Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America’s rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects  this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences… […]
This is a bad piece of legislation
Answer: The New York Times editorial board, April 2005
From NRO’s Media Blog:
Yesterday the New York Times editorial board wrote a fire-breathing editorial that for almost 24 hours ranked as the “most-discussed story” on Technorati and the “most e-mailed article” on nytimes.com. The board wrote that “George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday.” Instead of “consolation and wisdom,” the President offered “a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast.” The board went on to offer a long laundry list of angry accusations. The editorial board doubted that Bush “understood the depth of the current crisis”  unlike the wizened board, which had been following the crisis on CNN.
The editorial built up to this penultimate paragraph:
While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast’s most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans’s levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane’s surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area’s flood protection?
Good question. Maybe because Congress listened to the NY Times editorial board in April of 2005.
See also, EU Rota
(h/t John Cole)
****
update: About those levees…
(h/t Bill Hobbs, via Sister Toldjah at BfB)
Captain’s Quarters has more, as does Michelle Malkin. CQ also has more on the slow deployment of the National Guard, which even the WaPo is noting is driven by local politics first.
OH SNAP
Oh no you di’unt. Yes you did!
Well, the NYT knows all. I’m sure the good-hearted, “we know what’s best for you types” will be the first ones down to the Big Easy to help fish out the bodies. Or not.
Praise the might New York Times! Their blessed and learned wisdom have saved us again! All glory to the mightly sages of journalism – wise in all things; economics, natural philosophy, law and other fields of knowledge—despite the fact that they have neither education, practical experience or any other damn reason to be pontificating as if they were not the stupid, partisan, arrogant and ignorant near-dropouts of journalism school that they are.
Man, you rethugs just don’t get nuance, do you? The NYT was for it, before they were against it.
Or, wait…was that the other way around?
Who said this?
“This is—first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.
Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years—this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.
We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You’ve seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.
And I think this is the biggest one and the bursting one, and I must say personally it is the one that really says hey, it feels like the 70s now where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let’s get out of this mess. And I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just people are sick of it.”
But to reiterate the point I made earlier, which is this is the anti-9/11, just in terms of public confidence, when 9/11 happened Giuliani was right there and just as a public presence, forceful—no public presence like that now. So you have had a surge of strength, people felt good about the country even though we had been hit on 9/11.
“Now we’ve been hit again in a different way; people feel lousy; people feel ashamed and part of that is because of the public presentation. In part that is because of the failure of Bush to understand immediately the shame people felt.
Sitting up there on the airplane and looking out the window was terrible. And the three days of doing nothing, really, on Bush was terrible. And even today, I found myself, as you know, I support his politics quite often”
We are in the tri-state area and for 15 years had home delivery of the NYT. We had been discussing ending delivery for some time but the editoral sealed the deal.
When my husband called subsription services the ‘tron asked why and my husband told him the truth. The guy began to ARGUE with my husband, “well you know it is a liberal paper, was it the editoral about Bush on vacation, you know he has been on vacation more than any other president blah blah” It went on for some time. The whole time I am getting louder and louder in the background, “you have got to be kidding me … what do they have brainwashing failure dept operator.” It was surreal but it got us thinking perphaps so many are canceling subsriptions that this a common little speach. Honestly instead of snarky comments from some idiot operator wouldn’t be better if the guy tried to differnt approach; “Well do you enjoy the science section? blah, blah blah.
The debate ended with my husband declaring enough but he had to ask, “now I have ended my subsription? Right” And yes the paper is no longer delivered.
Jim,
Why, of course!
The stupid chimp knew all along that the state and local governments can’t put on their own socks without help, so he just sat back for three days so he could punish those poor black Dems who voted against him in the last election. “Vote against me? Drown, MoFo’s!”
It’s no secret that he could have just waved his magic wand and straightened out the catastrophe caused by local incompetence within no more than thirty minutes – that is, of course, if he hadn’t wasted our National Guard on a war. Of all the stupid things to do. Everybody knows that the National Guard is for rescuing people. Why there were not 30,000 guardsmen stationed just outside NO for just such an emergency is beyond me.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but without Bush, those poor people would still be sitting on their roofs at Christmas.
Keep in mind the age-old maxim; the ends justifies the means.
We are not the NYT’s target audience. We can cite example after example after example of their idiocy, hypocrisy and error, but they don’t care. Their mission is to support the election of liberal/progressive/socialist candidates for local, state and federal offices and to support their terms of service to ensure more liberal/progressive/socialist candidates get elected. To do that they will say and do anything that advances that cause. Their targets of disinformation are the ever-increasing dependency classes and their liberal/progressive/socialist enablers.
To those like the NYT’s editorial board, the truth is only a temporal point of view based upon current expediencies – nothing more.
We forget that at our own peril.
Hey!
Can’t you give the NYT Editorial Board credit for soul searching and finding salvation. They used to hate poor black people and wanted them to die, but now they don’t.
You should celebrate their conversion instead of condemning it!
When 9/11 hit, the President could not come near NYC for a couple of days as the mayor was involved in securing the city. What is the law on a President being permitted in an unsecured area?
That said, the President does not have the legal authority to override State power except for extreme situations. In LA’s case, seems to me that the governor and mayor of NO’s inept leadership called for such extreme situation. In any case, if the President issued his declaration on Saturday, why then did he have to make a follow-up phone call to the LA governor on Sunday encouraging her to issue mandatory evacuation which she finally did Sunday evening. Why didn’t the LA governor send her authorization to the President on Saturday? Doesn’t the President require authorization in writing from the Governor before the President is allowed to issue federal military?
The other two state’s cities and towns destroyed by the hurricane have dealt with the response to this disaster far more appropriately than LA, particularily NO, why it this?
I’ll have to reference the NY Times to get my answers, this way I’ll get two different responses for the price of one question?
Susan,
I’ll agree that NO’s planning was inadequate, but I don’t think we can place too much blame on local officials … yet. Mississippi and Alabama may be handling it better than NO, but the situation in New Orleans is very unique and much worse than anything we have seen before. Those places (and Florida last year) have dry ground to work with. Also, every access point to the damaged areas isn’t over a bridge. Finally, hurricane evacuations are designed to get people out before the storm, and allow them to come back in after the storm. New Orleans needed to get the remaining people out AFTER the storm, but then there was limited communications, and most bridges were out.
Eventually we may be able to assess the planning and response, but for now, it too much of a unique situation to officially assign blame
Excellent find.
Susan,
Don’t pay any attention to Jim. He posted almost the same crap on another thread. No one on his side (Left, Port, Liberal, Socialist, etc.) is going to accept that the local Chief Executive is the ONLY one responsible for the misery of those people we see on the tube.
Let that be a lesson to all you Leftists out there. Careful who you put in office – they might actually have to perform.
Yes, indeed. Elections do have consequences.
Oh, yeah, about those 560 some buses sitting under water that now can’t be used to get those people out, I suppose it was impossible to get those to higher ground 72 hours before the hurrican hit. They sure would have made it easier to get those people to those Red Cross relief centers that sat basically empty.
And whose piss poor planning was it not to have a reliable back up communications system. The winner is Hizzoner, the Chief Executive of the Emergency Preparedness Operation. Who should have explored all contingencies, like the bridges being out? And the winner again, Hizzoner.
When some assanine statement like, “Well no one anticipated the communications failing (the power going out, the flooding, the roads being unusable, the bottled water and food running out, or the streets turning to anarchy, or whatever)” is made, my reply is that is exactly what you anticipate.
A Preparedness Program prepares for the unexpected. You prepare for the worst case scenario and hope to God you have overprepared. The Mayor of NO is at the least incompetent, and more probably criminally negligent.
Perhaps this is…
because with 9/11, people (rightfully) believed that we would bring justice to the people who committed those acts. Our leaders were able to confidently tell the nation this.
They can’t really do that here. How can one fight with God?
So, after being stuck at this washed out bridge for a day, I did like hissoner the mayor said. I got off my ass and went fishing, I mean hey.. the river was right there. Caught two catfish which a nice lady fried in cornflour and eggs. Pretty good too, but her kids were a pain. Kept making fun of my accent and they pissed themselves because I thought youall was a trailer rental outfit. Anyhow it reminded me of a joke:
What’s the difference between the Mayor of N.O. and a catfish???
Well…ones a slimy bottom feeder and the others just a fish.
TW: values. Enough said.
susan hit it right and the lost dog needs to get a clue. New Orleans has, and even before the battle of Katrina HAD, what appears to be a perfectly workable emergency plan of action in place for quite some time. Using a link at Sister Toldjahs, I was able to read through the emergency plan. On the surface, at least, the New Orleans emergency plan addressed every single one of the most insidious developments that led to the escape from civilized behavior that has been going on in New Orleans. Sad to say for the Lunatic Left, nowhere in the stucture of implementation of the plan is the President of the United States ever mentioned. Instead what you find in the plan is that the whining mayor of New Orleans, his bowling buddy at the office of emergency management for the city of New Orleans, and the ineffectual, if not incompetent chief of the New Orleans Police Department, are supposed to be the top three movers and shakers in this plan to minimize damage to the people, if not property in the city of New Orleans. The plan has an evacuation procedure that should have started and been implemented several days before the Battle with Katrina took place, and Katrina won. Number four on the list of leaders who should be protecting the citizenry from harms way is of course, little miss muffet who sat on her tuffet doing nothing in Baton Rouge. Now the left, ie dems, socialists, and bush haters have four huge craters to try and cover up and/or disperse the blame for. The bulk of their problem really stems from the fact that not a single one of these four leaders (??????) happens to be a card carrying, bike riding, physically and mentally fit member of the party of Lincoln. How long does it take you to fill the grand canyon with a teaspoon??????
OK, You missed the first one. Guess which Left, Port, Liberal, Socialist, etc. moonbat said this?
I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can’t respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?
Why, someone please tell me, is our federal government so unprepared and inept? It’s been four days since the storm ended, and people are still without food and water. Dead bodies are sitting on the side of the road…
It’s been almost 4 years since 9/11. We’ve spent BILLIONS of dollars on so-called homeland security. We watched in disgusted amazement when Bush created yet another federal agency, but we thought he knew what he was doing. We must protect the homeland.
The infuriatingly sad reality is that our government will not be able to protect us or defend the homeland in the event of a massive terrorist attack
Jim,
I was going to call you a fracking idiot, until I remembered this quote:
So, in that vein, I urgently direct you to <a href=”” target=”_blank”>this post</a>. As you read, you will find out that the writer has, in fact, engaged in this kind of planning as part of his profession, and is -truly- a fountain of wisdom on this topic.
Now. If (after reading John’s post) you still think things could have moved any more quickly… you’re beyond reason.
Why not point the ol’ magnifying lens of inquiry towards those running the City of New Orleans, the parish of New Orleans, and the state of Louisiana?
Basically those people sat on their asses until everything blew up in their faces, and now the mayor is bitching that the Feds need to get of theirs.
Maybe if that dumb SOB had made some hard decisions sooner we wouldn’t be having this debate.
And -just for informational purposes- the Feds can’t act (FEMA included) until the local authorities ask.
I just wish everyone would quit blaming, and bitching about, the Feds. Probably every one of the fifty states in the Union would place in the top 100 of wealthy nations, if they were rated separately. They have the money, and they have -in theory- the organization to deal with things like this.
Well, if they think (and move) in a timely manner, they do.
FEMA can’t move in, until the governor asks them. The Federals can’t contribute any out-of-state NG or Regular Army forces, until the governor asks them.
Basically, the Feds can’t even fracking blink until (in this case) the greate state of Louisiana asks them to.
capice, amigo?
Turing word: drive, as in “why don’t we use the 250 school buses in New Orleans to drive these poor buggers out of the city, before it’s too late?”
speaking of idiots…
The link I FORGOT to include is here.
Jim,
Learn about the logical fallacy called “non sequitur”, because that’s what you are committing.
My point was that many right, starboard, conservative, fascist, etc. observers are rightly appalled at FEMA’s response. The non-sequitor spouting, missing link providing, Dear Leader criticizing, crap spewers:
David Brooks
Newt Gingrich
LaShawn Barber.
Oooooooo, Jim said “fascist” that means he was like serious.
Okay, that’s your point.
So, what’s your point?
I want to know what happened to the bill mentioned in the OP. Was it passed? Did it pass on partisan lines, or overwhelmingly? How did the LA delegation vote?
abehnke –
I think you missed my point. I am solidly in your corner on this, and was attempting to parody what the soldiers in the army of the eighth grade are saying. Nagin and the Governor are totally incompetent. When I see their ineptness being passed off on Bush, IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!
There IS plenty of blame to go around. In a situation such as this, there will always be mistakes made, but to blame Bush for EVERYTHING that happened (and say he wants black people to die, on top of that) in NO is to leave the realm of sanity. I am not always crazy about Bush, but the alternative is unthinkable.
Just wanted to get that straight.
Happy F’ing Labor Day!
The Lost Dog
”I want to know what happened to the bill mentioned in the OP. Was it passed? Did it pass on partisan lines, or overwhelmingly? How did the LA delegation vote?”
Good questions. And, to be on the route to answering them, does anyone know the number of the bill that the editorial refers to?
Perhaps the New York Times was against the bill because it was unfocused. I remember reading about it at the time. The 2.7 billion boondoggle they mention was mostly for work to be done in the NORTHERN part of the Mississippi and was roundly criticized as pork. Besides, it would take at least 30 years for the levees to be built up to withstand a Category 4 or 5 hurricane.
So, everyone in the blogosphere can have their little sniping political debates, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that our government failed us. Or, to put it more accurately, the bueracracy failed. Which doesn’t really surprise me anymore.
Inticatenick, I’m not convinced that the government “failed” per se. One cannot really get into a contest with Mother Nature by trying to build a hurricane “proof” levee. Mother Nature just builds bigger hurricanes.
The “failure” was building an ungovernable city behind levees on a hurricane coast.
President Bush had his press secretary provide us with a new phrase, “Blame Game.â€Â
It was introduced at a press conference where it was repeated eight times.
In order to ensure that ‘No Child Is Left Behind’ (unlike the thousands of children left behind to drown in the Gulf Coast) here is a word game you can play with your children so that they can know and use the phrase.
First of all the purpose of the exercise is to ensure that children and you, as an adult, are able to repeat the phrase when it is needed.
As part of our Homeland Defense it should be repeated eight times whenever anyone says something like this, ‘Undersecretary of FEMA Michael D. Brown is apparently an incompetent whose inadequate preparations led to the needless death of thousands of Americans, the destruction of several towns and the loss of one American city.’
As soon as you hear something like that you should say, ‘Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game.’
Children should look at the ground and shuffle their feet.
Responsible bureaucrats would also like us all to practice this other word game.
When anyone says, ‘Michael D. Brown should be fired.’, you respond, ‘Why would I do that for?’
For full effect repeat, ‘Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game, Blame Game.’
Hopefully these instructions will be available soon on FEMA for kids :
http://www.fema.gov/kids/index.htm
How brave of you to post this on a dead thread—even though the current threads are discussing just this!
Courage!