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09/06/2005 07:11:46 AM · #226 |
This appears to be a reasonably independent summary of possible blame.
BBC article
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09/06/2005 08:06:52 AM · #227 |
i'm not approving of what happened in new orleans, but they said on dateline it took 4 days for FEMA to get help to the people in hurricane andrew as well. so the response time wasn't any different than in the past.
i don't think you can blame any one person for the situation. government in general is to blame. they have too many rules and regulations, and can not coordinate anything efficiently once you bring in other departments.
also, it's not like new orleans' levee system has only been a bush issue. every president, every mayor, and governor knew something had to be done for many years now.
the funny thing is, if katrina never happened and someone was serious about fixing the levee situation, i could see a bunch of people complaining about putting a bunch of money into something that might be a problem in the future. there would be a lot of people saying if we made it through camile, then we'll make it through anything.
of course they would be wrong, but people love to complain. |
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09/06/2005 09:43:51 AM · #228 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by theSaj:
Or believe that President Bush is not this super evil villian. And that there are real life reasons and situations. And that regardless they'd likely occur. |
Hurricanes occur, yes.
But the lack of response is likely on a criminally negligent level. And Bush is responsible.
Compound this with the complete lack of empathy of anyone in this administration:
*Bush doing fake photo ops and leaving helpless victims where they stood in front of him
* Condi Rice shopping in NYC, buying shoes and attending Broadway
*Cheney nowhere to be found, but scheduled to tour an oil facility
* Bush's buddy, an unqualified man he appointed as head of FEMA, lying bald-facedly on TV about the plight of victims to the incredulous faces of newscasters
Combine all this with budgetary decisions which are indicative of a corporations first, people are last mentality, and which by all accounts were partially responsible for the degree of devastation.....
And you have a picture, IMO, of the most incompetent, most wretched, most ethically corrupt group of cabalists I have ever seen in my 51 years of life.
Of course, I may be biased. :D
You see, I pay attention to their unethical escapades when it comes to 9/11, the war in Iraq, WMD's, the outing of Valerie Plame, tax cuts for the rich, the destruction of Social Security, lying about scientific test results re the environment, tax cuts for the rich again, etc, etc, etc.
Do I think Bush is evil? You bet I do!
And the evidence is everywhere by what he DOES, not by what he says. |
So much hatred. So few Bush's. My sympathies to your friends and family. |
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Don't waste your breath on me - far better to pass your sypathies on to:
*The thousands who just died needlessly in NOLA
*The thousands of U.S. soldiers KIA in Iraq in a war based on a tissue of lies
* The many tens of thousands of maimed U.S. soldiers also misled into war
* The perhaps 100,000 dead innocent Iraqi men, women, and children who are all innocent bystanders to BushCo's madness |
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09/06/2005 10:11:15 AM · #229 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by theSaj:
Or believe that President Bush is not this super evil villian. And that there are real life reasons and situations. And that regardless they'd likely occur. |
Hurricanes occur, yes.
But the lack of response is likely on a criminally negligent level. And Bush is responsible.
Compound this with the complete lack of empathy of anyone in this administration:
*Bush doing fake photo ops and leaving helpless victims where they stood in front of him
* Condi Rice shopping in NYC, buying shoes and attending Broadway
*Cheney nowhere to be found, but scheduled to tour an oil facility
* Bush's buddy, an unqualified man he appointed as head of FEMA, lying bald-facedly on TV about the plight of victims to the incredulous faces of newscasters
Combine all this with budgetary decisions which are indicative of a corporations first, people are last mentality, and which by all accounts were partially responsible for the degree of devastation.....
And you have a picture, IMO, of the most incompetent, most wretched, most ethically corrupt group of cabalists I have ever seen in my 51 years of life.
Of course, I may be biased. :D
You see, I pay attention to their unethical escapades when it comes to 9/11, the war in Iraq, WMD's, the outing of Valerie Plame, tax cuts for the rich, the destruction of Social Security, lying about scientific test results re the environment, tax cuts for the rich again, etc, etc, etc.
Do I think Bush is evil? You bet I do!
And the evidence is everywhere by what he DOES, not by what he says. |
So much hatred. So few Bush's. My sympathies to your friends and family. |
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Don't waste your breath on me - far better to pass your sypathies on to:
*The thousands who just died needlessly in NOLA
*The thousands of U.S. soldiers KIA in Iraq in a war based on a tissue of lies
* The many tens of thousands of maimed U.S. soldiers also misled into war
* The perhaps 100,000 dead innocent Iraqi men, women, and children who are all innocent bystanders to BushCo's madness |
1) I don't believe that sympathies are ever "wasted".
2) Someone wiser than me said that harboring hatred and anger is like taking poison and hoping that the other person dies from it. The problem is that the object of your hatred and anger is normally unaffected by your feelings. Only you are. Unfortunately, such internal angst has a way of affecting the way you deal with others - hence my sympathies to your family & friends.
3) I do have sympathies for all those you mention ( though I do not agree with the underlying "causes" you cite ). But I, perhaps unlike you ( I may be wrong ), also have sympathy for the families of the MILLION or so dead innocent Iraqis who were murdered under the Hussein regime. And those murdered in the "ethnic cleansings" that have occurred and are still occurring in much of the world ( among which I include the bombings in London, Spain, etc. ). |
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09/06/2005 10:12:04 AM · #230 |
Originally posted by RonB:
It's heartening to see that birds of a feather flock together, so that some of gingerbakers buddies jump to his defence ( unsuccessfully, of course ) when he is unable to do so himself. |
No need to paint me as defenseless, as I seem to be kicking your butt, rhetorically speaking, that is, all by my lonesome. :D
Originally posted by RonB:
It is also not unanticipated that in doing so they, as liberals often do, quickly attempt to divert attention away from the topic at hand and refocus it on something, really anything, that could cast Bush in a bad light. We find now, for example, that it doesn't REALLY matter whether or not gingerbaker lied. |
That, sir, is a little harsh, don't you think?
Out of all the pejorative examples I gave of Bush's callous behavior, as he reluctantly came out of his 5-week vacation, you affix on that - ( still moot, BTW) while the crux of the argument, as usual, goes unaddressed.
And while we are on the subject of LYING - was it not in fact YOU who claimed that the Feds could not send in troops unless requested by state officials - WHICH IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE?
And this was pointed out to you here, but your apology never appeared....
And was it not in fact YOU who claimed, in your efforts to exonerate your beloved Emperor, that Governor Blanco did not ask for Fed assistance until after the levee broke - WHICH WAS A FALSEHOOD.
And this also was pointed out to you. Where is YOUR apology?
In fact, what you did, IMO was worse than no apolgy - it was deliberately deceptive.
You took the pdf file of Gov. Blanco's FEMA rrequest, which I had provided, and you posted sections of it in bolded print here, claiming that they proved your point.
WHICH WAS A DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD. As they did no such thing.
Instead, you called me a LIAR, for pointing out TANGENTIALLY that Bush was golfing, and strumming a guitar, instead of doing his duties.
We "liberals' don't need to grasp at "something" at hand in order to cast Bush in a bad light. He provides a veritable supernova of self-illuminating depravity all by himself.
Yet, I would argue that it is perhaps grasping at minutiae - like whether or not Bush was actually "playing" golf at the golf course - instead of taking responsibility for spreading the transparently false talking points of the Karl Rove Spin Control Program, that is a more true example of "grasping" for something.
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09/06/2005 10:20:12 AM · #231 |
| Saddam's trial can't come fast enough for the Bush administration. It is the one haven of heroic action the president can claim as his alone dispite the venom spewed against him to leave the tyrannt to the tyranny. However, I am sure that during those proceedings, the Bush-haters will convolute some twisty connections to say the president was stealthily to blame for Saddam's gory, gluttonous guilt... or they will remain silently under shade waiting to strike another day as a sidewinder with growing hunger. |
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09/06/2005 10:21:41 AM · #232 |
Speaking of lies, here's an open letter from the Times-Picayune:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."
That's unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud. |
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09/06/2005 10:44:14 AM · #233 |
Exerpted from Op-Ed piece by Frank Rich, New York Times:
You could almost see Mr. Bush's political base starting to crumble at its very epicenter, Fox News, by Thursday night. Even there it was impossible to ignore that the administration was no more successful at securing New Orleans than it had been at pacifying Falluja.
A visibly exasperated Shepard Smith, covering the story on the ground in Louisiana, went further still, tossing hand grenades of harsh reality into Bill O'Reilly's usually spin-shellacked "No Spin Zone." Among other hard facts, Mr. Smith noted "that the haves of this city, the movers and shakers of this city, evacuated the city either immediately before or immediately after the storm." What he didn't have to say, since it was visible to the entire world, was that it was the poor who were left behind to drown.
In that sense, the inequality of the suffering has not only exposed the sham of the relentless photo-ops with black schoolchildren whom the president trots out at campaign time to sell his "compassionate conservatism"; it has also positioned Katrina before a rapt late-summer audience as a replay of the sinking of the Titanic. New Orleans's first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was a horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself.
THE captain in this case, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, was so oblivious to those on the lower decks that on Thursday he applauded the federal response to the still rampaging nightmare as "really exceptional." He told NPR that he had "not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water" - even though every television viewer in the country had been hearing of those 25,000 stranded refugees for at least a day. This Titanic syndrome, too, precisely echoes the post-9/11 wartime history of an administration that has rewarded the haves at home with economic goodies while leaving the have-nots to fight in Iraq without proper support in manpower or armor. Surely it's only a matter of time before Mr. Chertoff and the equally at sea FEMA director, Michael Brown (who also was among the last to hear about the convention center), are each awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in line with past architects of lethal administration calamity like George Tenet and Paul Bremer.
On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped "people don't play politics during this period of time." Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won't be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he'll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won't Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.
But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy. Eventually we're going to have to examine the administration's behavior before, during and after this storm as closely as its history before, during and after 9/11. We're going to have to ask if troops and matériel of all kinds could have arrived faster without the drain of national resources into a quagmire. We're going to have to ask why it took almost two days of people being without food, shelter and water for Mr. Bush to get back to Washington.
Most of all, we're going to have to face the reality that with this disaster, the administration has again increased our vulnerability to the terrorists we were supposed to be fighting after 9/11. As Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, pointed out to The Washington Post last week in talking about the fallout from the war in Iraq, there have been twice as many terrorist attacks outside Iraq in the three years after 9/11 than in the three years before. Now, thanks to Mr. Bush's variously incompetent, diffident and hubristic mismanagement of the attack by Katrina, he has sent the entire world a simple and unambiguous message: whatever the explanation, the United States is unable to fight its current war and protect homeland security at the same time.
The answers to what went wrong in Washington and on the Gulf Coast will come later, and, if the history of 9/11 is any guide, all too slowly, after the administration and its apologists erect every possible barrier to keep us from learning the truth. But as Americans dig out from Katrina and slouch toward another anniversary of Al Qaeda's strike, we have to acknowledge the full extent and urgency of our crisis. The world is more perilous than ever, and for now, to paraphrase Mr. Rumsfeld, we have no choice but to fight the war with the president we have. |
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09/06/2005 10:45:56 AM · #234 |
Here is an opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times from today, which talks about, interestingly, every single one of the points I made yesterday. Must be part of the great liberal conspiracy:
Michael Hiltzik:
Golden State
Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster
Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its cynicism about government high, like a banner.
It promoted a massive tax cut as a way of "starving the beast" of federal government. President Bush traveled the country telling us that we were overdependent on the government for help with healthcare and retirement. To those wondering what resources might see them into old age, he advised: "a conservative mix of stocks and bonds."
New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology that government is useless. An American city is reduced to Third World desperation as people who own nothing scrounge for necessities in a sea of waste and federal officials offer lame excuses about how their disaster plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster. The president, at the head of a global power that can't get its own troops or supplies off their bases to reach the needful, whines, "The private sector needs to do its part."
This deplorable performance has deep roots. Joe M. Allbaugh, a Bush campaign hack without any crisis management experience who was named director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disparaged federal disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" before Congress in 2001. The public's expectations of government in a disaster situation, he said, "may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." He advised stricken communities to rely for help on "faith-based organizations â€Â¦ like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."
If Allbaugh were not an amateur, he would have known that communities, "faith-based organizations" and the private sector become overwhelmed by disasters more modest than this one. In a crisis the federal government should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be asked.
Cynicism on such a scale is self-perpetuating. Determined to portray government as little but an intrusion into people's lives, this gang made it irrelevant to hundreds of thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina — thus giving them, and us, good reason to be cynical after all.
The federal officials assigned to New Orleans have displayed an appalling combination of arrogance and ignorance. Thursday evening on NPR, I heard Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees FEMA, dismiss reports of thousands of refugees trapped at the New Orleans convention center for days without sustenance. He called the reports, in so many words, "rumors and anecdotes."
Informed that an NPR reporter had been on the scene, he sniffed, "I can't argue with you about what your reporter tells you." Later, his staff called back to say that he had "received a report confirming the situation" and that he was now "working tirelessly" to get food to the location.
At a news conference that day, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Allbaugh's successor and college chum, attributed the death toll in New Orleans "to people who did not heed evacuation warnings." Insensitive to the truth that many of the stranded had no way of responding to the warnings — no money, no transport out of the city and nowhere to go — he blamed them for having failed to prepare any better than, well, the federal government.
He also described security in the city, where snipers were firing on rescue boats and a mob beat back police trying to impose order at the convention center, as "pretty darn good." The image of lawlessness, he said, was fomented by those willing to "stick a camera" in front of "bad people."
The Bush administration is not alone in having ignored pleas to improve the hurricane and flood defenses of New Orleans. But it bears sole responsibility for a crisis response that has been fairly labeled a national disgrace. FEMA drafted an action plan for a New Orleans flood: pre-position food, supplies and hospital ships for immediate deployment in the aftermath. Brown and Chertoff failed to implement it adequately, pleading that no one could have anticipated a disaster that had in fact been anticipated by engineers, geographers and political leaders for decades. As I write, the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort remains moored in Baltimore, not to arrive off New Orleans until the end of this week.
President Bush will surely feel the consequences of his dereliction. Every policy of his administration will be viewed through the prism of the debacle of New Orleans. The pursuit of a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, supported by manipulated intelligence, has sucked billions out of the treasury and removed more than 30% of Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard members from their homes, so they must watch the disaster unfold from half a world away instead of assisting their own communities. Tax cuts for the wealthy have been financed by budget cuts
for disaster preparedness and other crucial programs. Four years of anti-terrorism planning have failed to produce a competent system for mitigating a metropolitan cataclysm — one that, on the ground, is indistinguishable from the effects of the terrorist attack we've supposedly been girding for since 9/11.
Then there's Bush's sustained assault on social insurance programs such as Social Security, safety nets that are to be replaced by the slogan "You're on your own."
New Orleans is not a local calamity; it belongs to us all, not least because it signals what to expect from this administration. If a major earthquake strikes Los Angeles or San Francisco, will President Bush wait to respond until he can conclude his vacation, as he did last week? Will his appointees express surprise at an eventuality that "no one could have predicted"?
Probably. George W. Bush is known for never admitting his mistakes. Consequently, he never learns from his mistakes. The chances are dismal that he will learn from this one. We're on our own.
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09/06/2005 10:51:19 AM · #235 |
Originally posted by RonB:
2) Someone wiser than me said that harboring hatred and anger is like taking poison and hoping that the other person dies from it. The problem is that the object of your hatred and anger is normally unaffected by your feelings. Only you are. Unfortunately, such internal angst has a way of affecting the way you deal with others - hence my sympathies to your family & friends. |
I think that the effect of anger will depend on whether "internal angst" can be externalised. External issues such as politics are fundamentally capable of being affected by the anger of the population.
Originally posted by RonB:
3) I do have sympathies for all those you mention ( though I do not agree with the underlying "causes" you cite ). But I, perhaps unlike you ( I may be wrong ), also have sympathy for the families of the MILLION or so dead innocent Iraqis who were murdered under the Hussein regime. And those murdered in the "ethnic cleansings" that have occurred and are still occurring in much of the world ( among which I include the bombings in London, Spain, etc. ). |
Okay - best estimates I can find on the web are 600,000 Iraqi civilian executions and 500,000 military deaths (for which the USA shares some blame, per the Iran-Contra Affair) suffered in the war with Iran.
//wais.stanford.edu/Iraq/iraq_deathsundersaddamhussein42503.html
Saddam Hussein was in power for 24 years.
The US have had less than 2, and civilian deaths are huge (reports of 100,000+). I don't know what the press are reporting in the US, but the serious press in the UK has identified a steady reduction in stability over the last year, with mortuary rates in Baghdad currently at five times the pre-war levels.
I am not sure that the ends justifying the means argument is really working. A half agreed constitution (which will never come into force) seems like slim recompense, to me. I am sure that the families of every one of the civilian dead from US and UK invasion will not ever thank us for the invasion.
Message edited by author 2005-09-06 10:51:42.
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09/06/2005 10:54:16 AM · #236 |
September 5, 2005
A Failure of Leadership
By BOB HERBERT (New York Times)
"Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead"
Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on television screens across the U.S. and around the world.
The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of thousands of American citizens who were suffering horribly and dying in agony was there for all the world to see.
Hospitals with deathly ill patients were left without power, with ventilators that didn't work, with floodwaters rising on the lower floors and with corpses rotting in the corridors and stairwells. People unable to breathe on their own, or with cancer or heart disease or kidney failure, slipped into comas and sank into their final sleep in front of helpless doctors and relatives. These were Americans in desperate trouble.
The president didn't seem to notice.
Death and the stink of decay were all over the city. Corpses were propped up in wheelchairs and on lawn furniture, or left to decompose on sunbaked sidewalks. Some floated by in water fouled by human feces.
Degenerates roamed the city, shooting at rescue workers, beating and robbing distraught residents and tourists, raping women and girls. The president of the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world didn't seem to notice.
Viewers could watch diabetics go into insulin shock on national television, and you could see babies with the pale, vacant look of hunger that we're more used to seeing in dispatches from the third world. You could see their mothers, dirty and hungry themselves, weeping.
Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center. For days the president of the United States didn't seem to notice.
He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white and prosperous. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the George W. Bush administration, still invisible.
After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. (The chorus of criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this administration.)
Mr. Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that he didn't get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be replaced with "a fantastic house - and I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration.
And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage continues to mount in Iraq) that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the United States over the next few years. At a time when effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome responsibilities.
Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble. |
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09/06/2005 10:55:05 AM · #237 |
Originally posted by RonBeam:
I am sure that during those proceedings, the Bush-haters will convolute some twisty connections to say the president was stealthily to blame for Saddam's gory, gluttonous guilt |
Much as the war-justifiers concocted a twisted connection between Saddam and Muslim extremist terrorism.
(remember a major cause of the Iran-Iraq war was because Iraq was secular and opposed the religious fervour of the post-Khominei Iran).
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09/06/2005 11:03:01 AM · #238 |
You know, if Bush and his ilk are so against government, maybe they should find another line of work ...
===============
September 5, 2005
Killed by Contempt
By PAUL KRUGMAN (New York Times)
Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.
Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.
Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.
What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.
But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?
Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.
Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn't just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that's not really a contradiction. Ideological cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?
Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA's effectiveness. Now we know the answer.
Several recent news analyses on FEMA's sorry state have attributed the agency's decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.
For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.
You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.
But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.
Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency's director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.
That contempt, as I've said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.
The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren't caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen? |
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09/06/2005 11:12:01 AM · #239 |
Pentagon: USS Bataan Waited Days For Orders to Help Out
Criticism of the federal government's response is also coming from some unlikely sources including the Pentagon. Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a Pentagon spokesman for Northern Command, revealed on the BBC that NorthCom was prepared to send in search and rescue helicopters from the USS Bataan almost immediately after the hurricane hit. He said, "We had things ready. The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so." That authorization didn't happen for days even though the ship was docked just outside New Orleans. On board the ship had doctors, hospital beds, food and the ability to make up to 100,000 gallons of water a day.
Democracy Now.org |
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09/06/2005 11:18:50 AM · #240 |
U.S. Rejected Cuban Offer of 1,100 Doctors
The Cuban government has also announced that the U.S. State Department rebuffed its offer of aid. Last Tuesday Cuba offered to send 1100 doctors to assist in the crisis. Cuba said the doctors could have been on the ground by last Wednesday.
Democracy Now.org |
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09/06/2005 11:27:11 AM · #241 |
Originally posted by legalbeagle:
Originally posted by RonBeam:
I am sure that during those proceedings, the Bush-haters will convolute some twisty connections to say the president was stealthily to blame for Saddam's gory, gluttonous guilt |
Much as the war-justifiers concocted a twisted connection between Saddam and Muslim extremist terrorism. |
Yes. Just like that. |
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09/06/2005 12:01:10 PM · #242 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
U.S. Rejected Cuban Offer of 1,100 Doctors
The Cuban government has also announced that the U.S. State Department rebuffed its offer of aid. Last Tuesday Cuba offered to send 1100 doctors to assist in the crisis. Cuba said the doctors could have been on the ground by last Wednesday.
Democracy Now.org |
I had heard something about that (don't know exactly where, now), but it was Mexican instead of Cuban.
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09/06/2005 12:28:06 PM · #243 |
Originally posted by karmat:
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
U.S. Rejected Cuban Offer of 1,100 Doctors
The Cuban government has also announced that the U.S. State Department rebuffed its offer of aid. Last Tuesday Cuba offered to send 1100 doctors to assist in the crisis. Cuba said the doctors could have been on the ground by last Wednesday.
Democracy Now.org |
I had heard something about that (don't know exactly where, now), but it was Mexican instead of Cuban. |
CNN article
"Cuban President Fidel Castro has offered to send help to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. At a nightly roundtable program on state-run television Friday, the Cuban leader said his nation was ready to send 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment."
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09/06/2005 12:32:38 PM · #244 |
Excerpts of a story:
By PAM EASTON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; 5:59 AM
'Barbara Bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a tour of the Astrodome complex Monday, said the relocation to Houston is "working very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."'
HUH?!
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09/06/2005 12:34:59 PM · #245 |
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
HUH?! |
Could you expand on that? |
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09/06/2005 12:37:06 PM · #246 |
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
It's heartening to see that birds of a feather flock together, so that some of gingerbakers buddies jump to his defence ( unsuccessfully, of course ) when he is unable to do so himself. |
No need to paint me as defenseless, as I seem to be kicking your butt, rhetorically speaking, that is, all by my lonesome. :D |
I wholeheartedly agree. But a) that's because you have much more experience at RHETORIC than I do given the extensive use to which you employ that tactic, and b) you make it sound as though kicking one's butt, rhetorically, is a good thing. If that's how you "keep score", well, I guess that that's your prerogative.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Originally posted by RonB:
It is also not unanticipated that in doing so they, as liberals often do, quickly attempt to divert attention away from the topic at hand and refocus it on something, really anything, that could cast Bush in a bad light. We find now, for example, that it doesn't REALLY matter whether or not gingerbaker lied. |
That, sir, is a little harsh, don't you think? |
Possibly. If you were to clearly state that you actually believed, at the time that you made your post, that Bush HAD been playing golf, then I will have used the term "lied" inapproptiately. But, I haven't seen you state that.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Out of all the pejorative examples I gave of Bush's callous behavior, as he reluctantly came out of his 5-week vacation, you affix on that - ( still moot, BTW) while the crux of the argument, as usual, goes unaddressed. |
As anyone with intelligence would agree, the President of the United States is NEVER on "vacation". He is the President all day, every day. The use of that "rhetoric" in an attempt to smear his work ethic is inappropriate.
BTW, I didn't introduce rhetoric that diverted the "crux of the argument", you did. I would be more than happy to discuss the "crux of the argument" if you would state it simply, without enclosing it in diversionary rhetoric.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
And while we are on the subject of LYING - was it not in fact YOU who claimed that the Feds could not send in troops unless requested by state officials - WHICH IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE?
And this was pointed out to you here, but your apology never appeared.... |
Because a) the pointing out was erroneous in that it pointed only to a declaration by the governor that did NOT request military assistance, and b) I was, and still am, right:
From the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( highlights mine ):
"Pursuant to the President's authority under Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, section 331 of Title 10 provides authority to the President to dispatch troops on request of the state's governor or legislature.
The sending of troops is not, however, automatically triggered by the request of a state pursuant to this section. The President must use his own judgment as to whether the situation warrants the use of armed forces.
Traditionally, three conditions have existed before troops have been sent: (1) the actual existence of domestic violence, (2) a statement that the violence is beyond the control of the state authorities, and (3) a proper request from the state governor or legislature.
Sections 332 and 333 of Title 10 provide authority for the President to dispatch troops without State request in order to enforce federal law, prevent obstruction of the execution of federal law, carry out federal court orders or protect civil rights. These provisions overlap to some extent, but both are aimed at violence or insurrection obstructing or interfering with the enforcement of federal laws within a state."
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
And was it not in fact YOU who claimed, in your efforts to exonerate your beloved Emperor, that Governor Blanco did not ask for Fed assistance until after the levee broke - WHICH WAS A FALSEHOOD.
And this also was pointed out to you. Where is YOUR apology? |
Hmmm. Please show me where I said that Blanco didn't ask for federal assistance until after the levee broke. Or are you attempting to "generalize" something that I said quite "specifically". I believe that I said that Blanco didn't ask for National Guard Troops until after the levee broke, not that she didn't ask for federal ASSISTANCE. Or is this just another attempt to twist and beguile? I really would prefer that you not misattribute statements to me in an attempt to besmirch me.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
In fact, what you did, IMO was worse than no apolgy - it was deliberately deceptive. |
As deliberately deceptive as misattribution, do you think?
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
You took the pdf file of Gov. Blanco's FEMA rrequest, which I had provided, and you posted sections of it in bolded print here, claiming that they proved your point.
WHICH WAS A DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD. As they did no such thing. |
Actually, yes they did. They showed that NO MILITARY assistance was requested, as required by law, and as I had stated, before federal troops cold be deployed by Bush & Co.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Instead, you called me a LIAR, for pointing out TANGENTIALLY that Bush was golfing, and strumming a guitar, instead of doing his duties. |
I have offered to apologize if you will clearly admit that you hadn't actually attempted to verify your assertion and therefore truly believed that Bush had, in fact, played golf.
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
We "liberals' don't need to grasp at "something" at hand in order to cast Bush in a bad light. He provides a veritable supernova of self-illuminating depravity all by himself.
Yet, I would argue that it is perhaps grasping at minutiae - like whether or not Bush was actually "playing" golf at the golf course - instead of taking responsibility for spreading the transparently false talking points of the Karl Rove Spin Control Program, that is a more true example of "grasping" for something. |
I will attribute this last to your "rhetorical" style - that of opinion mixed with innuendo and unsubstantiated charges.
Message edited by author 2005-09-06 12:47:09. |
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09/06/2005 12:53:22 PM · #247 |
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
Excerpts of a story:
By PAM EASTON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; 5:59 AM
'Barbara Bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a tour of the Astrodome complex Monday, said the relocation to Houston is "working very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."'
HUH?! |
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
HUH?! |
Could you expand on that? |
I saw that she said this; and in disbelief, I researched a variety of news sources. Some painted it in a negative light and others tried to spin it as "Hopeful". But no matter how I look at it, this sounds asinine to me.
Is she really saying "Their lives sucked so badly that being warehoused in a stadium is an improvement"? I'm trying to avoid hyperbole, so I'm not going to say what I think about this until I've had time to mull it over.
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09/06/2005 12:53:46 PM · #248 |
Thanks for this, very strong letter.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Speaking of lies, here's an open letter from the Times-Picayune:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."
That's unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud. |
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09/06/2005 01:08:21 PM · #249 |
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
Excerpts of a story:
By PAM EASTON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; 5:59 AM
'Barbara Bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a tour of the Astrodome complex Monday, said the relocation to Houston is "working very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."'
HUH?! |
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
Originally posted by greatandsmall:
HUH?! |
Could you expand on that? |
I saw that she said this; and in disbelief, I researched a variety of news sources. Some painted it in a negative light and others tried to spin it as "Hopeful". But no matter how I look at it, this sounds asinine to me.
Is she really saying "Their lives sucked so badly that being warehoused in a stadium is an improvement"? I'm trying to avoid hyperbole, so I'm not going to say what I think about this until I've had time to mull it over. |
Yeah, she should be shot for making such a stupid comment!
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09/06/2005 01:25:50 PM · #250 |
I understand it to mean that the hospitality of the Texans is working well for them as it would be difficult to be displaced, especially if you were underprivileged in the first place (thus the statement that many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway...").
That seems to be the most logical way to understand it. It seems an expression of compassion, as far as I understand it. |
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