argument that if a dirty bomb is released in LA, if the federal authorities show up within a week, this is great performance is absurd on its face.

I’m really disgusted by the knee-jerk partisanship around this issue. It meshes well with the street violence and selfishness among the victims: everybody’s looking out for #1, physically and politically.

Remember 9/11? We all pulled together for as long as it took to get things back to normal. Obviously, that was on a much smaller scale. But the initial unity did not prevent later criticism; in fact, it allowed it. It’s fine to criticize the administration, and healthy in a democracy. But smart liberals (and conservatives) will reserve judgment for a date when hindsight separates reality from perception.

What a truly stupid argument and one that is, by the way, contradicted by NorthCom itself. From an interview on BBC with Lieutenant Commander Sean Kelly from NorthCom:

“A: Now I’m sure you’re aware of the criticism that the authorities have been slow to respond to this. When did you get the order to start relief work?

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast. So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you’ll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it’s search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can’t just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.”

So maybe if President Dipstick would have taken time out from eating cake with John McCain or strummin’ his gee-tar, he might have ordered the military to move in as they were prepared to do.

But, this is the internet, so feel free to post all the nonsense you want. Don’t hurt yourself by checking the facts or anything.

I swear to God, Bush could come out on prime time TV, cut a puppy in half with a chainsaw and you wingnuts would say, “Look how the President defended himself against that vicious, probably rabid, wolf!”

Chops said, “I’m really disgusted by the knee-jerk partisanship around this issue. It meshes well with the street violence and selfishness among the victims: everybody’s looking out for #1, physically and politically.”

Heh. I see you are following the Karl Rove policy of blaming the victims. You even remembered to equate the Victims with Democrats. How very Republican of you.

I suppose not having a car, being too old, being too sick and not having anywhere to go or money just never occurs to the GOP.

Our troops are good, but they can’t walk on water. The type of problems associated with this hurricane, the New Orleans flooding, and the despicable, nihilistic looting behavior of the city’s underclass are far more challenging than the modest, short-term radiation hazard of any conceivable dirty bomb.

CHOPS, the whole nation watched on for days witnessing for themselves the complete absence of any coordinated effort to save American lives. It happened before our eyes. There is no defense for this. We were all witnesses.

Interesting how Republicans don’t want to play the “blame game” when they’re the ones that have screwed the pooch. Hasn’t really stopped every Republican android from calling for the heads of the governor of LA and mayor of NO, has it?

Already tried that Chops.
Apparently, ensuring no positive light shines on Bush is more important than helping the survivors.
Manufacturing perception just in case the reality doesn’t benefit them at the polls.
Can anyone honestly say they are surprised by this?

Roach, excuses, nothing but excuses. People died for days in the absence of any coordinated effort to help them. If journalists and reporters could get in, where were the troops? Give it a break. We all watched, there is no excusing the absence of coordinated federal response for days afterward.

Yes. How dare those Poor, Black people break into supermarkets for food and water!!! Don’t they know Property Rights are more important to Republicans than their lives???? They should do the decent thing and just stand and die. Its not as if they contribute to society after all. Their deaths would probably reduce the Medicare costs you Rightwingnuts so value.

Chris Roach said: “The usual drill is to have states and localities keep things under control for a few days until more help can arrive.”

Was this a ‘usual’ storm calling for a ‘usual’ response?

I like the way any appraisal of the relative contributions of the malfunctioning government of New Orleans, the values of its underclass, and the actions of local officials equals “blaming the victim.” FEMA clearly could do better. We can always do better. But that doesn’t mean it should be blamed for anticipating a local disaster plan where municipal authorities abandon their post and throw their hands in the air and beg for help.

As for the presidential authorization thing, there is an important prerequisite, he cannot just show up with all kinds of federal troops and say we’re running the show. Even now Blanco won’t allow her national guard troops to be federalized. A prerequisite is the declaration of the disaster area and the local request for troops. This did not go out until much later in the game.

My brother who is in the Marine reserves in Dallas was notified of the need to mobilize on Thursday and sent a convoy of 25 7 Ton trucks to Mississippi on Saturday. Since most of work in offices where it takes two weeks to replace the coffee machine, that’s pretty darn impressive to me.

I think a lot of things need to be reconsidered in the wake of this, including FEMA budgetary authority, planning for the impact of bad events and their collision with an ill-educated and criminally minded underclass, the relative focus on terrorism vice natural disasters, etc. Most obviously, Bush should consider shaking up the DHS and FEMA leadership—is there really any question on number two? But Bush is ultimately a President, not the head of FEMA or the military or the Louisiana emergency preparedness authorities.

From your article
“I was shocked to learn Bush had to direct Gov. Blanco to order the mandatory evacuation on Sunday and that she failed to mobilize the Louisiana National Guard until a few days before the Hurricane hit,…”

BUSH had to direct the Gov.???
Boy, do I have some waterfront property to sell you!!

Also, I suppose it would have been better to Mobilize the Nat’l Guard back in June??? just in case??
The normal process IS to mobilize the Guard “a few days before” the Hurrican Hits. (those who are not in IRAQ that is)

Aldous, Dispense with the ‘rightwingnuts’ name calling aimed at participants here at WatchBlog. This will be your only warning.

Sorry, Roach, you are full of it. On a number of points. But here’s two major ones:

RE: Anticipating a disaster plan. The feds have known all along about the consequences of a Cat5 hurricane striking NO. And, during the election, when the hurricane hit FLA, it took less than an hour for Bush to declare it a disaster area and dispatch FEMA for assistance. Strike one.

RE: National Guard. The President certainly does have the power to call on the National Guard in times of emergency, as he did on 9/11. Strike two.

RE: Presidential powers. Certainly there were failures at the state and local level, but that is no excuse for defunding the levees in the first place or the horribly slow federal response in the storm’s wake. As for the Pres not being the head of FEMA or the military, just who in the hell do you think both organizations answers to? Ever heard of “the Buck stops here?” So much for the “responsibility” party.

Pathetic.

Roach
You wrote:
“notified of the need to mobilize on Thursday”

THAT”S THE POINT, they were NEEDED there ON TUESDAY!!!!

EVERYONE OF THE LOCALS SAID THEY PUT OUT THE CALL AND WERE REBUFFED BY THE FEDS
THE CALLS WENT OUT MON, TUES, WED — AND FINALLY SOMEONE ANSWERED THE PHONE ON THURSDAY!!!!!

Quit saying “The Feds had to wait for the locals”

by the way, the Gov has declined the FEDERALIZING of her Nat’l Guard, BECAUSE THEY ARE DAYS LATE in coming in.

Republicans are so ignorant. Below is a detailed response by a friend:

The responsibility was FEMA’s, not the mayor’s at the time of the evacuation order. Most of the city bus drivers had driven away in their private cars one or two days before. Also, they did not have logistics at the local level to plan out where the buses would go. They were relying on FEMA for that, like communities across the country were able to do under James Lee Witt under Clinton. W’s administration wants to discourage people and local governments from relying upon the federal government so FEMA under Michael Brown had NO PLANS to help evacuation. The Mayor and Governor trusted our President. That was unwise.

There’s a lot of nonsense on this forum and throughout the internet that seeks to absolve W et. al. for their crimes saying the mayor and governor didn’t make timely and proper requests of FEMA and the President. Our laws give the President enormous powers in the event of a natural disaster like this that allow him to override state and local authorities even if no forms are filed, even if no one contacts him from the state. Keep in mind, like Lee Witt’s administrative chief said “The moment the president declared a federal disaster, it became a federal responsibility….The federal government took ownership over the response.”

Federal Disaster Declaration was on August 27, Saturday, predated to Friday, August 26. The Levees gave way Monday afternoon, August 29, and the Army Corps of Engineers saw the likelyhood of them giving way early Monday morning. Between Monday morning and Monday night was sufficient time to mobilize Fort Hood and Fort Campbell to come to the rescue of New Orleans. It did not happen because the President’s priority was staying on vacation and going to a fundrasier.

Insisting that the President needed a request from the Governor to act is nonsense. All the laws are written so that if the army’s set out to rescue people from a natural disaster, without a request from the Governor, the President and the army are absolved from having broken the law. Also, the law creating the Department of Homeland Security allows the President to set the army to work to deal with a natural disaster, even without conforming to the Posse Comitatus Act.

Keep in mind the original 1878 Posse Comitatus Act was indeed passed with the intent of removing the Army from domestic law enforcement, not from assisting recovery from natural disasters. The Act provided a way to keep the army from enforcing the federal statutes allowing Blacks to vote in the South. Also, without the army, domestic terrorism in the South, namely the KKK, stepped up enormously and Blacks were forced back down. The first major violation of the Act was when Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock.
[rl]http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebil****.htm[/url]

WatchBlog Manager:

My comment as aimed at the Republican World in general and not to those here at WatchBlog.

The partisan attempt to turn this into this official did bad it was all his fault meme is pretty sad. Take one issue, the funding of levees. The funding was still designed around the Category Three threat. For decades New Orleans residents, Louisianans, the Army Corps of Enginneers and others directed their efforts at this problem. It turned out not to be a good gamble by any stretch, but it was decades in the making and will take many years to fix and avert in the future. Louisana’ byzantine legal system—with separate boards of directors for each individual stretch of levee and the lack of a water authority czar—has led to multiple levels of government, graft, and all the rest that we’ve come to expect from that corner of the country.

As for the mobilization of my brother’s Marine unit, they’re a Marine unit hundreds of miles away. The number of troops that would be needed was not immediately apparent, nor was the fact that the levees would not function properly—which seemed mercifully to hold until Tuesday. To move from warning order to physical deployment to the AO in days is a minor miracle. This is apparent to anyone with experiene in logistics, the military, or similar endeavors.

“To move from warning order to physical deployment to the AO in days is a minor miracle. This is apparent to anyone with experiene in logistics, the military, or similar endeavors”

Quit trying to be practical or fair Roach.
Bush gave the order to destroy the levee and all his evil Christian followers carried them out, just as they did here in Missouri in the 90’s.
It’s Bush’s fault, and if its not, make it sound like it is, there’s elections coming up.

I also don’t want a broader point to get lost in the shuffle, that the excellence and leadership of General Honore have imposed law and order on this chaotic situation. In short order he’s cleared out the Superdome, Convention Center, rescued thousands from their attics and rooftops, largely restored law and order, and provided some hope to the victims.

While Republicans may err too much in having reduced, realistic expectations of government, liberals it seems to me have a problem of always—ALWAYS—making excuses for self-destructive things people do that are within their control. Smoking crack, unprotected sex, dropping out of school—these are individual choices with serious consequences, but liberals always point to some institutional failrue like the criminalization of drugs, or the lack of sex education, or “institutional racism,” whatever the hell that last thing means. It seems that the worse poor people and minorities behave, the more vociferously liberals point the finger at the specter of racism among putatively able white authority figures, who, if all were right in the world, would save these improvident people from themselves.

The excuse for most of the able-bodied people stuck on their rooves and in the superdome is their own stupidity, short-time horizons, and life-long expectations of assistance from others. I do fault FEMA and Bush for not recognizing that these irresponsible people in one of the most dangerous and screwed up cities in America cannot be expected to do anything properly and thus greater federal control would be requird here than in, say, Peoria Illinois.

Finally, as for looters, it’s true some were getting food and other necessites and no one is criticizing them. But the need for food does not explain gratuitous acts of arson, rape, mayhem, shooting at rescuers, etc. These were real phenomena widely reported by people living through the post-storm chaos. This is a reality check and the best response liberals have is to tell us that our eyes are lying. Not this time.

Bzzzt! Wrong! But thank you for playing!

The fact is that Bush slashed funding for the Army Corps of engineers to upgrade the levees to face precisely such an event as this. Yes, the levees should have been upgraded years ago, but Bush reduced funding to 20% of the requested levels so that needed upgrade could not be done. As it was, the Army Corps of Engineers owed over $4 million to contractors for work last year that was absolutely essential but was unfunded by the feds. Indefensible.

And your anecdotal evidence to the contrary, the fact remains that NorthCom had planned in advance and had stationed men and relief supplies to follow in the wake of the hurricane such that it could have started rescue operations within hours, not days, had the President but taken time out from eating cake to authorize it.

Get your facts straight. You’re embarrassing yourself.

Roach, I’m sure what those who remained in NOLA should have done, in your mind, was gas up the old SUV and headed for Atlanta. Unbelievable.

I guess it’s “irresponsible” to be poor, huh?

As for your “your eyes are lying” comment, how does one take you seriously when you are the one contending that FEMA did a great job? Any two year old can figure out what a lie that is.

Yeah, looters, the ones stealing TVs not the ones stealing food and water, are indeed irresponsible and their actions are reprehensible. But, when there’s no law enforcement or security on the ground for four days, it provides an opportunity to the criminal element. And whose fault would that be, hmm?

Suffice to say that if local authorities plan to wait on Federal help they are not being realistic. It doesn’t matter if it is Bush, Clinton or anyone else. The Federal government is a blunt instrument. It can mobilize great resources, but people have to help themselves and local authorities are the first responders.

The “victims” bear some of the responsibility for what happens to them. We allow and rely on our citizens the act as citizens, not subjects. This means that in the case of a disaster they cooperate with authorities, help themselves and help each other. Where this happened, as in rural areas of both Louisiana and Mississippi, the disaster was mitigated. It was still a disaster, but these people reacted well.

One of my colleagues, who lives in the country, just tells me it is because rural people are more self sufficient. I don’t know if that is true, but it seems to me if you see at truck coming at you, it might be a good idea to step out of the way. Yes, this Republican has trouble understanding why people don’t do that. As for the infirm, I have trouble understanding why whoever usually helps them didn’t help them get out.

“Get your facts straight. You’re embarrassing yourself”

Thank you Skip.
Now, would you please show the facts that show the 20% that was cut would have went to upgrade the levee so it could have withstood a Cat 5 hurricane.
Oh, and that facts that show the President intentionally neglected to start rescue operations.
Show them evil Republicans the facts so they will quit defending Bush.

“And whose fault would that be, hmm?”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say:
THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT!

Sheesh, next thing we’ll hear is how it wasn’t the poor criminals fault for shooting at the choppers, it was the guns fault.

“One of my colleagues, who lives in the country, just tells me it is because rural people are more self sufficient. I don’t know if that is true”

Its true Jack, very true! Your friend is very wise.

Skip
So maybe if President Dipstick would have taken time out from eating cake with John McCain or strummin’ his gee-tar, he might have ordered the military to move in as they were prepared to do.

And from what you wrote earlier they’d have been blown away by Katrina.

Aldous
Yes. How dare those Poor, Black people break into supermarkets for food and water!!!

Funny, I saw them with beer, TVs, Steros, and other nonfood items. If they were only taking food, and some of them were, this would be a nonissue with me. I won’t fault a person for feeding their family or themselves.

kctim, it remains to be see in coming days proof that the levees would not have failed had the Bush administration and the Republican Congress provided funding at the levels requested. However, we can be certain that UNDERFUNDING the levees wasn’t going to provide the needed protection against flooding.

Are you being intentionally dense in missing the point? Of course the criminal element is to blame for their own behavior, but the failure to provide security is pretty much all on Bush.

And NO WHERE did I state that Bush “intentionally” failed to provide relief to NOLA. Stop creating straw men to knock down.

Take a reading comprehension course, kctim, you seem to have problems following along with the arguments.

to Skip: read your comments, and all agree you are perfect, a perfect asshole!!

John Cooke, due to your failure to comply with our policy, your comments are no longer welcome here. —WatchBlog Managing Editor

Boy, you Republicans have a real hard time with the whole “reading” thing, don’t you? Go re-read my first post in which your thesis about the military being “blown away” by the hurricane is, uh, blown away. Obviously, Ron Brown, you don’t think much of the military if you think they wouldn’t be smart enough to fly in on its tail.

Further, I already distinguished between the looters and the people who foraged for food. Obviously, there is a difference and there is no defense for the former.

Skip

Speaking of straw men – the levee issue.

If full funding would not have changed the outcome, and even with full funding the improvements would not be ready until 2015, and they still would not have changed the outcome (follow the Factcheck.org mentioned by someone else) the issue of funding for levees is of no consequence in this discussion. I don’t even think this qualifies as a straw man; it is more a red herring.

The question of whether the Army Corps of Engineers should build higher levees is an important one. It impacts environmental protection, wetlands and ultimately flooding. But it is not something appropriate to this discussion.

John Cooke, my what intelligent and thoughtful commentary. Typical Republican: when confronted with the facts, result to name-calling. Go home, little boy. The grown ups are talking.

Jack, I disagree with you to this extent: I think the bottom line is that we don’t know right now whether the inadequate funding of the levees caused or contributed to the flooding of NOLA, but the point is, we damn well knew that, without more funding, the levees were insufficient to protect NOLA. It certainly could be the case, however, that even with additional funding and reinforcement the flooding would still have occurred.

Have you left-wingers have any idea of how truly
pitiful, and pathetic, you appear? Ignorance at this level must be creatd, it certainly doesn’t come naturally. What happened to all the Love, and Tolerance,and Understanding, huh?

Please, continue your line of uninformed illogic. For each time one of your myths reaches the public, it serves to solidify the Republican base. For that, we are most grateful.

Reason has been abandoned. How utterly sad.

“Longstreet”

Good post Chris. You have mentioned truths that will come out after the fingerpointing is finished & the left has moved on to another topic. Or might I say, someone else to attack.

I work with a lot of union workers & I asked them what they thought of the criminal element in NO. I might just throw this thought out, I believe blacks have really hurt their cause by being shown on TV as stealing, shooting, & running in gangs (they call themselves tribes). From the response I got from my co-workers, they felt the same way.

Someone said yesterday, you expect this type of behavior from someone raised in a third world country, where violence is an everyday part of life. But it is shocking to see civilized people, in a country of laws, become animals in a matter of days. NO looks like something from a Mad Max movie.

Perplexed

Longstreet, thank you for that insightful commentary that is a microcosm of today’s Republicans: all attack with absolutely no facts or substance. Such tactics have indeed bamboozled the general public in the last couple election cycles, but while Prince Dubya strums as NOLA floods, I foresee support for Republicans who are obviously too inept to govern ebbing like the waters now thankfully receding from NOLA. Next time you post, have something to say. It makes it so much more interesting for the reader.

Perplexed,

You forgot to mention that the people in these 3rd world countries are also often black. Has this hurt “their cause” too? I think white Americans hurt their cause by using such blatantly racist language.

Skip, you can make your points without being critical of others here with statements like: “Sorry, Roach, you are full of it.”

Comply with our policy: Critique the Message, Not the Messenger or lose your privilege to comment here.

Skip

We do know - with absolute certainty - that the improvements would not have been finished in time to change this outcome. We can speculate about the future or what the cuts would mean in 2015, but not today. It is a red herring.

I’m fairly confident that Liberals and Democrats, and anybody else who cares to complain about Bush’s policies pre-disaster have good reason to do so.

Who here is in favor of taking four days to get food, water, and transportation to evacuate to stranded survivors? Who here wants to leave innocent people to die because the resources to rescue them are not being brought expeditious? Who wants to waste time on wild goose chases because clear lines of authority are not drawn, and clear lines of communcation are not available? Who thinks that days after a Mayor and a governor call for martial, only then should the troops to enforce it show up?

These should all be rhetorical questions, but many Republicans are, perhaps unwittingly, using arguments that actually claim that such results are the best we could get. I want each and every red column reader and writer to think for a moment what they are excusing, what they are rationalizing, and what they are allowing to be the standard for the next great disaster we face.

When I’ve spoken of heroic measures elsewhere, I mean this: Failure is not an option. We do what it takes, even to the point of endangering the lives of rescuers, busting budgets, and putting people through sleepless nights to rescue, aid, and reconstruct the parts of of society affected. We don’t settle for process, we don’t settle for the red tape, and we sure as hell don’t settle for ass-covering, blaming the victims, and all of the other kind of irresponsible rhetoric designed to help politicians safe in their homes rather than people whose lives hang in the balance.

Our current system is built to ensure that our politicians need have no sense of shame for what they do wrong. Any suggestion of wrongdoing prompts countattacks and a smokescreen of spin, buckpassing, and even outright lies. The budgets are there, as are the rule changes, and organizational shuffles that the Bush administration put forward. We know who Bush appointed to head these now-all important agencies: people with no experience of handling disasters, except perhaps the political kind.

If all my talk about humanitarian and ethical standard doesn’t mean anything to you on the red column, let me put it in terms, I don’t doubt you can understand. The response to Katrina has shown America as weak (and weakened) to its enemies. Because of this bungled response, America both looks more vulnerable, and is more vulnerable.

Jack, then I want my portion of taxes for Homeland Defense and FEMA back. They are wasted dollars if as you say, the gov’t can’t respond in a timely fashion. They already proved they can’t prevent terrorism. So, will you help me get my tax dollars back?

For Bush, rebuilding Iraq better than before is more important than rebuilding inadequate levees and flood control for Americans. His budgets don’t lie.

Ron Brown, then all those corner store owners, 1000’s of them, should return to fully stocked shelves, you think? Just because the cameras were not on the corner stores, doesn’t mean the bulk of the looting was not for food or water. Think about it.

Perplexed-
Look, just because a bunch of people march around in pointy white hats and burn crosses, doesn’t mean we should say that whites aren’t doing a good enough job of representing themselves. Neither should we look at the small minority of thugs, rioters, and thieves, and criticize the Black community for not looking after it’s own representation. It is only the fault of those imposing their prejudices that Black people come to look bad for what these individuals do. Other people would have the maturity to assume that each individual is responsible for their own actions.

You do know about personal responsibility, right? After all, you are a Republican, and you don’t believe society should be blamed for what these people do. They should be.

Right?

I have a problem with people who say that it was the President’s responsibility to make sure that the national guard moved in. The fact that he did declare the area a federal disaster area means ONLY that they would be eligible for federal FUNDING of relief efforts. The National Guard is controlled by the governor of each state. I would put most of the blame on the state and local government. The real issue with the National Guard thing is…it is a state’s rights debacle if the President gets involved. If he HAD moved the National Guard in…which only POSSIBLY could have averted the debacle that DID ensue since even the army can’t drive through 15’ of water…there would have been a HUGE Constitutional debacle to follow!! (and with the Supreme Court in “limbo” right now with the death of Rehnquist and the retirement of O’Conner there would be even more “hell to pay”) So, as unpartisanly as possible that I can be…no matter if it was Clinton in the White House…the action that was taken was correct.

One other point. Mississippi and Alabama BOTH declared a state of emergency right after the hurricane hit. The governor of LA did not. That hindered the transfer of ‘power’ of sorts.

Now for my partisan comment…amazing how a state that was RAVAGED by 3…not just one…Cat 3 or Cat 4 hurricanes just a year ago…how was there not THIS much of a debacle. And the 9/11 tragedy didn’t cause this much of a debacle either and that killed 3000 people. I know I know, the “talking heads” will say it’s b/c Jeb is the Prez’s bro, but I think it’s somehow due to the smoother transition and communication. If I remember right…Bush wasn’t on vacation when those happened…but WAS in the dead middle of a campaign.

At the risk of adding fuel to the fire: Since the local governments all knew that the levee was inadequate for years and feared a catastrophe such as this, what contingency plan did they devise in advance to assist/transport their citizens from the city as well as provide for their safety and health? Didn’t they have years to figure it out?

It seems to me me that there should have been some sort of plan other than “Call in the Feds!” Just a thought……

OUCH, Skip! Seems as though I touched a nerve, what?!

Longstreet

Just one short comment. The mayor of NO is the head of a local emergency task force. He refused to use 200 school buses sitting in a parking lot. He had plenty of time to activate the buses. Had he acted promptly he could have had each bus take two trips. Twenty four thousand people could have been taken to safety. The mayor instead had to publicly point fingers and swear about others not pulling their weight. Someone should send the mayor a new mirror.

Let me respond to a few things:

David R. Remer said, “Jack, then I want my portion of taxes for Homeland Defense and FEMA back. They are wasted dollars if as you say, the gov’t can’t respond in a timely fashion. They already proved they can’t prevent terrorism. So, will you help me get my tax dollars back?”

You have said you are a stay at home mom, watching your teenage daughter. Your web site says you on “sabbatical” & your wife brings home the bacon. Therefore, you don’t have any tax dollars because you don’t pay any taxes. Get a job, then you can talk about where our tax dollars go.

Stephen:

I love you liberals. You have a way of only reading what you want & making up the rest. Now, what I said was:
1. I questioned men I work with & their response was similar to my feelings.
2. That black’s hurt their cause by being seen on TV as looters & running in gangs.
3. It was shocking to see that behavior in the US.
4. And NO looks like something from a Mad Max movie.

I didn’t say anything about people in pointy white hats & burning crosses because I didn’t see that part on TV. So you attempt to put all Southern Baptists in the clan, that was you, wasn’t it, or was it David? I get you liberals mixed up.

“Neither should we look at the small minority of thugs, rioters, and thieves, and criticize the Black community for not looking after it’s own representation.”

I did not criticize the black community, I merely said it made the blacks look bad & it does.

“It is only the fault of those imposing their prejudices that Black people come to look bad for what these individuals do.”

I have no prejudices. You ought to quit smoking that funny weed & come back to reality. To the American public, who watches the looters & gangs on TV, they wonder why these things don’t happen in white neighborhoods. Can you tell me why?

I know about personal responsibility, & I also know the democrats enslaved the blacks by placing them in a welfare state. By rewarding them for lack of responsibility.

Right?

Perplexed

Actually, there was an emergency response plan. Rush Limbaugh read parts of it on his radio broadcast today. The Mayor was in charge of executing the plan, but he didn’t.

Tom:

Actually, I heard there were as many as 1000 buses available, but were not used.

Oh, by the way, Stephen or David. Whichever one of you had so much the say about Southern Baptist a few days ago. Did you know the Southern Baptist Churches were the first to send buses & mobile kitchens into NO. Did you know they sent about 7 semi-trucks of food for the people? They were hauling people to Huston, on their buses, before anyone else.

Perplexed

By the way, in case you were wondering, I am not a Southern Baptist.

Skip & all you other Bush haters,

have none of you seen the photo of dozens of N.O.
school buses sitting in a flooded parking lot that
NO Nagin could’ve used to help evacuate the poor
from their neighborhoods before Katrina hit? Pres.
Bush called the Gov. of La. the weekend before
Katrina hit and strongly encouraged her to call
for a mandatory evacuation. This is documented in
N.O.s local newspaper. After congressional hearings are over on who dropped the ball when, I
am confident from all I’ve heard & read that the
ones who will be held most at fault will be local
and state officials first. F.E.M.A. second, and the President third.

All are guilty at some level of not acting ahead
of time or fast enough after the fact. As for the
levys. I’ve heard that plenty of funding for
strenghtening the levys have been available in the
past, but for whatever reasons, the federal funds
were squandered by La. state officials. La. and
N.O. do have a rich history of political corruption, graft, etc.. While we’re playing the
“blame game” let’s also blame the French who I
believe had the brilliant idea in the first place
of building a large city in between a large lake,
the Mississippi and…oh yeah, the OCEAN.

Hawaii doesn’t have large cities built right next
to active volcanoes. Most mountainous countries
or U.S. cities know not to build anything below
avalanche zones. Only Californians appear to be
stupid enough to build houses on mudslide prone
hills that have been cleared of trees supportive
root systems. Living in “tornado alley”, I hate to
cast blame on the victims of any disaster. But I
can’t see myself ever wanting to build a house or
business near a beach ( especially BELOW SEA LEVEL…HELLO!!! ) on the hurricane highway. I’ll take the more predictable and usually less damaging tornadoes anyday. And I’d trust President Bush to babysit my children for a week, more than I’d trust “NO show Nagin” or the Gov. of La. to watch my cat for a day.

Dale G.

Dear Watchblog Managing Editor,

So, I can be called an “asshole,” but I’M out of line for telling someone they’re “full of it?” Interesting. Seems to me that my comments is a comment on the poster’s argument, although I agree my critique could have been handled more deftly, while others have made clearly personal attacks on me and yet have suffered no rebuke. Interesting.

Dale, I have no idea why the Mayor of NOLA didn’t use the school buses as provided in the evacuation plan. I’ve heard or read somewhere that they didn’t have drivers, but that doesn’t explain why at least some of those buses weren’t put to use. Clearly, the Mayor dropped the ball on that one.

However, pretty much the purpose of FEMA’s and Homeland Security’s existence is for situations of just this sort of scale. The Governor had already, as of the 28th I believe, declared the area a statewide emergency by letter to the President. My point is that FEMA was negligent in not being on scene as of Sunday, not fricking Friday. Had FEMA taken this problem for what it was, i.e. a Cat5 hurricane headed for an extremely vulnerable city, then good old Brownie could have used those buses to evacuate the City, couldn’t he?

The whole thing about NOLA being “below sea level” and using that fact to blame the victims is the height of ridiculousness. As you point out, LA and SoCal build on unstable hillsides prone to both wildfires and mudslides and most of Florida is just a little bit above or at sea level, but you don’t see Florida scaling back on coastline development.

Your opinion and trust in the President is your own business, of course. Personally, I wouldn’t trust the man to teach my 3 year old to ride a tricycle, but to each his own. But whatever your opinion of the man’s morality, it’s beyond question but that he dropped the ball here.

Let me put it in crass politicial terms: for an administration that has been so adept at using every situation to its political advantage, isn’t it amazing to you that, when Bush is facing increasingly negative poll numbers, his handlers didn’t seize the opportunity presented by this crisis? Imagine, if you will, what America’s reaction would have been if on Sunday, Bush cut his vacation short, headed over to Houston and called a press conference to announce all the steps he was taking with FEMA and the Nat’l Guard “just in case” NOLA was indeed struck by a CAT5 hurricane as predicted. Then, let’s say after seeing Bush on the phone all Monday with state and local officials, he flew in Tuesday to Baton Rouge. With his personal attention, I have no doubt that the Guard would have been on site by Tues afternoon at the latest. Can you imagine? The guy would have been a hero. Even with the failure of the levees and flooding, America would have seen him on-site, taking charge and ensuring that NOLA got first class treatment.

Now contrast that image with what actually happened. Anyone still want to argue that Bush did a great job?

Jack, you’re missing the point on the levees. The fact of the matter is that the Bush administration has cut funding for the levees since ‘02 and that scheduled maintenance and improvements have been shelved or delayed in the interim. The point is that, yes, we’ll never know if the delays in those improvements and upgrades would have made a difference or not, but they certainly might have.

Longstreet, don’t make me laugh. I merely pointed out that, for all your bluster, there was nothing of substance to your post. I see you’re continuing the tradition with your latest one. Either have a point or keep your goofy attacks to yourself.

have a nice day.

This from a new AP story:

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 employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Skip,

normally I would not defend John Cookes use of
name calling. It serves no purpose but to demean
the debate, weaken the point of the debator, and
make the person doing the name calling look like
the ass. But when, in your response to me, you
referred to N.O. Mayor Nagin as “good old Brownie”
( inferring I’m sure that we conservative white Republicans are all racists ) is not only uncouth on your part, but also makes John Cookes point. How shall I say, “if the suppository fits”.

As for blaming the victims for where they chose
to live. If they love the city where they live,
especially a city with the personality of a New
Orleans, or if they can’t afford to move, that’s
one thing. But EVERYONE who lived, died & had to move from N.O. KNEW that “the Big One” and its
consequences were an eventuality. And instead of
giving more examples of cities that don’t build on unsafe ground, how about a few stories/parables
from our childhood.

In the Bible in the book of Luke there is the
Parable of the Two Foundations and the warning
not to build your literal or figurative house on
sand, but rather on the firmer rock. But for
those of you who are lacking in discernment, there
is also the childs tale of the 3 Little Pigs, the
big, bad Wolf ( imagine all that “huffing and
puffing” as a hurricane ) and the houses of straw
then brick. Anybody living anywhere can be affected by criminal activity. But a smart person
doesn’t build their house in a crime ridden part of town. But before you jump to racist conclusions
there are black and hispanic neighborhoods in my city that are safer & that I’d rather live in, then in some white neighborhoods.

As for hurricane Katrina and all government officials expectations of it. I seem to remember
hearing that in the early stages when hK was just
a tropical depression, she was already close to
N.O. before suddenly gaining strength & quickly &
somewhat unexpectedly became a much more powerful
hurricane. Why I said in my earlier post that I
will take a tornado anyday, is that hurricanes are
usually more powerful, unpredictable and bring
with them the equally destructive force of tidal
surges and flooding.

As for blame ( and thanks to Tom and Perplexed
for their pre-backing up of the buses point ),
in recently released documents it appears that
FEMA has lots of explaining to do. But I still
maintain and I believe facts will back me up, that the state & local governments of N.O. & La.
will have alot to be accountable for.

Dale G.

I guess my comments didn’t exactly follow the thread of this blog. It’s about the general. The relief efforts are not perfect. No one is denying that. But this is an effort, an undertaking, and a mission that has NEVER been seen before or could ever be imagined in recent history. There are many things that mire these troops and relief workers there to give support to a place that has been DEVASTATED. Devastation that we can’t even imagine or fathom.

N.O. mayor Nagin broke down on the radio and on tv. He seemed to be a “scared little kid” in his performance. However, he has rebounded and is now showing GREAT leadership and I applaud him. I WISH that he had showed that kind of gumption when this tragedy first happened. He would have rallied support for the area in the same way Rudy Guilliani did after 9/11.

However, the general here, has absolutely taken this task by the horns. He has been overseeing the tasks from street corners and pounding the pavement personally since he landed. He is a great example of the way that the National Guard DOES help in emergency situations. He proves that the military is a group that can be looked up to and emulated. They ARE role models. They aren’t “monsters”. They aren’t all like the perpetrators of Abu Ghraib. Honore is already showing that great leadership brings about calm, it instills confidence. It makes people feel like “everything will be alright” (even though it won’t be for a VERY LONG TIME in that area). There is nothing else that can be said.

Here is a wrap-up of some facts on the disaster.

President Bush declared LA a disaster area two days before the hurricane struck the NO area.

President Bush urged NO Mayor Nagin and LA Gov. Blanco to order the mandatory evacuation that was issued on Sunday, August 28th

First responders to a disaster are always state and local emergency agencies.

The hurricane threatened an area as large as 90,000 sq. mi. covering three states. Immediate relief could not possibly have been delivered to all the places that required attention.

The AP photo of buses in six feet of water were supposed to be used by Mayor Nagin to evacuate many of those who ended up stranded at the Superdome.

FEMA began its activities immediately, not expecting the magnitude of the flooding, the non-response at the city and state level and the anarchy that ensued.

Both the law and protocol prohibit the president from ordering military trops into a state without a formal request to do so from the governor of the affected state.

Skip, let go of your expectation for instant gratification. The Republican column manager missed the comment. The person you referenced was banned from commenting here, when I got to their comment.

There are only volunteers here and no one sits around full time reading comments for abuse of our policy. We scan, and respond on our time schedule, not yours. And we do miss some comments which violate our policy.

However, if you have a problem with the management of this site, send your complaints to editor@watchblog.com.

perplexed, your failure to comply with our policy by critiquing the messenger and telling others here under what conditions they can speak about topics on this site, requires removal of your comment privileges at WatchBlog.

skip, the kind of flame-baiting and critique of other’s comments as goofy, as well as telling others here to keep their comments to themself, as evidenced by your quoted comment below, require removal of your comment priviliges at WatchBlog.

Longstreet, don’t make me laugh. I merely pointed out that, for all your bluster, there was nothing of substance to your post. I see you’re continuing the tradition with your latest one. Either have a point or keep your goofy attacks to yourself.

Longstreet, telling others here they appear pitiful and pathetic to you as evidenced by your quoted comment below, is a violation of our Critique the Message, Not the Messenger policy. Your comments are no longer welcome here.

Have you left-wingers have any idea of how truly pitiful, and pathetic, you appear? Ignorance at this level must be creatd, it certainly doesn’t come naturally. What happened to all the Love, and Tolerance,and Understanding, huh?

But when, in your response to me, you referred to N.O. Mayor Nagin as “good old Brownie”

I believe he was referring to Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA, not Mayor Nagin.

We do know - with absolute certainty - that the improvements would not have been finished in time to change this outcome. We can speculate about the future or what the cuts would mean in 2015, but not today. It is a red herring.

That’s interesting Jack. You call the condition of the levees, with characteristics and properties from which an engineer can make pretty good predictions, a red herring, but you’re more than willing to go to war on speculation of what that unstable madman, Saddam Hussein, would have done a decade from now. That’s odd, don’t you think?

Roach, it’s totally understandable that people would be impressed by Honore. He was providing the kind of leadership President Bush failed to deliver. I bet he’s a Democrat. :)

Perplexed-
I certainly didn’t make the comment about Southern Baptists. I’m a graduate of Baylor University.

AP

It is simple cause and effect. Effect has to follow cause. Bush did not fund all the requests for improvements,(I base my comments on factcheck.org) which were going to be completed in 2015. Nothing in 2015 can cause or prevent anything in 2005.

Dang! I’ve been gone from WB for awhile, it’s turned into a war zone?

What happened to WB posters apologising when the post something a lil over the top?

I’m almost afraid to comment on the article.

Jack, work on levees doesn’t magically appear right at the estimated date of completion. Had the work been funded, it would have proceeded according to a plan. It’s possible to estimate the effect fully-funded work would have had. And remember, the storm passed before the levee broke. The break apparently wasn’t the result of the CAT 4 storm surge.

Looking at the effect of funding cuts on the levees isn’t a red herring.

I’ll gladly play the blame game. As for you idiots from outside of Louisiana, go back to your freakin’ playstations. You don’t have one clue what you are talking about when you blame this on the president. Here in Louisiana, we all knew this was coming. What did our elected officials do? Nothing. Do you know what the big priorities were in our last legislative session? No, you don’t have a freakin’ clue, do you? The priorities were teacher payraises, building new reservoirs (for sport fishermen) and builidng a new convention center hotel in Shreveport. Nobody mentioned New Orleans and levees. I can promise you. Our state has a history of corrupt Democrat officials in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Everyone knows it. When someone graduates college here, they don’t go to New Orleans to look for work, they go to Dallas or Houston. Everyone who can get out does. Our politicians just don’t get it! Want to call us a poor state? How about this? The run up in oil prices over the last couple of years gave us more than 1 billion extra in our treasury. Did we spend it well? What do you think? We didn’t even get those teachers their payraise. Our universities pretty much exist to provide college educated people for Texas and the Atlanta metro area, not for Louisiana unless you plan on being a nurse or a teacher. Every teacher who is good enough goes to Texas. It’s a fact of life here. These politicians don’t CARE. We have casinos, too. Yet no money for teachers, no money to get people out of New Orleans. It’s a well known fact here that on election day, those same “victims” you saw on the TV in New Orleans are all magically transported to the polls to vote for whatever Democrat is running. Maybe Democrat campaign managers should have run the evacuation of New Orleans instead of “don’t blame me” Ray Nagin. What a pathetic man. I’ll blame. You people don’t. You don’t have a clue. Do you think I want to blame my state officials for the mess we are in? No, I’d love to blame someone in DC. But that’s just not how we got ourselves into this. Our politicians in Louisiana are criminally negligent.

SHAME, SHAME SHAME ON THE MAYOR OF LA. FOR USING SUCH FILTHY, GOD CURSING LANGUAGE. HE NEEDS TO THANK GOD THAT HE WAS SPARED, NOT CURSE HIM-THE ONE THAT MADE HIM. PLEASE WE DO NOT WANT MARTIGRA BROUGHT TO USE, WE JUST WANT TO HELP THE VICTIMS OF THE HURRICANE. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON THE USE ALL.

Is it just me, or is the comparison of Katrina to 9/11 wearing thin?
I don’t intend to lessen the impact of the WTC disaster…but come on, 10 square blocks of Manhattan do not compare to a city of 500,000 under water. For one thing, rescuers could get to it, in NOLA all routes were impassablee.
Secondly, we all need to remember the levee broke well after the initial impact.
It’s over, let’s put things back together.

What I see most on this blog is total destructive partisanship. As an Independant I cannot understand how everyone can point fingers in such a complex tragedy at the other side to further their party agendas. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Any city in the US could expect looting when 80% of their citizens leave their unprotected homes and security is minimal. Now take NO and the fact it has a high crime/poverty rate. Civil unrest was a given before Katrina even made landfall. The National Guard should have had a large number of troops enroute to NO at the tail end of the storm and before the levee broke if only for security reasons. What was the Governor’s decision? To “sleep on it” for one more day. All cities/states have a disaster plan, and I don’t see any of it’s execution from the Governor or local officials- just blame. Is it too much to ask that these elected officals be competent? After all they run a major city/entire state?

If a 15 year old could comandeer a bus and drive it to Houston, I’m sure Nagin could have found people to drive the rest of those busses and get people out. After all it was in their disaster plan. Ooops! No one thought to get the busses to higher ground or even park some of them at the dome, so there they sat.. In 3 feet of water.
Nagin appears to be in such denial that he believes he actually did something in this crisis.

Honore sure has foresight declaring the Guard won’t be dragging residents out of their homes. Can you see that on foreign TV? The big bad opressive American military turning on the poor citizens of NO?

FEMA was slow or limited in response. Especially to other parts of the disaster areas of LA and MS. But the majority of these complaints are that NO is getting all of the resources and they’re left to fend for themselves.

This to me and a lot of review of empirical data indicates to me that the ball was mostly dropped at the local/state level. I don’t deny Bush is really burning my A#@ with his failed domestic policy and lack of making his oil buddies quit raping the American public. Not to mention the debaucle of putting FEMA under Homeland Security. Meanwhile the terrorists watch evvverything we are doing and taking notes. We’d better get a major homeland security policy coordinated with local officials quick.

So there you have it Lefties, Righties and Purplies. Have some objectivity.

It amazes me how the liberals can expend so much energy and money blaming a natural disaster on the ooposition. If they instead spent that energy on helping the victims rather than using the bloated bodies floating in the flodwaters as a springboard to further their political aims the situation would probably be much less serious right now.

Mark, you mean like those to two photo op trips at taxpayer expense by Pres. Bush. Yeah, it plays both ways, and neither side is worth having.

Dave, And you figure not a dime of taxpayer money was/is being spent by these Dem. ‘fault’finding trips? Hilary and Nancy etc. are merely taking advantage of huge personal tragedy to take cheap shots. A huge dust cloud is being raised to coverup a corrupt ineffective La. & NO. Govt. that miserably failed to plan for the welfare of their citizens. Howard Dean and the rest are trrying their darndest to provide a rock for them to slither under and lay the blame on someone else.

Mark, apparently you missed where I said: “and neither side is worth saving”. You are not talking to a Democrat here.

I’m really concerned that you people haven’t paid attention to the news.

Bush didn’t “direct” Blanco to do shit. She turned it OVER to him BEFORE the damn hurricane. FEMA should have been in on the ground the next day.

Damn, you people are idiots.

Hilary and Nancy etc. are merely taking advantage of huge personal tragedy to take cheap shots.

Seems like they’re doing a pretty good job of shaming Republicans into doing right by Gulf Coasters.

And back to the topic: Honore gained a lot of respect for doing some ass-kicking and getting things done. Too bad President Bush, Chertoff, and Brown didn’t do the same. All we heard from them was that things were going fine — while seeing the horrible truth on live TV.

That King George, I now discovered that he has himself brought this here natural calamity upon us. I knew it, hateful ‘publicans!.

In Louisiana, a fifth world country drowning in water and Political corruption, residents are praying the Federal government will step in and investigate.

While citizens statewide are fighting building 14 more new Reservoirs, Hurricane Katrina breached a levee, and a man made reservoir flooded and destroyed New Orleans.

Residents are fighting corrupt Politicians, and campaign contributors of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco�s transition team, and their family members each earning more than the president.

Political payback in Louisiana consists of an appointment to a board, or Commission.
The Politicians are also in business with members of these appointed commissions.

Commissions with the power to take property do any and all things, consisting of friends, family members, and politically connected, as a means of Political Payback seems to be politics as usual in Louisiana.

The residents have no input, and are at the mercy of these appointed, not elected boards.

Self Serving Legislators are abusing Eminent Domain by creating Legislation, and using tax money to build Reservoirs to enrich themselves by selling the lakefront lots.

There is 14 new reservoirs in 2005 with a Legislator�s brother receiving $100,000 a year per lake consulting fee, and his business partner the Lake builder.

A group of citizens statewide have exposed this political corruption, but the money continues to flow like water.

We pray the Federal Government will step in, and investigate Political Corruption in
Louisiana.

To learn more about this Louisiana Political Corruption visit our website.

Community Preservation Alliance
http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/reservoir/

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Let’s get something straight,,if a guy is walking out of a supermarket after a hurricane with bread and water he’s surviving. If he’s walking out with a plasma tv or ten pairs of air jordans he’s a looter, plain and simple. Don’t try to justify or make excuses if he happens to be black…that’s a huge insult to the vast majority of black americans who have high morals. That’s the kind of liberal thinking that has kept portions of minorities stuck in a cycle of dependance for decades (We know what’s best for you type thinking) . New Orleans is infamous as is the state of Louisianna for corruption, the feds are looking for 30 million dollars + that disappeared right now. To say the local and state governments didn’t fail in a major way is simply dishonest. Yes the head of FEMA was a poor choice for the job but where was Congress when he was nominated? The federal response could have been better,faster, but the bush hating lunacy I’ve seen on the internet is so pathetic it defies logic. You can find plenty of blame to go around…but to see people trying to use hurricane victims as political point getters before the dead bodies were even cold was disgusting. Yes the democrats started it..but that didn’t make it right for the republicans who retaliated either. It’s too bad the windbags on both sides are too busy poking each others eyes out by pointing fingers,,,they could put some effort into shoveling up some of the crap that is covering New Orleans now. It’s time for people to stop being stuck on stupid as the man says.