From the Boston Globe:
President Bush said Tuesday that “I take responsibility” for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
“To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” Bush said.
The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government’s ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.
“Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That’s a very important question and it’s in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond,” Bush replied.
He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.
As for blunders in the federal response, “I’m not going to defend the process going in,” Bush said. “I am going to defend the people saving lives.”
He praised relief workers at all levels. “I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there,” he said.
Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.
It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster.
…And it’s the closest he will come, I suspect.
It’s sad that this country has come to this, demanding, by way of a relentless press, that a sitting President—in order to open the political steam valve and let the partisan hot air dissipate—is forced to deliver one of these generic and non-specific mea culpas.
That Bush is taking full responsibility “to the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right” is telling; his carefully chosen qualification contains the hope that honest assessments will, as seems more and more likely, reveal that the federal response—while at points halting, in the way of all bureaucratic operations—was largely a remarkable success, particularly in that it had to improvise after the total breakdown of the local plan and the collapse of both the first-responder component and the Governor’s hesitant leadership.
I argued yesterday that I believe this response is wrong-headed, but then, I’m not a politician; perhaps the Administration has decided that pushing back against a hostile and misinformed press is not, in the short term, the greatest strategy—relying instead on time (and clearer heads) to exculpate them. Or perhaps they know more about failures in the federal reaction than we do, currently, and are preparing for what they think might be damning information eventually that may soon come to light (as one of my commenters suggested earlier).
But for the time being, until I’m shown differently, I’m operating under the assumption that this entire culture of outrage is being driven by a sensationalistic press and a partisan political culture that has turned political opportunism into its highest goal—including, even, the opportunism inherent in appearing to eschew opportunism itself as a way to assume the maverick role of independent.
Or maybe I’m just a cynic, I don’t know.
****
h/t John Cole, who has more—including pointing to the very reaction I think we’ll see more of:
Now that Bush has taken responsibility, he must resign. He has pleaded guilty. He has admitted that he was complicit in the deaths of thousands of people.
Haul his ass in front of the House of Representatives for an impeachment trial, and then ask him to confirm that he admits responsibility. If he denies this, he will look like a flip-flopping liar; if he confirms that it was his fault, Congress will be forced to impeach him.
Unfortunately, this is all too representative of the fevered state of many anti-Bush partisans.
They don’t want him to “take responsibility”; what they want is for him to validate the last 5 years of their miserable lives by confessing to mass murder and stepping down in shame.
Because, well, they’re fucking insane.
”…the 49% of Americans who have been complaining for five years about George W. Bush being a dictator are now vexed to the point of utter incoherence because for the last fortnight he has failed to do a sufficiently convincing impression of a dictator.”
From: http://www.two–four.net/weblog.php?id=P1878
There is a word for this…”mass insanity.”
Leave us not forget:
Project Life Cycle:
1) Wild enthusiasm
2) Disillusionment
3) Total confusion
4) Search for the guilty
5) Punishment of the innocent
6) Rewards for the uninvolved
SB: seen
to be believed
I don’t think you are being too cynical to suggest that some individuals will hug the moderate label to ensure that they never really have to stand for anything. I don’t know enough about Gandelman to know if that is a regular pattern for him. I just agree with the dude who said that little cartoon face of his is creepy. Other than that, I don’t know him from Adam.
Turing word—Hospital, which is a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.
Yeah, it looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue…
Those asshats are not very forward thinking are they. What do they get for their impeaching of the President? Let’s all say it together now, President Dick Cheney. Do they really want him running the country.
If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.
There are three more verses, and I think at this time, and with this job, they are very applicable.
That said, this is a big story and it will be around for months, not a twenty-four hour newscycle. And that is the problem for the hysterics. The tumult and shouting will die, and the truth will come out. And the public will still be looking.
However it ends, this is a case of He who laughs last, laughs best. And I think the early hysteria of the press will do them more damage than they think.
The newspaper industry as we know it today will exist no more in ten years or less time. The tipping point of declining ad revenue will come soon.
I know it’s a habit of totalitarian dictatorships to declare their political opponents insane, but what can you do when your political opponents truly are insane?
“Complicit”, huh?
That word he keeps using, I don’t think it means what he thinks it means.
Or, more accurately, I don’t think the President has admitted being “complicit” in anyone’s death.
Responsibility is not culpability, and neither of them is complicity, necessarily.
But, then, I know I’m over-analysing an asshat that isn’t being rational about the entire question, anyway. Someone has to.
Bingo, Jeff!
Jeff, I emailed you yesterday about FEMA f***ups. herer’s more, via Daily Pundit:
Mike Walker, former deputy director of FEMA and former acting secretary of the Army, has written an OpEd about problems at FEMA. His broad complaint is that the agency has been headed for years by “indifferent, inexperienced leadership that neither understood emergency management nor had the skills to ensure the agency had the resources to meet its all-hazard mission.â€Â
Walker says that, on a tactical level, FEMA didn’t use the procedural resources it had available:
In January, the final National Response Plan (NRP) was approved by every department and agency of the federal government. The FEMA director failed to use the NRP from the beginning of this incident. Why the catastrophic nature of Hurricane Katrina was not recognized before landfall when the National Weather Service said it would be above a category 3 is inconceivable. The FEMA director knew the levees would most likely be breached. Or maybe he didn’t. The old hands were no longer there to tell him.
Had the FEMA director recommended the federal government declare an “incident of national significance” before landfall, as is permitted in the plan, when it was clear Katrina would be a catastrophic hurricane, the NRP Catastrophic Incident Annex could have been triggered. That would have permitted FEMA to stage massive levels of aid in the region, including buses, even if the governor had not yet requested specific help. By failing to expeditiously utilize the established NRP mechanisms, FEMA was left to implement its traditional response and await state requests.
Walker also seems to suggest FEMA director Brown should have been sufficiently in touch with the situation to detect that authorities in Louisiana and New Orleans were rudderless. That should have moved Brown to start “providing strong professional technical advice to timid state and local officials,†and triggering the timely mobilizing of NRP mechanisms to cover for impending state- and local-level failure.
From Walker’s description, it seems the NRP included substitutes for critical state and local resources. Could it be that Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin were relying on this being brought into play?
It’s worth considering whether having a Federal-level plan for comprehensive resources helped create a welfare climate in which State and local officials formed the habit of shucking their own obligations. Then, when the chips were down, they no more knew what to do than NOLA’s underclass had enough personal responsibility to bring a few days’ worth of water and food to the Convention Center and the Superdome.
Perhaps it’s telling that Blanco and Nagin have since busied themselves calling for every variety of federal government assistance, and demanding to know why it hasn’t already arrived. They bring to mind Paul at Wizbang’s description of the woman “just sitting in a chair waiting for someone to give her something.â€Â
Jeff,
I think Bush’s comments are more of a hypothetical apology rather than a non-specific mea culpa. He is, on one hand, making a rather simple political calculation. Anyone can see that the IMPEACHBUSHNOWORMYHEADWILLEXPLODE crowd will drive the Democrats into demanding public hearings on the matter and I’m pretty confident that the results will highlight the failure of Democrat politicians (Blanco and Nagin) to plan for and react to Katrina. It’s roughly the same dynamic that occurred with the 9-11 commission, and has, unfortunately, occurred cyclically for four years now.
On the other hand, I think Bush genuinely dislikes the nastiness in Washington and will take short-term, off-season political hits in order to stave it off. It shows that he has more class plus it drive the lunatics absolutely batshit.
P.S. I was promised pie, and I never got my pie. Last time there was pie, there was not enough to go around, and I was left out, and the pie ran out before it got me. So, I would like pie this time, please.
I think it’s possible, growler. Rick Moran has been asking questions about a delay in declaring an Incident of National Significance; however, I think the only real relief that could have provided was in the shape of bringing in federal troops, but the objections of the governor brought Posse Comitatus into play, and in the end, having her call up additional Guard troops was the best solution.
Re FEMA’s coordinating efforts being improved upon, you’re right to note that Walker seems to be saying his precognition would have been stronger than Brown’s. But remember: one of the (totally confused) media’s “criticisms” of Brown is that he didn’t request additional resources until 5 hours after Katrina hit—that is, he waited and assessed the situation before calling for what he needed—which, to anyone not committed to judging everything through the comfortable lens of sanctimonious hindsight, seems eminently reasonable.
Growler, the President declared the Gulf coast a disaster area before the hurricane touched.
Discussed in detail about a week ago.
Take care, dude.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Imperfection, Responsibility, or other high Foibles and Errors.—Kostitution of the United States, Art. II, Sec. 4.
I’m operating under the assumption that this entire culture of outrage is being driven by a sensationalistic press and a partisan political culture that has turned political opportunism into its highest goal
You nailed that one right on the head, Jeff. Nothing has any value, especially to the Dems, unless it’s value can be measured in political brownie points. They never offer anything constructive, but with a propagandist press, they don’t have to. The media is literally as politicised as the political parties themselves.
Haha, I just had a lot of fun at lefty expense over on Cole’s site. One person actually tried to use DCCC talking points to prove a point—and linked to DCCC.org!
They were so easy to debunk I felt sorry for them.
What is this “I take responsibility” crap? A real president would have gone on TV, wagged his finger at us, and said “I.. did.. not.. have.. sexual… relations… with… that… hurricane.”
At least until the DNA proved otherwise.
TD, while I have an On Again / Off Again relationship with Cole’s blog, I completely dumped him because of his comment sections. It was like reading the DU comment sections in a bizarro type world.
But knowing your Kung-Fu logic style, I might have to venture over there for that one.
Watching the media and the internet commenters go after Chimpy is sorta like watching old footage from World War One where the soldiers struggle out of their trenches and slog across the mud towards the trenches. Just ‘Over the top and at ‘em!’ no subtlety, planning nuance, nothing. Just straight on ahead right into the interlocking machine gun fire.
Weird what hate can do to you. Simply drain out all imagination or thought.
Word: passed. “These tactics were passed up a long, long time ago. Didn’t they notice?”
I wasn’t gonna comment on this one…..but, I had to drop this in about Mayor Nagin. Seems he has decided to become a NOLA ex-patriot. Moved to Dallas & already bought a house.
I don’t like the apology at all. Do they want Bush to say? “I fully apologize for not being the totalitarian dictator that my opponents have accused me of beingâ€Â, therefore “by the power vested in me by the “Patriot Act†I am declaring nationwide martial law, all State and local governments are suspended and replaced by Federal Regions under Federal control. I am also confiscating all private property belonging to individuals and cooperations. And for the extent of this emergency which I and I alone will determine, all elections are suspended. These actions will place me in a position to respond to the needs of the American people that they, in no uncertain terms, have tasked me with.â€Â
That would be the only way he could independently respond to the next disastor in the way “they†are saying he should respond.
But they know he wouldn’t follow through, he would allow insidious personal freedoms to creep back in,. so they not only want to impeach him, they want to impeach the whole Republican Party. Replace those officials with appointed officials from the “Socialist Peoples Party of North America (formally Democratic Party) who would have the will and foresight to do these things that need to be done.
I need advice. Is the above legally binding? I mean, if they’re actually promising that their heads will explode if Bush isn’t impeached, and Bush isn’t impeached, can we legally require them—you know, obtain a court order—to explode their heads? Wouldn’t verbal contract law apply?
‘Cause I can see all kinds of public benefit from them keeping this promise. Maybe we can even invoke Kelo.
If we couldn’t force them to follow through on their threats to move to Canada after the election I don’t see how that one would be enforceable.
I love my president. He deflated the “bitch” balloon before the left-heads had a chance to get it blown up. Now they can whine about him imitating a Dem…”Give ‘m hell” H. S. Truman. “The Buck Stops Here…as far as it pertains to the federal government’s failures, if any”. I can just about hear Ted, the toad, Kennedy starting to froth in mid-screech!
Kennie! Kennie! We have a legal question. You know, you pissed the bar and tried cases before the Supreme Cunt. Do some research, quickly, before your head explodes.
Mikey:
The president declaring a disaster area does not give authority to FEMA to go into a state without that state’s governor’s reequest. The National Response Plan, however, says that if the fead of FEMA told the federal government they needed to declare an Incident of National Significance, FEMA would not have had to wait to hear from Blanco. The NRP is fairly recent, just having been finalized ni January.
This information was made clear a few posts ago.
Take care too, dude.
if he were to be impeached – it would have to be done by Congress. Congress is controlled by Republicans – so it’ll never happen. It’s impossible.
I agree with dougrc above. Bush just took the wind out of the sails of the left by taking responsibility without admitting culpability. “Maybe it’s broke, maybe it’s not, but I’m gonna fix it.”
The Dems have been outmaneuvered by the President on every issue and it doesn’t appear this will end anytime soon.
And the NPR referes us back to prior statutes, such as the Stafford Act. Unfortunately, growler, plans such as this do not trump statutory law or the constitution. The general police power to protect the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the citizenry is lodged with the state, not the Federal government. The only Federal first responder I know of is the Coast Guard, and they performed superbly. Until the stautory law is changed, it is just a coordinating plan and the Feds play second fiddle and support the states.
It won’t stop the nagging. Giving in never stops the nagging. It merely intensifies it to a fever pitch that you couldn’t have even imagined as the naggers rev up their demands a billion-fold, because now they’ve smelled blood. Imagine a million whining mosquitos amplified to ten thousand decibels.
I wouldn’t blame Bush if he started hitting the bottle again. Me? It’s a good thing I lost my debit card.
TW: straight, as in “the bourbon I will start drinking very soon now.”
Sorry about the misspellings, dude.
Word: Total. “The rule of law can be a total pain in the rear.”
“Tricky Dick” Morris, late of Clinton inner circles, noted that in the long run, Mr. Bush and the Federal Government will be the ones handing out the big checks, once things are settled down.
That’s gonna buy a whole lotta love.
Bush said exactly the right thing here – If it was broke, I’ll fix it.
Is this guy great, or what? I think he’ll go down as one of our greatest presidents, and I don’t agree 100% with him (maybe just 80%).
“To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,†Bush said.
I think this says it all. Too bad that I of the citizens of this country are too stupid to comprehend more than the last three words.
I find it humorous that all the networks are trumpeting Bush’s ‘admission of guilt’ interspersed with footage of how well the current efforts are going.
If Bush had made this pronouncement the day after the storm, each image of death and devastation would have been pinned to him in people’s minds. Instead we have images of hope and rebuilding; levees fixed, power coming back on, people safely in shelters, water levels dropping, the Guard on duty, and stories of survival and perseverance. It’s almost as though this was planned.
(Conspiracy theorists, start your engines!)
These people think every criticism of the administration is cause for Bush’s resignation or impeachment. Have they no idea how their bias calls all their arguments into question?
There was more reason to call for Clinton’s resignation, as the hooraw around his impeachment was obstructing his ability to govern. After all, the Presidency is a branch of the government of all Americans, not just those who voted for him. I never heard any such disinterested argument from Democrats or their supporters at the time.
Had they seen the justice of this point of view, the Democratic Congressional leadership would have leaned on Clinton for his resignation, and President Gore would likely have won the 2000 election handily. But no, everyone was too vain, thinking a resignation was rolling over for the Republicans. Well, the office doesn’t belong to any party, and I wanted Clinton to resign, even though I voted for him the first time.
But Democrats don’t resign. Such a selfish love of power doesn’t deserve a vote, and they have lost mine.
The Flannery O’Connor short story “The Displaced Person” provides the best insight I’ve yet found into Bush Derangement Syndrome. In short, were Bush better – I rank him decent in most areas, outstanding in an important few – the complaints would be even more acute, not less.
I see the leftist fucktards at the Wall Street Journal are advancing their Hate Bush agenda with so-called ‘documents’.
Sandy, you need to provide a link to that stuff. That is how blogs work. Everyone has to see the original in its context. Otherwise you get into a spin/wash cycle and no one debates your points.
Also, I believe this materials was discussed in the comments of one of Jeff’s posts but I could be mistaken.
Sandwichman, two slices of bologna spread on both sides with Miracle Whip© placed between two slices of white bread. Mmm-mm!
Whoops! Forgot to add: “you are.” Washed down with a glass of reconstituted dried skim milk as well. Yum.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Paper_Internal_documents_show_government_bungled_Katrina_re_0913.html
subscription required:
http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112545384939327496,00-search.html
Whoops, wrong wsj url.
Try this one, still subscription required:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112658472240639074,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
With regard to Andrea’s comment, yes—it’s all about the bologna.
Where?
Declaring or proclaimimg the weather to be an Incident of National Significance just shows you that the lawyers have taken over. Irrespective of the fact that this is some recent approach, it is clear it is nothing more than a form over substance initiative.
The larger the storm the more difficult are the logistics of pre-positioning any advance planning assets–changing the name of the challenge (window dressing) doesn’t do squat to overcoming the actual logistics challenge.
Federal government response to natural disasters has always been disaster recovery (irrespective of prior responsibilities–in this case–regarding flood protection schemes). That response consists of federal MONEY, some $60 billion, so far. FEMA is not a federal uniformed force of first responders, siting around 24/7 waiting to parachute in and teleport victims with sci-fi type capabilities.
Local elections are important, but some continue to exhort a belief that the federal government should have known–in advance–that the state/local response would be either (select your answer from one of two choices) A) overwhelmed, or B) inadaquate. And given this omniscient capability, should have pre-emptively arrived on the scene…to do what? Wrest control of safety and security patrols, direct rescue operations, initiate evacuation efforts, deliver food and materiel to shelters, establish medical services.
(And of course, this omniscient capability includes anticipating which of these non-federal responsibilities would go unfulfilled, and having the appropriate amount of resources on-hand.)
In only very limited circumstances does the federal bureaucracy have any capacity in these areas. Additional capacity for providing these first responder resources comes from the state-to-state EMAC pacts. Effective use of such resources must rely on local control and authority, as these officials have the knowledge necessary to prioritize the response to their “at risk population” and local hazards.
A one-size-fits-all response from a federal bureaucracy–all you can expect from Washington–is never going to be sufficiently responsive or flexible to meet the unique conditions of the local disaster.
Which bring us full circle as to why local elections are important. Reliance on local officials, local knowledge, and local competence is paramount to meet the local conditions and requirements. If we cannot rely on state and local officials to fulfill their responsibilities, then on what basis can we claim that someone else will?
Moving boxes around on an organizational chart solves not one problem.
Can you even imagine Clinton talking responsibility for anything, much less this?
In fact, this may just do President Bush some good. He’s got a pair. (In Texas, we call it ‘having a pair.’
Which is way more than I can say for Sandwichman. Hey, S, how’re the hormone injections coming?
Your Katrina coverage has been kick ass, Jeff. This has always been a must read blog for me, but recently it’s been a must read carefully blog.
/ass-kissing
So some OSHA people were late to tell them it probably wasn’t safe down there, some buses were late and some refugees were inconvenienced, and…
OMFG!!!!!!!!FEMA SERVER CRASHED?!?!?!?!?!
IMPEACH TEH BASTARD!!!1111!!!!!!one!!eleven!!
Disclosure: Oh, I should have mentioned, when presenting a link to the Wall Street Journal, that I received a cheque today from Dow Jones & Company.
In Canada, we have another name for it, but nevermind.
I was momentarily impressed with Jeff Goldstein’s erudition when he spun his Hayden White/Richard Rorty rap. But now I see he’s one of those ‘smart’ folks who surround themselves with hangers-on of lesser ability as in “[X]s build castles in the air—[Y]s live in them.”
Evidently the only thing “sandwichman” does with more frequency than whine about ad hominem discourse in engage in it.
BECAUSE OF THE—ah, skip it.
i love it, there’s even a link in this post to the commenter that already linked to the wsj article. way to pay attention sandy!
Why is it that people calling for impeachment these days never bother to specify which “high crime or misdemeanor” the impeachment is supposed to be for?
Other than “somehow lying about something, probably in some speech, or maybe he just said something I took the wrong way, but hey, impeach him! that’s gotta be good enough, right? they didn’t find any WMDs, so obviously he lied and I guess that’s illegal, isn’t lying illegal?”, that is.
(At least in the clamor to impeach Pres. Clinton, it was clear that the charge was perjury, and the specific incident was pointed at quite directly. Whether or not you think it worthy of impeachment, at least there was no doubt about the charge and its specifics.)
That is so unfair! It is so unkind! You have made my self esteem shrivel into a tiny crumpled heap and blow away. Oh boo-hoo, woe is me, woe is me. You putz.
You want to know what’s really wrong with calling for impeachment? Calling for impeachment is like calling for the bubonic plague to wash its hands.
I’m not ashamed, Sandwichman – I’ll reach out. There. We noticed you. Because, isn’t that what this is really aboot, eh?
And I know that your government has apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions, if that’s any consolation.
In Canada, we have another name for it, but nevermind.
In Canada, you also have another name for being raped by a whiskery man wearing dirty moose fur and smelling of stale Labatts, beaver tail pastry and flop sweat – I believe you call it “my 13 year-old birthday party with daddy, eh!”
Just to nail it down, page 7 of the NRP states:
“For Incidents of National Significance that are Presidentially declared disasters or emergencies, Federal Support to States is delivered in accordance with relevant provisions of the Stafford Act.”
It goes on to note that all Presidentially declared disasters and emergencies under the Stafford Act are Incidents of National Significance.
TW: Herring. As in, “What do you call that red fish over there? It’s distracting me.”
BTW, the logistically illiterate NYT article about buses notes that “Greyhound Lines began sending buses into New Orleans within two hours of getting FEMA approval on Wednesday, Aug. 31.”
That’s one or two days before Gov. Blanco got around to commandeering buses locally.
The linked article also relies on Leo V. Bosner as saying career people at FEMA thought the feds should have been mobilizing buses on the 26th. The corroboration? “Others nodded in agreement, he said.”
But the article’s description of Bosner is even more interesting: Bosner is “an emergency management specialist with 26 years at FEMA and president of an employees’ union.”
The article doesn’t say which union, but a moment of Google tells you that he’s president of AFGE.
It’s odd that the NYT failed to mention AFGE in this context, because the very same story already reported:
“In a June 2004 complaint to Congress, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents FEMA workers, wrote, ‘Seasoned staff members are being pushed aside to make room for inexperienced novices and contractors.’”
It could be that AFGE was right; the WaPo has noted that Brown wasn’t the only person at the top who got the job based on connections. It’s not clear this happened at lower levels. It could be that we are witnessing some score-settling. But the NYT didn’t find either possibility news fit to print.
Karl —
That’s interesting stuff, Karl. Can I fold it into post? (If I can find some time?)
You’re right, Jeff. They’re frigging whigging bananas! They’ve gotten so deranged from hatred of one single man that they’re never going to recover. They’ve dug their own graves and angrily hopped down into them and started covering themselves, muttering all the while.
Not that it matters, but simply for the record: with the exception of its editorial page, the WSJ is considered a very left-leaning newspaper.
That isn’t intended to speak to the facts the story cites in any way (though the bus thing, at first blush, is at odds with other reports); just pointing it out for our Canadian friend who seems to think that, because it has to do with money, it must be rightwing.
Proceed.
I can imagine Clinton taking responsibility for any number of things, provided they’re not his responsibility. (Remember his public apology for the Defenestration of Prague? It practically oozed sincerity.)
Hm… slightly OT, but I wonder if “Sandwichman” is actually another nom de dribble for famous Canuck troll Robert ”Sleep Viking” McClelland. It’s just that the way he continually interjects everything he writes with “you putz” kind of reminds me of the way Bwave Sir Wobert used to call everyone ”you rubes.”
As an example of Jeff’s last point: Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson’s hatchet job on Clarence Thomas, later published as Strange Justice, originally ran in the WSJ.
This guy wonders what automatons like us will say about this Bush revelation.
Because, you see, we are automatons. But before you react, please note: he is not anti-Bush. He’s just, well, more of a thinker than many of us are.
My! The burden he must bear, carrying around all those smarts! His neck must be quite thick from carrying around a head like that. Like a bull’s neck.
“Calling for impeachment is like calling for the bubonic plague to wash its hands.”
And pointing out to liberals how intellectually lazy they are is like pointing out to a knife that he’s in Caesar’s back.
Turing word: life. As in Sammichman has none.
~ sigh ~
The similarity of the names of the agencies responsible for preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina does not aid the clarity of the reportage.
In fact, my guess is that it accounts for 9/10ths of the idiocy over at Cole’s website and 99.9% of that at dKos.
So, remember kiddies, the which order words in matters are in.
Department of Homeland Security = FEMA/Federal
Homeland Security Department = Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness
I just read through a listing of ‘FEMA is responsible for {various incidents}’ Most had the DHS, HS Dept. confusion.
The balance of the stories ascribed some vague magical ability of FEMA to take over and control military assets on a whim.
The story I like in particular is the ‘fleet of 500 chuckleheads with boats prevented from launching non-supervised rescue operations by Wally, the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife guy .. FEMA sucks!’
Good on ya, Wally … good on ya.
Here’s the full text of the WSJ piece discussed up thread:
Thanks to Juliette, who has more here, including a bit from Nagin that’s quite interesting.
Thanks, Jeff.
In spite of the WSJ report, I don’t see how any federal agency can authorize itself to overstep the authority of one of the governors.
My program manager tells me I’m a day late and a dollar short on his mission critical project. So I carefully write up the reasons why backed up with the facts and apologize. He screams at me that he’s paying me to go from point A to point B on time and under budget and not to be some kind of “creative writerâ€Â. Man I need advice. Should I go into politics or blogging or what?
As they say down in Texas, just goes to show what a ‘pair’ the guy has.
Phones were broken? No fax number?
Fer crissake, it’s nearly impossible to get out of touch anymore. If FEMA managed to do it, I want to know how, so I can do it, too.
Jeff, that’s because the actual population limit for conservative journalists on the isle of Manhatten is legally fixed at 14. That pretty much accounts for the WSJ and NY Sun commentators.
oops! MANHATTAN
Andrea, I think you may be right on the Sleep Viking thing – does Matt Groening know that Ralph is oot and aboot in Canada?
BILL OF IMPEACHMENT
Rep. Pelosi, Rep. Conyers, Sponsors
ARTICLE I
On or about August 30, 2005, through and including September 2, 2005, GEORGE W. BUSH, being then President of these United States, did fail to declare martial law in the City of New Orleans, and did accordingly fail to send the United States Army into said City to shoot a bunch of black people on national television.
ARTICLE II
Really, we coulda lived off that one for years. It would have been a great photo op, like Kent State and Bull Connors’ dogs rolled into one. The direct mail would have written itself.
ARTICLE III
Therefore, we should make Dick Cheney the President.
Big time.
/ooooold reference
Even if all the WSJ allegations are true, so what? OSHA wasn’t there to tell the rescuers they were doing some really dangerous shit. Some people had to wait on some buses, and the server went down. Given the scope of this operation, is that enough to throw a hissy fit and start firing folks? If so I’m glad I don’t work for you fuckers!
Ich bin Sandwichman aber ich will mich nie mehr bei der Protein Wisdom Beschweren.
Credat Judaeus Appella, non ego.
I’ve looked at the WSJ article excerpt you posted and I’m a little confused. First, the only place I found OSHA as the coordinating agency is in the Worker Safety and Health Support Annex. They are only responsible for monitoring responders and workers, not victims, more on that later. Two, I cannot find any mention of National Institute of Health, National Institutes of Health, or NIH in the NRP. I suppose OSHA can call in anyone they want and I can’t fault NIH for volunteering but they overloaded the FEMA servers with unsolicited material so they were part of the problem. Three, going back to the monitoring of health conditions. What the article described as the function of health and safety experts are described in Emergency Support Function (ESF #8) for which the coordinating agency is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Incidentally, although OSHA is not mentioned in ESF #8, it looks like the HHS can get worker health and safety support from the DOL (of which OSHA is a part).
So what I’m confused about is, is the HHS doing any type of health and safety stuff related to the disaster victims? If not, why not. If they are, why is OSHA claiming that as part of their job in addition to coordinating worker health and safety stuff?
Oh yeah? Well okay. Chiulk bybi kol kaula rasi.
My last comment was a present for Sleep Sandwich.
Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows
[also] Chertoff’s Aug. 30 memo is posted at http://www.krwashington.com
Gibt es ein Punkt zur Änderung der Sprache, Brötchenmann?
For sport, I could insert some fun phrases in Russian. However, that would merely be one-upmanship.
What about continuing the conversation?
tw: let(’s)…not go there.
Mann ist was er isst, Herr Sandwichman. Nicht wahr? Verstandlich, be-yotch?
(Gott – so typisch of Sandwich’s ilk, trotting out his less than gemutlichkeit Deutsch in the belief that it’ll leave the rubes below the 49th parallel gaping at his cryptic parting. Because none of those untermenschen could possibly be conversant in any tongue besides their, own, eh?)
Nothing new in that KR piece sammich posted. Knight-Ridder still doesn’t understand what powers are available under the INE provision, nor does it understand that a pending storm is not an Incident of National Emergency—nor would it have been had not the aid that’d already made it to New Olreans, pre-staged by the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, been allowed by the state into the Superdome.
The left can keep head hunting—I’m certainly not the only one to think that pulling Brown out wouldn’t satisfy so much as embolden them, because they were never after Brown, nor do they care one whit about what’s going on in NOLA, this has and is all about Bush—but nothing in that article changes the facts. There was a pre-staged response, it makes sense when you are a coordinating management agency to wait to assess the situation (as Brown did) before calling in additional resources, it makes little sense to have resources in the way of the storm (or you risk losing those, as well), etc.
Your bullshit is piling up here, Sandwichboy. Like Wadard and Gandhi and Kenny before you, you seem to think we’ll be overwhelmed by the vast deluge of words. The idea is to keep us on the defensive, forced to refute the same arguments over and over again, phrased differently, or with actors switching roles (but the underlying charges remaining constant).
But logorrhea [ed note: sammichman initially posted the entire article—what the hell, right? He ain’t kicking in for the bandwidth—but I removed it and left the link] is no substitute for fact or thought.
And dammit, I want to know how Juliette got her umlauts to come up in her post, because I’m too internet-challenged to get that to work – much less inserting the es-zet character.
RS,
Use Word->Insert->Symbol; also MS Office tools language pack, then cut and paste.
Jeff,
I see you didn’t allow that other post of Sandswichman’s. Matters not. It didn’t answer my previous question anyway.
Kolossal! Thanks, Juliette!
Juliette —
I allowed it; I just took at the cut and paste and left the link. I figure we’re all smart enough to click over should we be so inclined.
Bush apologizes, and Andrew Sullivan and Bill Quick piss their panties.
And O W’s gets moist.
Can someone please ban ‘ken’ from the Internet? Permanently?
No one needs to hear about O’dubs slightly humid Spiderman Underoos. That;s just friggin’ mean.
That’s just disgusting.
Did anyone check out Dartblog’s take on Bush’s “apology”?
The stubborn and self-righteous neocon defenders don’t cut it anymore. Failure and incompetence grow sadly more obvious nearly every day and even peeks thru the cover of our corporate owned media using some pretty creative spin angles and other distractions such as M.Jackson and T. Shivo. And it’s NOT gop vs. dems- it’s just people who care vs. people in power who don’t.
Because obviously everyone here is someone in power who just doesn’t care.
Fight the Power!
Yeah!
Down with the rich!
Like Ted Kennedy, and Howard Deam, and Michael Moore, and…
Word: Get. I get it.
What threw me off was that I was applying for a software trainer position. ,