In response to what are increasingly pointed questions emerging in the mainstream press about those drowned NOLA buses, the HuffingtonPost’s Harry Shearer, in an email to Glenn Reynolds, tries to mitigate the local response (or rather, lack of one):
Sunday’s lonnnnnng Washington Post piece on Katrina makes it clear, as I suggested to you last week, that, by the time Nagin declared his evac order (and even Haley Barbour warned of “Hurricane fatigue” from previous evacuations), getting people on those buses and SAFELY out of town was a very chancy proposition. Every plan published indicates that it would take up to 72 hours to fully evacuate New Orleans, and 72 hours in advance Katrina was not posing the lethal threat it turned out to be….
Glenn replies:
“Fully evacuate?’’ Yes. As Brendan Loy noted, even 48 hours is really too late—though Nagin waited much later than that. (I’ve seen people doing math to the effect that you could have gotten everyone out in 24 hours, but I doubt that New Orleans could have mustered the necessary degree of organization for that.) But certainly a lot of people could have been evacuated who weren’t, and that would have improved conditions for the rest, and reduced the burden on relief services. And if Nagin had gotten the buses out, they would have been available for further evacuations after the storm had passed, instead of him having to call for Greyhounds.
This is, of course, all water over the dam in the most literal sense, but given all the finger-pointing going on, it’s hard to ignore this issue. Had more people been evacuated, as they should have been, before the storm hit, conditions in the city would have been better, and relief services less stressed, afterward.
Glenn’s response is predictably on-point, so allow me to wax analagous here and point out that in Shearer’s response, we find clear indications of the same flawed arguments, couched as protestations, we hear from progressives with regard to the Iraq war: in this case, Shearer’s implicit argument that because not everyone who remained behind in NOLA could have been safely evacuated, attempts to evacuate some or most of those left behind could (should?) not have taken place clearly echoes the anti-war argument that because the US can’t simultaneously overthrow every tyrannical dictator in the world, it is somehow indelicate to rid the world of one (even if doing so jibes with our national interests)—and, in the process, frees 25 million people from a murderous Ba’athist rule.
Which, its sad seeing the perfect made the enemy of the good—in New Orleans, and on the global stage. After all, isn’t this an example of the very kind of unnuanced binary thinking the Bushies are routinely accused of engaging in?
Having said all that, though, who cares? … I mean, Harry Shearer was in freakin’ Spinal Tap! And for that alone he gets a lifetime pass from me.
That may be Jeff, but his letter wasn’t really turned up to 11, so I’m not sure he deserves a pass on this one.
“There is a fine line between clever and stupid.”
Ya know…NOLA government allowing those buses to be flooded out of use in a parking lot makes as much sense as pre-postitioning disaster relief vehicles, supplies and human beings working for FEMA directly in the path of the hurricane.
Sort of like EU’s thinking that pre-positioning Iran with the ability acquire nukes will give the free world a chance to save ourselves from nuclear destruction.
This response goes to the heart of the beliefs of the left—the socialist ideal of equality. In their world no one can have what everyone can’t have. (Well, an exception is always made for the elites but that’s another story.) Therefore, since they couldn’t evacuate everyone they shouldn’t even attempt to evacuate anyone.
Two cute MSM stories today….
LINK:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.html
LEAD:
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.”
HERE IS THE PUNCHLINE:
“Clarification: After FEMA began working with Kenyon, they were subsequently contracted by Louisiana Governor Blanco. It was Louisiana that signed a formal contract.”
LINK:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/opinion/15herbert.html
HEADLINE:
Sick and Abandoned
HERE IS THE PUNCHLINE:
“The patients and staff at Methodist could have been evacuated before Hurricane Katrina hit. But instead they were condemned to several days of fear and agony by bad decision-making in Louisiana and the chaotic ineptitude of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some of the patients died.”
So Louisiana is only guilty of “bad decision making”?
Of course, having a more manageable problem with fewer stranded people doesn’t help the cause. As I’ve mentioned before, if only half as many people where left in the Superdome and the Convention Center the situation would have been vastly improved for those remaining behind.
Turing word: foot, as in, well, I’m not sure whether mouth or ass fits better.
Not only does he also get a pass from me for Spinal Tap, but also for his Simpsons work and his weekly radio program Le Show, which I rarely miss here in Los Angeles. I rarely agree with his politics, but he gives much of his time behind the mic, loves the city of NO with a passion that draws me in, and possesses a highbrow wit that is rare in this day and age.
You ask yourself, how much more black could those poor people in New Orleans be? And the answer is none, none more black.
“The same flawed arguments… we hear from progressives with regard to…” I thought you were going to say “school choice.” Can’t let all the students in a broken district escape? Then don’t let any. (Unless they can afford private tuition, of course.)
Forget about using them to evacuate, how about saving the busses simply because the school district will need them when the storm is over and they would cost a lot to replace.
If anyone had thought to move the busses to high ground they would have then been available to evacuate the superdome when the time came even if that was not why they were moved.
Ya’ know, if the buses were used to evacuate SOME of the people out of New Orleans before the hurricane, they could also have been used to evacuate people out of New Orleans AFTER the hurricane.
As it stands, by not using them before the hurricane, they couldn’t use them after the hurricane. They would have been better off shipping them out empty than leaving them there.
and leaving them with protection or enough food and water.
Unlike the host, Shearer just proves that you can be a comic genius and still be an idiot. Anyone else catch his riff on MSNBC on how the feds should have had sandbags at the ready to fill in the breached levees? Classic stuff.
I intended to write
and leaving them without protection…
Hmmm.
Holy crap. Anybody looking at some of the numbers people are floating around? $100+ billion? $200+ billion?
“Hi my name is ed and I’m a fiscal conservative being bitch-slapped by the so-called small government republicans”.
What the hell. Iowa absolutely needed an indoor rainforest for the Global War on Terror. So why not $200+ billion dollars to rebuild a city that’s below sea level and to reimburse people who intentionally bought homes there. And who elected the same stupid incompetent bastards who mucked everything up in New Orleans and Louisiana.
sigh.
Well I can hope for a similar hurricane here in New Jersey. A disaster used to be exactly that, a disaster. Now a disaster is almost like winning the lottery.
Is it “busses”, or “buses”? I think it’s the latter, but I keep seeing both used across the Net.
Please advise.
It’s either. I prefer one s. Will change.
I’ve ridden on buses, but I prefer the busses I get from my wife.
…and I wouldn’t leave them to be destroyed by floodwaters either.
I find it interesting that Harry Shearer is just “Reader Harry Shearer” on Instapundit. Exactly what the internet is about: ideas stand alone, irrespective of speaker. Standing on his ideas alone, he’s exposed as just another misguided jack-off.
In Huffpo or MSNBC celebrity contributor gigs, however, ideas are secondary to personality. Pontificating from their throne of celebrity, they seek only to lure readers and viewers away from formulating their own ideas through power of name-recognition. Celebrity contributions to public discourse, qua celebrity contributions (“Reader Harry Shearer” can contribute all he likes), are quite simply destructive to the free exchange of ideas.
But I’d certainly sit through one of his speeches if he promised to do McBain.
Who’s really to blame for the Katrina?
</i>MEEEEENDOOOOOOOOOOOOOZAAAAAAAA!!!!</i>
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Shearer also provide that video feed of John Edwards primping that you used in “The Choice” last fall? In some ways, the guy may be a fairly typical liberal. However, he’s also intelligent, sardonic, and fairly civil in expressing his views, qualities that are regrettably atypical.
’e ‘ad ‘n ahmadilloe ‘in ‘is eyebowlz, ‘ats why ‘e coulnda see da bowses.
The perfect being made the enemy of the good—same could be said about much of the liberal/green screeching over the last 5 yrs about the nation’s environmental policy changes.
From his Spinal Tap fame, has Harry forgotten how long it takes just to find your way on stage?
Rock and roll!
I can’t provide a link because I forgot where I read it, but apparently “Governor” Blanco asked FEMA for 400 buses 24 hours before the storm hit, presumably for pre-storm evacuations. Of course, being a total fuckup, Brownie could only shit 100 out on such short notice. Apparently Blanco didn’t think it was too late to evacuate. She must have failed to consult with Shearer.
Sw week, as in “Brownie was a week FEMA director”. What, you think the people that truly believe that are going to notice the spelling?
It’s thoughts like this that makes me cringe:
“getting people on those buses and SAFELY out of town was a very chancy proposition.”
As opposed to telling people to get into their cars and getting safely out of town–which, it’s fair to say, was a very smart proposition, and not chancy at all.
So someone explain to me the thinking that goes into Shearer’s “chancy” proposition–other than making perfect the enemy of the good.
‘Cuz I’m beginning to see the light regarding the Shearer Standard and the government NOT being involved in anything, unless they can do it perfectly. In fact, there is there any government program that would survive under such a standard, i.e. doing “good” is just not good enough.
And based on the Shearer Standard, well, it’s fine thing that FEMA even showed up at all, because we “know” FEMA’s not perfect–just ask Harry.
So how’s this for a placidly leftist Shearer response to Katrina: no disaster aid. You make your bed, you sleep in it.
Sorry, I can’t help. Nothing’s perfect. Just sayin’.
Now somebody explain to me why we’re even entertaining Harry Shearer’s thoughts about emergency preparedness planning and response? Other than he’s a delusional leftist shill? Because repeating his argument presents the suggestion that such argument just might be credible. “Every plan…indicates…it would take…72 hours to fully evacuate New Orleans, and 72 hours in advance Katrina was not posing the lethal threat it turned out to be”
What Harry Shearer, apparently, knows about response planning could fit in a sewing thimble. Shearer makes the statement above as an asserted conclusion based on the known facts–whereas it is neither a conclusion, nor factual.
Preparedness planning does not include response plans that cannot be implemented–evacuation timelines (irrespective of Shearer’s definition of “fully”) are constraints, or inputs, to the planning process. It is these very constraints that “pushes” the response planning process so as to anticipate the myriad contingencies that arrise as a result of a disaster.
And whatever Katrina’s 72 hour forecast was, it cannot be said that she was not forecast to be lethal. With this assertion, Shearer’s ignorance is only exceeded by his dishonesty.
Can I ask a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do Stonehenge tomorrow night?
Shearer is even stupider than you make out, Jeff. He is saying that since New Orleans couldn’t execute a perfect evacuation before the hurricane, they should not even try … and because FEMA could not foresee that Nagin/Blanco would not even try and then instantly teleport everyone out after the hurricane they should all be fired and replaced by Democrats of Nagin/Blanco’s quality.
Insane. Just completely insane.
It depends, can you come up with a midget on such short notice?
ARR ARR! I get it, midget, short notice. Whatta knee slapper.
Perhaps Harry could have flown into New Orleans Airport with 400 or so buses in his pants right next to the giant foil-wrapped cucumber.
Memo to Blanco and Nagin – there’s no real way to “dust for vomit.”
TW – death. Hmmmm.
On Harry Shearer: Amatuers always discuss strategy; Professionals plan logistics.
This post reminds me of a quote by Gen George Patton:
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
Re: “even if doing so jibes with our national interests”
In my experience with the anti-war left, it seems to be ”especially if doing so jibes with our national interests”.
The New Orleans city disaster plan was so small it was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
Shearer shouldn’t be so quick to speak. After all, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”
Heard a recap of Howard Dean on the radio this morning, of a recent appearance on the “View”. He claimed the buses were under the control of the school board, the mayor had nothing to do with them. Of course he also claimed that the Dems keep losing because they keep running as Republicans.
Exactly. When my anti-war friends use this argument, I ask, should we disband the police and the courts, give up the fight against crime, against robbery, rape, fraud, because we will never catch all of them?
Patricia,
as an addendum to your reply, I heard some jerk on some college peace radio network who was a Buddhist convert and a peace activists. When the sympathetic interviewer put the question “would the Holocaust justify a war to rid the world of Nazis?”, as it that would be the only reason, his reply was that he would only support a war that guarantees that no other genocides could happen afterwards. Or in other words, he wouldn’t do a darn thing!
by the time Nagin declared his evac order (and even Haley Barbour warned of “Hurricane fatigue†from previous evacuations), getting people on those buses and SAFELY out of town was a very chancy proposition.
So watching 8 hours of people standing in line to get into the Superdome instead of riding out of town on a bus was a good thing? The Mayor didn’t just allow those people to stand in line, he encouraged it by giving false hope during a MANDATORY evacuation. One one hand we have the opportunity to give the impression we really really really mean it (about leaving town) and on the other we have long lines of folk carefully (or not) getting searched over long periods of time. If he had kept the Superdome closed and said, here is a bus, get out of town or else, maybe folks who DROVE TO THE SUPERDOME would have packed a bag and gone, leaving more room on the bus for folks who didn’t have cars.