Regular readers of my site—particularly social conservatives—will recognize that I’m no Bush apologist, and have been critical of the President when I believe he’s taken missteps (lumber / steel protectionism; ideological dithering in the terror war, etc.) or backed bad law (Schiavo, McCain-Feingold, etc.); having said that, though, I’m going to take what I consider to be an intellectual stand here and state clearly and for the record that I refuse to acknowledge “that there is plenty of blame to go around” or any such feel-good, “cycle-of-violence”-type rhetoric that makes it comfortable to settle into our respective political corners and take a breather.
From the outset of this crisis, I’ve been arguing that politicizing a natural disaster of such magnitude—particularly before all the facts are in—is a mistake, and a remarkably arrogant one. But once the polticization began in earnest, either from those looking to blame Republican tax cuts or Presidential guitar strumming or Condi’s shopping expeditions or racism and &tc., I felt compelled, as I’ve mentioned now on several occasions, to prevent the left and its MSM proxies (and here I include FOXNews, whose coverage was, in my opinion, execrable, suggesting to me at least that sensationalism rather than partisanship drove much of the televised coverage) from writing this narrative and framing it for historical purposes as a federal failure.
Now, I have no doubt that many in the legacy media despise Bush and welcome the opportunity to hammer him with the bodies of LA citizens floating dead in the wreckage and sewage of New Orleans. But the real attack here, it seems to me, is on conservatism itself (and, in fact, the Kossacks are beginning to beat that very drum). Allow me to explain:
From what I can tell at this point—and I’m quite willing to amend my assessment in the face of FACTS—FEMA and the federal response followed the city plan it was supposed to be following, which called for it to augment the state and local response. Again, for those of you who remain unconvinced about FEMA acting, please revisit Rick Moran’s timeline, or see, for instance, the Army Corp of Engineers site I linked yesterday. A major problem seems to be one of coordination between the local and federal actors in lieu of a the breakdown of the communications infrastructure. Similarly, the breakdown of law enforcement caused additional problems for rescue efforts beyond those created by the destruction of the infrastructure and the impassability of roads, etc. As I pointed out yesterday, the local authorities took federal money to address communications concerns in the wake of a large-scale disaster. And there’s not much that can be done about getting a rescue workers and heavy vehicle support into a city that is underwater and unreachable by highway.
For those of you who are spreading the blame around to include the reaction of FEMA (and not simply Michael Brown’s presentation of the situation), be specific. Simply insisting that they “didn’t do enough” or “didn’t do things fast enough” is insufficient. It is an assertion and an accusation disguised as an established fact. And I’m not willing to accept the premise.
But back to the politics: If Bush made any mistake that I can see, it’s that he was too deferential to Blanco’s authority. Blanco’s reluctance to cede control to the Feds held up additional military support and, along with the desertion of two-thirds of the NO police force, led to the breakdown of social order. And this is an important point to examine, because the way his decisions are framed, subsequently, can potentially impact how we respond to disasters in the future.
And from where I’m standing, there simply have to be repercussions at the local level. Because if the left and the media succeed in foisting blame for this disaster off on the feds, then they will have succeeded in further asserting centralized control over the republic, crippling what remains of federalism and moving one step closer to a structurally leftist, top-down nation.
It’s been remarkable, throughout this debate, to watch “progressives” shriek that the President did not use his federal authority (and often, their arguments call for more than that—advocating that President failed for not exceeding his Constitutional authority) to usurp authority from the Governor of LA.
Whereas, Bush did what an (ostensibly) conservative President simply MUST do: he deferred to the local authorities and continued to use the powers of the federal government to assist the local authorities in the ways THEY THEMSELVES REQUESTED. And it’s my position that in doing so, the President did the right thing—even if the locals in question weren’t up to the job. Which shows not the failure of federalism, but rather that local elections have material (and potentially dire) consequences. And if we don’t make that case over and over again, I fear MORE federal control, where less federal control—and better local preparation—is the answer.
Am I happy that FEMA is wrapped up in DHS? No. But that particular bureaucratic misstep is bi-partisan—the product of Senators from both parties wishing to show that they were doing something in the wake of 911. And I’ll be happy if the structural flaws of having increased bureaucratic layers are exposed and remedied as a result of this disaster. But that’s for later.
In another thread, uber troll Kenny (who, did he mention he passed the Bar?) chided me for hinting at this argument that Bush acting as he should have. He writes, “[…] are you saying that, as a matter of principle, […] Bush and the Administration were constrained from acting in the Gulf Coast? That’s a hell of an argument.” Well, sure. And that’s a helluva simplification, Kenny.
No, I’m not arguing that as a matter of principle Bush was constrained from acting. I’m saying that as a matter of law, Bush was constrained from acting in a particular way. His decisions, like those of Nagin and Blanco, happened in real time, and Bush, I think, made the right decision in not overstepping his authority.
Which is not at all the same as not acting. Ken follows up by making the very argument that motivated this post, namely: “FEMA’s response was not appropriate, whatever that means”—an assertion, as I noted above, disguised as an established fact.
Might there have been federal missteps and foot-dragging? Sure. But until I’m convinced that the response atually wasn’t “appropriate,” I refuse to join the chorus agreeing with that assessments. And I refuse to concede that the federal government didn’t do enough until it’s shown that they were negligent in a way that disrespects established federal/state cooperation and separation of jurisdictional powers.
Now. Let the sniping begin.
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related: Bring on the jackals!
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update: Dorkafork makes several good points in the comments. After noting my suggestion that Bush was acting as a conservative President really must, Dorkafork writes:
Not just what an “(ostensibly) conservative President†must do, but what any President must have done: follow the law, and not illegally or unconstitutionally exceed his authority. State and local governments still retained their authority under the law.
As far as federalism goes, this could end up backfiring on conservatives. The narrative forming on the left is that federal authorities were slow to act and screwed up. The narrative forming on the right is that the local authorities screwed up. If the narrative on the right prevails, there could be an increased demand to give the federal government authority over disaster areas almost immediately, in a weakening of federalism.
My response:
Well, there’s some debate about whether or not Bush could have insisted upon taking federal control until Blanco relented, which is why I differentiate that choice from the scenario some progressives seem to be calling for, in which Bush actually exceeds his powers and becomes the fascist dictator he’s routinely accused of being.
As to the federalism argument, I’d argue that if conservatives point out, as I have, that local elections are important precisely because States have to be able to provide relief for their citizensâ€â€and that local control is far more likely to provide immediate relief when it isn’t relying so heavily on a lumbering federal bureaucracyâ€â€this will go a long way toward reasserting the importance of strong local government, and by extension, conservatism itself.
But it’s about the framing, yes.
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update 2: Interesting discussion in the comments here.
You see all of those people, and all of that equipment, and all of that food and water that started coming in to New Orleans Friday (with more Saturday, and more and more each day)?
If the Feds hadn’t been doing their job, and doing it very, very well, they would have looked more like Sean Penn bailing out that boat than, well, an army liberating a city.
I heard a lot of complaining about this over the weekend (from a lot of younger folks, mostly), and the one thing that came up was that the folks who were griping had zero experience in logistics.
I don’t see what is controversial about waiting to see where all the evidence points to as to who did what and who had the authority to do it.
I haven’t seen the moonbats rage like this since the election.
It’s strange.
That’s the bottom line, Jeff.
That nails it. Exactly.
Most excellent post sir. You got more bona fides in your little finger than most of we socons do in our entire sphere…
OK, you ask for FACTS.
Blanco’s reluctance to cede control to the Feds held up additional military support and… led to the breakdown of social order.
<a href=”http://gov.louisiana.gov/2005 proclamations/48pro2005-Emergency-HurricaneKatrina.pdf”>Blanco declared</a> a state of emergency on August 26th, two days BEFORE THE HURRICANE HIT. She also sent a letter to the feds on the eve of the hurricane (aug 28) with a <a href=”http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster Relief Request.pdf”>detailed list of needs</a>.
Those needs were never met. An un-named “senior White House official†(Karl Rove, I presume) told the WaPo and Newsweek that “as of Saturday [sept 3], Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency.†That is presumably where you are getting your information, but that is a lie.
So either the White House is lying to save Bush’s ass, or they were so incompetent that they spent a week waiting for a declaration of emergency that had already been made.
If Bush made any mistake that I can see, it’s that he was too deferential to Blanco’s authority.
Clearly this is not the case. But let’s imagine (!) you do not accept the FACTS above. Bush still had the power to seize control of the situation any time he wanted (Bush Snr did it with the LA riots, I believe). To do NOTHING was criminal neglect.
You and the other online Bush shrills have been caught out as ignorant apologists for sycophantic buffoons. If you want more FACTS, see my blog or talkingpointsmemo.com.
I’m quite willing to amend my assessment in the face of FACTS
Waiting…
PS: sorry about the URLs.
People like Ken are judging the relief effort on the standards of what the starship Enterprise can accomplish in a 60 minute episode. They have literally zero knowledge of the logistics required to move tens of thousands of troops through devastated terrain and create the logistical train to support a large city.
They are children whining in the back seat “are we there yet?” They must buckle up, shut up and let the adults do their work.
Yep. So far the criticism (including some from those on the Right who should know better) seems to come down to Michael Brown not being particularly slick at giving news conferences.
When the dust settles and the microphones in the Senate hearing rooms are finally unplugged, I think the federal response is going to look like a miracle of coordination. Perfect? Of course not. But it will be clear that tens or hundreds of thousands of people were mobilized from a standing start in a matter of days to undertake the most mind-bogglingly complex relief effort in history, and that this relief effort should be a source of national pride, not fault-finding.
It will be interesting to see how many of the locals (Mayor, Governor, Chief of Police) will take the Fifth in front of the TV cameras. While there is still insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion, there are an awful lot of quite specific loose ends coming out on the city and state side, while the attacks on the Feds seem to be either vague and unsubstantiated, or purely anecdotal (i.e. some relief worker or evacuee in some town griping that something wasn’t done to their complete satisfaction). The latter may be valid criticisms, and worth considering in view of refining future efforts, but they do not justify the feeding frenzy of sweeping, over the top indictments against FEMA.
It’s a pity we have to put ourselves through this at a time of national catastrophe. Although I think the local officials may have behaved negligently, I have no desire to blame or exonerate anyone right now, because it’s not the time for that. The only reason we are talking about this is because the media has uncritically swallowed (whole) the profane rantings of a clearly unhinged mayor and the more calculated slanders of a bunch of equally-unhinged fringe-left nut cases. Given the level of unawareness and poor judgement the mayor has demonstrated consistently throughout the crisis, it’s hard to consider him a very reliable source of information about the facts on the ground.
Once again, GW is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Let’s just say that he (under the auspices of the Fed’ral Gubmit) jumped in and started making decisions from the get-go.
Katie bar the door for all the Hitler references.
(I should say that personally, I believe that the root of the problem was a lack of communication—graft and corruption notwithstanding.)
gandhi, you are making several mistakes. Gov. Blanco didn’t sign the order allowing other national guard deployments until days after the hurricane. That’s the order being referenced. Evidently you didn’t even bother to read the request from Gov. Blanco which invokes requests for monetary aid and debris removal only.
Lastly, Bush Sr did not take over Los Angeles city government nor California state government during the LA riots. Your imagination.
If this is the crap Talkingpointsmemo is putting out, then you are the one repeating lies. You are a joke, gandhi.
gandhi,
While you’re waiting, why don’t you try learning how to embed links properly in your posts.
At least the “sycophantic buffoons” who post here know how to do that.
TW: “attack”, naw, he makes it to easy
Gandhi —
Do you bother to read the links I provide? Or any of the previous posts?
The State of Emergency declared allows the feds to ready money, which is what Blanco was asking for. And which she received. It has nothing to do with allowing the feds to take military control. All of which has been discussed here at length.
So your assertion that I don’t believe Blanco (and Bush) declared a state of Emergency is wrong and suggests you haven’t even bothered to read what I wrote.
As to Bush’s authority to seize control away from the Governor of a state…uh, okay. Did you MISS THE POINT of my post in your haste to call me a liar and make your wannabe-ironic rejoinder about “waiting”….?
Go read the earlier posts, including the comment threads. Otherwise, don’t waste my bandwidth reposting points we’ve already thoroughly covered—links to which are included in my post.
It’s embarrassing.
“If Bush made any mistake that I can see, it’s that he was too deferential to Blanco’s authority…
…. Bush still had the power to seize control of the situation any time he wanted … To do NOTHING was criminal neglect… “
I think the problem here is these Bozo’s have been comparing Bush to Hitler for so long they have forgotten that he is really not a fascist dictator.
tw: never, never send the military in to shoot looters, unless of course they are jooos
Not just what an “(ostensibly) conservative President” must do, but what any President must have done: follow the law, and not illegally or unconstitutionally exceed his authority. State and local governments still retained their authority under the law.
As far as federalism goes, this could end up backfiring on conservatives. The narrative forming on the left is that federal authorities were slow to act and screwed up. The narrative forming on the right is that the local authorities screwed up. If the narrative on the right prevails, there could be an increased demand to give the federal government authority over disaster areas almost immediately, in a weakening of federalism.
Well, there’s some debate about whether or not Bush could have insisted upon taking federal control until Blanco relented, which is why I differentiate that choice from the scenario some progressives seem to be calling for, in which Bush exceeds his powers.
As to the federalism argument, Dorkafork, I’d argue that if conservatives point out, as I have, that local elections are important precisely because States have to be able to provide relief for their citizens—and that local control is far more likely to provide immediate relief when it isn’t relying so heavily on a lumbering federal bureaucracy—this will go a long way toward reasserting the importance of strong local government.
It’s about the framing, yes.
I’m still chuckling about the Aug 26th request for aid. Morons like TPM really think that absolves Blanco? Unbelievable dishonesty mixed with abject incompetence describes not the Bush administration but its critics.
Spin it like it’s real, Mr Roberts. What was required was a stated of emergency declaration, and it was already inplace. You wanna argue about crossing t’s and dotting i’s while people die, go ahead.
Like I said, even if you refuse to acknowledge the FACTS above, the federal response is still criminally negligent.
From Condi’s shoe-shopping to Bush’s tasteless jokes, there are so many things wrong with this picture I don’t know where to start…
How about this quote from NorthCom Lt. Commander Sean Kelly (Northern Command oversees all active-duty military operations inside the United States):
“Northcom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready when it hit Florida, because, as you remember, it hit the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.
“So, what we did, we activated what we call ‘defense coordinating officers’ to work with the states to say, ‘OK, what do you think you will need?’ And we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could 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.”
Nuff said? And yeah, that’s from the BBC via Kos – real actual FACTS.
You are lying now, gandhi. You claimed that the Federal government failed to provide the relief requested. But all that is listed in the request is funding and debris removal.
I’m not spinning. You are lying. Blatantly and repeatedly.
Yes I do read links. Does anybody else? From Blanco’s declaration of emergency:
“I have determined that this incident will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the State and the affected local governments…”
What more needs to be said? There are none so blind…
gandhi:
Yes, and the President can’t tell them to move in until the Governor asks for it. Period. So while the President “has to give them permission,” the Governor of the affected state has to do likewise. Like the Governor of Mississippi did. Where they had people in helping out by midday Tuesday…
If he had done as you suggest, he would have been breaking several Federal laws, not to mention blowing right past some major Constitutional issues that would have set him up for removal from office.
Take it easy on him, Robin. Reading and understanding the relevant documents and statutes, as well as reading the timeline I provided and the conditions under which the National Guard can be federalized—all this takes the kind of time and effort that saying “Bush lied” doesn’t take.
Gandhi is one of those under the post-modern opinion that the truth is simply the ascendent (and accepted) narrative. So he’s chosen to repeat and repeat the narrative that requires the least amount of thought and research to establish.
But what he’s going to find out is, the post-modern method works only when those using it have a virtually monopoly on the means of disseminating information. Which ain’t the case no more.
I’ve given him the appropriate links several times now. He ignores them and continues to insist on assertions that run counter to the facts as they are legally established. So fuck him.
You remain a serial liar, gandhi. Blanco then asks for money and debris removal.
Wrong, Jeff. He’s an intentional liar.
Ghandi, you simply restated what you said before. That’s not an argument at all. It’s simply parroting a disproved talking point. Let’s try this from another angle. Do you believe the President should have taken complete federal control of this situation and pushed Governor Blanco out of the way last Friday? You realize that would have basically been a coup, don’t you? I’m not trying to be dismissive, but all I’m hearing from you, and from Ken as well, is that the Federal governement should have ruined the constitution, tossed all the enumerated powers aside, and run roughshod over a state that wasn’t in rebellion. I’m having a hard time believing you mean that? Do you?
Not to mention, FEMA makes it clear that such won’t likely arrive until 72-96 hours after the disaster. So assuming the levees broke midday Monday, midday Thursday is when federal help is promised—though preparations and staging took place even before the storm hit.
Gandhi believes Bush could have simply beamed help in, despite the city’s being underwater.
Nice post Jeff, but Tim Russert wants to know when heads are gonna roll! And it only took one week for the Katrina Commission to come up—before all the people still stuck in New Orleans have even been rescued! Perhaps my memory is faulty, but it seems to me that on 9/18/2001 we were still digging in the rubble looking for survivors rather than trying to assign blame. Of course, some people were already blaming Bush even then, but that’s to be expected now isn’t it?
What the fucking fuck is wrong with people?
I’m beginning to think we really are doomed with all the lunacy and partisan sniping going on, the ludicrous pontificating by severely uninformed and misinformed Big Media talking heads whose knowledge of logistics is exceeded only by their humility, and the potential for another huge aggrandizement of power by the feds that would make Lincoln blush just so we can pretend that monumental disasters can be fully anticipated and dealt with as though wishes were horses so every goddamn beggar can ride for free.
Turing word: design, as in this certainly isn’t evidence of intelligent design.
…all that is listed in the request is funding and debris removal.
For God’s sake, talk about t’s and i’s…!!! You wanna dec. of emergency, here it is. For #$&*’s sake!
Reading the actual doc, there are four pages which finish with this:
”In addition, I anticipate the need for debris removal…”
The federal response to this disaster was incompetent to the point of being unforgiveable. Full stop.
The four pages all list either requests for funding or list the actions of the state government.
You are a liar.
To paraphase and bowdlerize Inigo Montoya, gandhi keeps using words, but its not clear he knows what any of them mean.
Turing word: stop, please.
Gandhi is an Australian. His understanding of our Constitution probably proceeds from repeated viewings of Oliver Stone’s JFK.
Here’s something closer to home for him to chew on.
Ghandi,
You haven’t answered my question. Are you saying that the Administration should have federalized the entire relief effort w/o any consderation at all for the governments of LA and the city or New Orleans. If GWB had announced on the Friday before the storm hit, “I’m in control. I will make all the decisison. The mayor and the governor can just go home now, they are no longer needed,” you would have supported that and applauded him for it? Becuase, I’m truly having a hard time believing you would have.
It seems to me that the creation of Homeland Security has confused the chain of command and given the locals someone to blame. Nagin and Blanco were obviously not up to the challenge, but now they can scream FEMA made me to it (while asking FEMA for funds to send the NOPD to Vegas for a vacation). Perhaps Guiliani did better on 9/11 because–besides his obvious strong and courageous leadership–there was no question but that the locals were in charge.
Re politicization: Today BTW Blizter “caught up with” Clinton, who blasted FEMA and asked for the estate tax (death tax to some) to be retained and given to the victims. Will the Reps get equal time for this obviously staged moment?
Wait – Wasn’t there a dustup where Bush actually asked to take control, but Blanco retained counsel and also a previous FEMA director in order to avoid this very step?
sorry, wrong thread
Sorry, right thread. Time for bed
For what it’s worth, if Bush doesn’t fire these two idiots immediately, then Bush isn’t doing HIS job. The stunning level of incompetence from these two is astounding.
“Defending the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued Saturday that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur.” –CNN
“Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation—not to say it wasn’t going to be bad, but that the water would drain away fairly quickly,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown said today. “Then the levees broke and (we had) this lawlessness. That almost stopped our efforts.” …
“Katrina was much larger than we expected,” he said.
Both of those statements are complete lies. It was common knowledge that NO was in serious danger of major flooding if a big enough Hurricane struck, and by Friday evening the National Hurricane Center was stating that without question Katrina qualified as such.
These two people are in charge of two of our most important Federal agencies and have now shown that they do not qualify for these positions in any way. I’m not absolving the Mayor or the Governor either, but these two statements could not be more inexcusable.
I swear to God, it’s getting so I can just keep things in the clipboard.
As I was just saying on Patterico: are you seriously suggesting that the President should, without legislative authority, be allowed to declare an emergency, wrest control of a city and state from their elected governor and mayor respectively, impose martial law, take direct command of the police forces and emergency services, and impose martial law in order to compel compliance with FEMA directives.
In the immortal words of Mike Myers: are you mental?
Indeed. One wonders why he has anything at all to say about this. Oh, right, there’s Bush bashing to be done.
TW: Rembember. I will.
Tman, yep people should be fired because of a sentence uttered in a press conference …
fwiw – while comparisions to Great Britain are nice, it might be more relevant to many to consider this: that the area most dramatically affected is roughly the the size of New Jersey –
Map
The actual area affected is 10x the size of New Jersey.
The dire situation that happened right after Katrina is, imo, entirely on the municipal and state levels. The people who stayed should have had enough water to last a couple of days – turn on the tap, fill bottles, the bathtub.
If somebody needed to tell them that, then the local newscasters and emergency response broadcast people could have done so.
yes, tim struck me as a bit emotional yesterday. and the president of jefferson parish….. i kept thinking, “you know there are people, where they are and you, yourself are doing what to help them?” but he had time to come on tv and cry.
and let’s not forget that those responding didn’t have to come through flood waters. i keep coming back to how some people just aren’t thinking about the logistics of all this, if nothing else.
sorry, hit submit instead of preview ‘the point of bringing up New Jersey is that if you take an area that size, and then remove roads, power, and communications – the logistics of the situation become daunting.
People who wonder ‘why couldn’t they all be rescued on Tuesday or Wednesday’ need to think about how that would happen if the distance covered were Philadelphia to Atlantic City – without roads.
Robin,
Did you read what they said? The secretary of Homeland Security was “unaware that a disaster such as this could ever occur”? Despite the fact that this was practically common knowledge? You don’t find that a bit troubling, like, what ELSE is he unaware of?
Or that the head of FEMA completely ignored the repeated warnings from the National Hurricane Center that yes, Katrina was indeed more than just a “typical hurricane”?
If this is truly what they said, then they should both be fired for such gross negligence. It is incomprehensible to me that people who hold those positions are as uninformed as they seem to be.
As Jeff put it “Simply insisting that they “didn’t do enough†or “didn’t do things fast enough†is insufficient” reminds me that I have yet to see a cognet argument that anything, no matter what, would have happened any quicker than it did. So far nobody has given a single instance where, after the storm, people did not respond as quickly as humanely possible.
TW: “living” As in I must admit that in my living memory I have never seen a city police force disintegrate like New Orleans did.
Tman,
I hear you. Brown and Chertoff said some stupid stuff to the press. But what did they do, or fail to do? That’s what I’m trying to get at. Maybe they’re in over they’re heads, maybe they aren’t, but I would like someone to show me something the two of them did or failed to do. Are you saying there would have been no loss of life or destrution of property save for Chertoff and Brown. Are you saying the damange would have been reduced by fifty percent save for Chertoff and Brown. Or are you saying that you are angry and frustrated and looking to do something to make yourself feel better?
Tman, first of all I’ve learned that people express their surprise in different ways. I don’t find it a significant comment.
Second, you are making a leap from an expression of surprise to the conclusion that FEMA “ignored” warnings. I don’t think that his comment necessarily supports your conclusion. I think from this and other comments that what happened is that Chertoff and Brown were thinking that the damage they would have to deal with in New Orleans would be the more typical hurricane storm surge damage. And around midday on Monday, based on the limited reports, that is what it looked like to a lot of people. For a few minutes or an hour, it looked to be more manageable situation. Then the slow fill of New Orleans from levee breaches became apparent later.
These comments by Chertoff and Brown just are not significant.
Gandhi is an Australian…
As is Rupert Murdoch, owner of FAUX News and the shoddy OZ paper you linked to.
Bush represents a danger to the whole world, as Iraqis have learned the hard way. A Fascist USA is not good for anyone, particularly when goivernment like ours in Australia (and Blair in Britain) blindly follow their lead, even against the wishes of the majority of citizens.
…he’s chosen to repeat and repeat the narrative that requires the least amount of thought and research to establish.
Obviously, it takes a lot of time and thought for you guys to figure out how Bush can NOT be ultimately responsible for this fiasco.
…the post-modern method works only when those using it have a virtually monopoly on the means of disseminating information. Which ain’t the case no more.
Well, we agree on something right there. Even FAUX News is airing segments critical of Bush.
When did a route out of NO get cleared? Thursday was when the first busses got out, right? But does anybody know if there was a way out, over land, before that?
You know, I don’t want to speak for everyone, but when someone starts typing “facts” in all caps, I tend towards skepticism.
Likewise someone who, when others don’t completly buy their arguments, resorts to calling them names and using gratuitous exclamation points and use of italics.
And, of course, Australians acting like they have any particular insight into American law and traditions.
And here I thought we were the ones who had no respect for other people’s cultures.
Here’s the thing, gandhi. Declaring a State of Emergency isn’t like shouting, “Save me, Superman! SAVE ME!” State officials are responsible for requesting specifically what sort of aid they need, and they’re responsible for making use of it once provided. They have to keep doing their job, they can’t sit in the corner and cry while the feds take over. That’s because they are the ones who were elected to do these jobs.
Nobody ever elected President Bush to be in charge of evacuating New Orleans. The people of LA elected their Governor, and the people of New Orleans elected their Mayor to be. It’s anti-democratic to argue that the feds should have muscled their underlings out.
even against the wishes of the majority of citizens.
Really? Can you say RE-ELECTED? All 3 of em.
And fuck you and your fascist meme. Dickweed.
Corvan,
I believe that Chertoff failed to appreciate the extent of damage New Orleans would face if it was hit with a large Hurricane, despite the fact that this information was widely known. That he did tells me he is WAY over his head and does not deserve to be in that position. As I said before, doesn’t it make you wonder what ELSE he is unaware of?
Robin,
This was never a “manageable” situation. Here was the warning issued by the ational Weather Service sunday night-
URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005
…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA…
…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
Does that sound “manageable” to you? Does that sound like your “typical” hurricane?
To me it seems like gross incompetence on the part of Michael Brown.
Tman, you don’t seem to realize that what happened didn’t match the NHC forecasts. The hurricane dropped down a category and just missed the city to the east.
You don’t also seem to understand my point at all. My point was that for a brief period of time on Monday, the predicted worst case appeared to have been avoided. The hurricane didn’t push a huge storm surge into the city. Instead a different scenario occurred.
Gandhi, we already caught you lying. You may leave now.
Pretty funny to hear you people talking about legal niceties and how important it is to stay within the bounds of the law, even to the point of ignoring people in desperate circumstances because the correct form hasn’t been sent in yet, with all the t’s crossed just right. Whatever happened to “9/11 changed everything” and Bush Co’s right to make up their own laws as they see fit? Oh, that was last week’s talking point.
The fact that you sycophants are desperately trying to apologize for Bush and his bungling buffoons tells us all we need to know about your lack of compassion, lack of ethics and lack of intelligence.
This blog is a refuge for wilfully ingorant ignoramuses.
I’m just back from a three day trip to the Mississippi coast to take water, fuel, a generator, and food to my brother and dad. I’m too burned out (the coast is a 14 hour drive from me) to address Jeff’s point with regards to Louisiana other than to say I agree that Bush did the right thing and respected the federalist system. The attempt to blame anyone other than the people of New Orleans and Louisiana for their disaster is despicable and perpetuates a post-slavery paternalism.
FWIW, on the drive home I saw thousands of military vehicles pulling generators and water buffaloes heading South. Spoke with my sister who’d seen the same thing on her way back to Houston. There is already a considerable military presence there. The amount of aid streaming in is incredible.
Frankly, the lesson I take away from Katrina is to take care of yourself and not expect someone else to. All of my people that did this are OK, while those that didn’t might be dead, we just don’t know. There is still only sparse land-line and cell communication south of Jackson-Meridian. Also, the value of family and friends beats anything the government can do in such a crisis.
Apropos the lefties wanting an increased role for government, I heard several people down there muttering that the price-gouging on gasoline must be solved by nationalizing the oil industry.
BTW, out of the thousands of pickups I saw carrying food, water and fuel to the stricken area, only one bore a Kerry-Edwards sticker. Many, many bore Bush stickers. And I didn’t hear of anybody named “Jesse” down there. Guess she’s busy playing with her “Farenheit 911” action figures.
From Yahoo News:
“LOS ANGELES – New observations by the international
Cassini spacecraft reveal that Saturn’s trademark
shimmering rings, which have dazzled astronomers since
Galileo’s time, have dramatically changed over just
the past 25 years.
Among the most surprising findings is that parts of
Saturn’s innermost ring  the D ring  have grown
dimmer since the Voyager spacecraft flew by the planet
in 1981, and a piece of the D ring has moved 125 miles
inward toward Saturn.”
NOW WILL YOU SIGN KYOTO, BUSH!!!!
Gandhi comes from the Pink tribe.
Tman,
Other than calling Brown incompetent (I get the point that you want his head), can you please point to some actual deed he did or did not do? Something that would merit his immediate removal.
Just because he gives a poor performance in a news conference shouldn’t cause one to assume his performance is an abject failure.
Oh, wait……that is true. You guys have been doing that very same thing to GWB for 5 years now.
Tman—that reads like lots of hurricanes that never hit. You have to live there to understand. You get jaded. Everybody gets jaded. My dad diligently boarded up his window twice this summer and packed up all his valuables. He’s a very sharp fellow. The afternoon before Katrina he just said “screw it” and played golf, then packed up the family and left, assuming he’d let insurance take care of his broken windows and wet furniture. That’s all he expected. He now has a slab. And two of his elderly neighbors are somewhere under the 20 foot pile of debris on his street.
I lived no more than 60 miles from the coast the first 35 years of my life. You get jaded. And then you screw up.
Robin,
Perhaps you and I are reading two different things, because what I read was that the Hurricane did indeed reach levels that would make it more than just a “normal” hurricane. And the results were predicted in the NWS warning I posted above.
The worst case was that the Hurricane hit directly downtown NO. That this was avoided does not mean that this was by any stretch of the imagination a “typical” hurricane. It was one of the top three most powerful hurricanes ever recorded. To say that “if it wasn’t for the levee breaches things would have been fine” ignores the extent seriousness of the damage, which is exactly what Brown did.
very good analysis. I watched CNN and the reporters on the ground seem to be changing their tunes a bit. The guy who started off with a report on Lou Dobbs basically said the response is way ahead of other disasters he’s reported on around the world. Lou completely ignored that angle. Then the woman reporting from Baton Rouge tried very hard to put a smiley face on Gov Blanco’s relationship with POTUS, or tried to put a smiley face on Gov Blanco. I turned it off before Jesse Jackson came on. Don’t need the heart attack, but I think the blood the dems and race hustlers smelled in the water may turn out to be their own. The smarter ones may have caught on to that. I do think Pres. Bush should appoint somebody to be the Katrina response co-ordinator. He needs someone like Tommy Franks or Colin Powell who can deal with all of the military issues involved. Chertoff seems quite competent, but is an attorney, which makes him exquisitley knowledgable about the extent to which the feds hands are tied and can be impeded by a state gov who wants to fight off Sherman’s march to the sea or something. And Mr Chertoff should focus on the home terrorist threat, right? Perhaps Mr. Brown should go, or perhaps he should become the new Katrina czar’s right hand man.
Beat me to it, rls.
You have to take those quotes in the context of these federal officials attempting to respond to loaded questions without explicitly condemning the incompetence of the local and state officials. In a “typical hurricane†the local officials have made some attempt to implement their disaster plan, evacuate the population, and provide shelter and sustenance for those who are unable to evacuate for more than a few hours. In a “typical hurricane†2/3 of the local police do not abandon their posts, the entire security apparatus does not collapse, and there is not an active hostility to the aid providers from a small but significant and well-armed portion of the populace.
Tman, Katrina wasn’t among the top 3 hurricanes when it made landfall. That was its strength the day before. When it made landfall, it was no longer a Category 5 but a Category 4.
rls,
I’m not “one of them” so save the ad hominems. Brown underestimated the danger and size of the hurricane to a negligent extent. The head of FEMA should be OVERestimating the danger so as to prepare for the worst possible scenario. He failed in this, thus does not desrve to be in that position.
Salt Lick,
I’ve lived through about five hurricanes in my life (I grew up in Boston), one was when I lived on Martha’s Vineyard. Yes, the NWS always predicts damage, but I have NEVER seen them jump up and down the way they did for this one. The warnings I posted above were different than ones I have ever seen. Hurricane Bob destroyed the Vineyard when I was there, but the warnings were nowhere near as apocalyptic. I have lived through them, and yes you get jaded, but the head of FEMA should not. It’s his JOB to prepare for the worst, and by his own words he did not.
Tman, if the situatiuon wasn’t manageable, doesn’t that mean FEMA could have managed it?
Honest to God, what are they teaching these kids nowadays?
TW: “Couldn’t”. Jeff, how does the software manage this? AI?
Not to preview, apparently.
“Tman, if the situation wasn’t manageable, doesn’t that mean FEMA COULDN’T have managed it?”
Yeah, like that.
” It’s his JOB to prepare for the worst, and by his own words he did not.”
That’s my point, Tman. You are condemning someone for words.
It seems to me if there was gross incompetence at the federal level as the msm / moonbat brigades are bleating about, we would see allot more hysterical news, screaming senators, and FEMA horror stories streaming out of the other states affected by this storm.
On the plus side, the “Katrina Commission” will surely look at all the facts and give us some concrete steps to take to improve our security, much like our wonderful bi-partisan, non-grandstanding “911 Commission”.
I hope this time you can buy a DVD of the hearings.
Jeff,
Not to argue, but is it not the spirit of today’s politics to politicize everything that happens. I mean Bush uses September 11th to this day, so imho the stage was set for politicization before it happened. Yes it is sad. Do I think it is right? No, is it expected? Sadly yes.
Gandhi
The reason why this particular law is so damned important to us is because if the Kossacks EVER occupy the White House, The Untied States of America will be protected from your sadistic and vicious imperialism.
I wrote a letter to my Mayor today informing him that, particularly in times of disaster, I fully expect him to fulfill his duty to protect and secure his populace and that he learn from those mistakes made by his collegue Mayor Nagins. I will not tolerate State governments who abandon their responsibility to the United States. If one State falls, we all fall.
The President was wise in obeying the law by not setting a dangerous standard for superseding States power.
You don’t seem to grasp the concept but personally I would fight to my death before I would ever allow The United States of America to be taken down by a coop d’tat instigated by a bunch of Kossacks!
No Charlie, it means that FEMA grossly underestimated it. But nice straw man.
Honestly, no one else was troubled that the head of FEMA said that “Katrina was much larger than we expected”? Isn’t that his job to expect the worst?
And he didn’t expect it despite the fact that the NHC and the NWS both said it would?
This doesn’t scream incompetence?
Gandi:
So if the Pres had acted per Blanco’s request and according to what Gandi deems as a reasonable timeframe, LA and NO would have bulldozers, track hoes, dump trucks and woodchippers by now.
What an idiot…
How do you figure? I have not seen one single report that FEMA has not responded admirably. That is why I asked you to specifically cite some action FEMA did or did not do that they should have or should not have done.
All you have presented as evidence of Brown’s incompetence is his inability to handle news conferences. Brown may be incompetent, I don’t know. What I do know is that you have not posted anything to prove that.
Tman, you really are taking things out of context. When someone says that Katrina was much larger than they expected, you assume that he was dissembling about the size of the hurricane based on its power on the day before landfall.
But what was Katrina’s size two days before that? It was not even a hurricane the day before it struck Florida.
I don’t think it is at all unreasonable for someone to make a comment about how surprisingly fast Katrina grew in the short days of its travel over the Gulf.
Jess,
I think alot of people on the right are mad about politicizing this, so soon.
It’s bound to be politicized, no doubt. But we’re pissed that lefties hadn’t at least waited until we buried our dead.
My God! None of you get the point. This is a Gaia given opportunity for the left to advance their agenda and their tin foil hat memes. They would be remiss to let it go by without massive hysteria. Truth and the actual timeline have absolutely nothing to contribute to their efforts and, indeed, have to be buried and obfuscated as quickly as possible.
Debating people like Ghandi is useless since they are just like those weighted blow up dolls that you punch and which immediately rebound. Reasoned debate is useless. I just block their IP’s on my site so that the rest of us can have a real discussion.
I just peeked at Ghandi’s blog. The moron sounds like a 14-year-old with ADD, no reading comprehension skills, and certainly no familiarity with law, government, verbal logic, or relief logistics. The person is irrelevant in every sense.
rls,
Michelle Malkin sums up the specifics pretty well in this post, it’s a laundry list of things he did wrong. The quote I posted before troubles me the most, but the fact that he had no idea what was going on at the convention center until he read the newspaper is equally troubling.
Robin,
As late as Sunday Brown was thought it was just a “standard” hurricane. I am not taking anything out of context. His statements are directly refuted by the NWS and the NHC.
“I was here on Saturday and Sunday, it was my belief, I’m trying to think of a better word than typical—that minimizes, any hurricane is bad—but we had the standard hurricane coming in here, that we could move in immediately on Monday and start doing our kind of response-recovery effort,” Brown said.
Okay, Tman, then you’re saying the situation was manageable, and complaining that Brown said it was manageable.
But let’s back up a step: if Brown didn’t perform adequately, you must be able to identify something he did wrong. I mean, other than not say “big bad storm” in a sufficiently dire fashion.
So what was it? Do you have a substantive complaint? What would it be?
TW: question. I swear, Jeff, how do you do it?
Tman, now you’ve established that you are taking things out of context. Notice the full quote matches my description of context above.
“I was here on Saturday and Sunday, it was my belief, I’m trying to think of a better word than typical—that minimizes, any hurricane is bad—but we had the standard hurricane coming in here, that we could move in immediately on Monday and start doing our kind of response-recovery effort,” he said. “Then the levees broke, and the levees went, you’ve seen it by the television coverage. That hampered our ability, made it even more complex.”
In context, Brown is contrasting the scenario of a hurricane with its typical effects, with the developed situation of failed levees.
I think we’ve quite clearly confirmed that you are being unfair.
Funny, isn’t it? Gandhi sees it as an insult to call Bush a fascist. But then he feels that Bush should have responded to Katrina by ignoring the constitution and acting like a fascist. Critical thought and reading comprehension escape him, they do.
In our last governor’s election here in Louisiana, the runoff was between Republican Bobby Jindal (now a LA US Representative)and Democrat Blanco. Blanco eked out a victory, due to her overwhelming support in New Orleans (just as New Orleans voted overwhelmingly for Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election). I beleive Jindal would have been a much more effective Governor for our state, but who knows.
Blanco was old money New Orleans, and Jundal was an immigrant who wasn’t “trusted” by many long term residents of the state. New Orleans made the choice of Blanco, and now they have to live (or die) by that choice. As Jeff said in his essay – local elections have consequences. Sometimes dire and profound ones. Local politics in Louisiana is a hodgepodge of nepotism, bribery, and lagniappe. Being the best person for the job rarely enters into the equation.
By the way, according to AP, Blanco still won’t allow the Guard to be put under Federal control!
Memo to self: Jeff’s software won’t manage a link inside a blockquote.
For convenience, here’s the actual link.
Ghandi and Tman:
You don’t realize you’ve wandered intoa nest of Bush dead enders. They ignore inconvenient facts. Like that gem about Northern Command having planned for significant involvement and ready to roll. Except they never got the orders.
Then you have our friend, washed up former pitcher Robin Roberts, who thinks that Brownie’s statements (which indicate incompetence) and chertoff’s statements (which indicate mendactiy) are mere words.
Then you’ve got RLS who thinks management consists of delegation of duty. The line betwen delegation and dereliction is a fine one, and may have been crossed/nyone who has ever managed anything means you spend your days managing more managers.
This concern for legal niceties is very touching. And very wrong-headed. Laws aren’t interpreted this stupidly and rigidly. The clue is: when your interpretation of a statute impedes the goals of the statute then there is something wrong with the interpretaion or the interpretor or both.
And in any event this constant blather about how Bush didn’t to depose the governor. Look, this was never on offer. The point is the federal end was late, lethergic and disorganized.
What’s worse, Ken, is that we’re a bunch of Bush dead-enders who keep vanquishing your silly-ass arguments with citations and facts.
Tman,
This is getting old. Michelle has the same disease you do. She does not iterate one single item that was or was not done. She berates him & wants his head for the same reasons as you do – that he cannot answer questions at a news conference.
Hey, he may be an incompetent idiot, he may be in over his head; but somebody, ANYBODY, tell me how FEMA failed. Simple, how were they bad. Every indication I have is that they have performed admirably.
The Eloquence of a Loggie (from QandO):
Again Jeff, you’ve described the overarching debate as well as can be.
The theme from the left during the GWOT is their fear of an ever increasing involvement of the Feds, while now their complaint is not sufficient involvement. This isn’t just hypocrisy, but a complete lack of a governing philosophy and principles.
It’s not just inconsistency, but an unknowing, of when and how, or what level of government should be involved in the matter in question. Oh yeah, the left is good at complaining and asking questions, but when it comes to perspective and providing answers, well, as committed statists, it’s more government and more dependency upon government. Any perceived failures inevitably result in calls for more tax money and more state bureaucracy, irrespective of the ensuing organizational complexity, with the resulting institutional inertia of inflexibility and unresponsiveness.
And the left is not just blinded, but paralyzed, by their emotional investment in the hatred of the President. Just look at the tone and intensity of vituperative comments left herein–they speak for themselves.
Kinda reminds me of drunken sports fanatics–the woulda, coulda, shoulda arguments go on forever, because their team is the best, irrespective of the final score, of course!
.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but that is what that statement is: your opinion.
This concern for legal niceties is very touching. And very wrong-headed. Laws aren’t interpreted this stupidly and rigidly. The clue is: when your interpretation of a statute impedes the goals of the statute then there is something wrong with the interpretaion or the interpretor or both.
I guess that statement means that we all get to break those laws we don’t agree with, eh? To me the laws that prohibit the CIC from using the Military against the Citizens of the US is what differentates this country from….say Saddam’s Iraq or Idi’s Uganda or any other four star dictator with an army to keep the plebes in line.
But, you say, go ahead Mr. President, break the laws, bring in the Armed Forces, restore order and evacuate those people. Well, what if there were riots against the President and civil disorder occured? By your standards Bush could bring in the Military and gun em down.
rls, i think part of the problem is that brown and chertoff weren’t watching the news coverage to know what was going on. they were relying on communication from the local authorities. (isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?)
sure we all saw it, but who was contacting responders?
No matter how badly President Bush and his minions messed up (and so far as I can, it is not much), the bottom line will always be, “Why were all those people left in New Orleans?”, and nothing that happens now as the revisionist history is being written is going to change that. No matter how loudly anyone wants to scream or override our federal system of government, it was not the President’s job to get the people out of New Orleans before Katrina hit.
Full stop, end of story. I had to write that since the Turing word is: leave.
President
Prez on FEMA
So what we have here is FEMA, an adgency mandated strictly to assist the local governments in any way possible after a disaster. However since you can’t help someone who isn’t doing anything, as the local and state governments apparently weren’t, they were supposed to come up with a plan within minutes Monday, and somehow magically transport helicopters, boats, supplies and people to NO instantly. Then assess the actual situation on the ground and deploy the resources by the next day, cause that is when you guys started bitching.
I guess this means that FEMA needs to assess the risks and threats to every American city and draw up contigency plans for all manner of natural disaster and terrorist threat and varying degrees of local response and competence. Do you realize how bat shit crazy your ideas are? FEMA is there to help the locals, they know their town and people better than a bunch of DC beaurocrats. If the locals screw the pooch, too bad, shit happens.
Adults understand these things.
maggie,
That sounds reasonable. My point is not to defend Brown but to actually find out if there were things FEMA should have done that they did not.
I just know that there were a lot of people there late Monday and early Tuesday working their proverbial asses off. When the pump failed and the levee breached, it was almost like a second disaster on top of the first.
I wasn’t on the ground there handling the logistics of moving mountains of water, food, medical supplies, tents, etc. I don’t know what plans had to be changed due to high water vs downed limbs. I do know that the bulldozer you were going to use to plow a path is not going to make a very good boat.
I also do not know how the civil disorder contributed to changed or failed plans. You see, I don’t know these things, so I do NOT automatically elevate myself to the “all knowing” category, over Brown. I automatically assume, because he there and has other people that are there telling him the situation, that HE knows more about it than I do.
It may LOOK on the boob tube that efforts are slow or non existent, but we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. One thing I DO know, nobody was sitting around playing tiddlywinks.
Er, Ken – I don’t think we should be describing the bits of the constitution that prohibit the federal government from declaring martial law and taking over a state as “legal niceties”. It’s a wee bit more complicated, and serious, than that, old tot.
Otherwsie, what’s to stop evil chimpy mchalliburton bushitler from declaring martial law every time it rains hard somewhere, and ending up as the dictator you guys paint him as, for real?
If Bush would have wrested control away from Blanco, marched in, and saved every single person – you would be screaming about how he had trampled on the constitution, usurped the governance of the state of Louisiana, and needed to be impeached immediately. Since he didn’t do that, and followed the law, it’s still all his fault–somehow? Blanco is STILL refusing to reliquish control, by the way. So, who’s being obstructionist here?
Gandhi’s an idiot. Your defense seems to be that we’re all Bush “dead enders”, therefore you get to dismiss everything we say without making any kind of cogent argument to the contrary. I guess that must be nice for you when it works. From my perspective, it means you’ve got nothing – no facts, no argument, nothing except Bush hatred and an insatiable need for this to be “his fault”. Bush did everything he was supposed to do, did everything he legally could do. Making shit up as you go along won’t change any of that.
The logistics quote Jeff posts is the key to much of this. It’s strange how few people understand where New Orleans is located. Even Malkin posts a strange quote about how easy it should have been to just drive down the interstates and rescue those people. The fact is you reach New Orleans by driving over about 20 miles of swamps by means of a raised interstate causeway before you even get to New Orleans, but parts of that entry were under water.
Jeff, you’ve amassed an amazing amount of info and facts here. Ken’s post reads like he’s desparately holding on. Got me chuckling.
Ken, are you capable of reading and thinking at the same time? Apparently not.
1. Bush cannot issue orders that he is not empowered to issue. Before he could give those orders, he needed permission from Blanco. Get it? She refused.
2. Interpretations of laws did not stand in the way of a more efficient rescue, Blanco did.