Rove orchestrates plan to blame Democrats.
Normally, of course, such a headline wouldn't be news. But it's particularly heinous when the Bush Administration makes plans to minimize the political damage the Republicans suffer from the lack of response to Katrina, and shift the blame to the Louisiana politicians, who also happen to be Democrats. This would be the same local politicans who have been begging for the federal government to act.
"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff appeared amazingly uniformed on NPR the other day, apparently unaware that thousands of people were at the New Orleans Convention Center in need of assistance.
The USS Bataan has been in the Gulf since before Katrina hit, and has been severely under used in relief efforts. Reportedly, FEMA is the problem.
The role in the relief effort of the sizable medical staff on board the Bataan was not up to the Navy, but to FEMA officials directing the overall effort.It's the same answer the Bush administration gives to all problems: It's complex, we're doing all we can, it's going to take a long time. I remember when government solved problems, instead of apologizing for them. The Bush administration is more concerned about saving face at this point than saving lives.
If you want to know how a Louisianan feels, and you think you can take it, watch this.
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governments
5 comments:
Reassuring to see that the main focus of their activities is covering their asses.
Is that the mayor of New Orleans? I heard he had some choice words.
And yet, there's not a single Democratic politician anywhere that's using the tragedy to attempt to score points against the administration. Huh.
What's funny, is that ABC news tonight was reporting how incompetent the Govenor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans were in asking for help in a timely fashion, or in responding to the legalities that the government requires. For instance, the military, by a law passed in like 1870, cannot step into a disaster and assume the role of lawmen. And yet, all we hear is screaming that the military didn't come in and shoot the looters. Had they done precisely what the Democratic pundits were screaming for, the reaction would have been "Bush declares martial law, shoots innocent people who were just stealing plasma tv's to keep their kids alive".
Let's face it kiddies. You can't have it both ways. I give kudos for ABC for finally looking at news from somewhere closer to the center isle than usual.
This was a tragedy, pure and simple. But I would never presume to Monday Morning quarterback any agency who got the phone call that said "..there's a million displaced refugees, New Orleans is destroyed, there's anarchy in the streets. Go fix it." We'd like to think it would be simple, but it's not. Get a flat tire on your way to work one morning and see how fast your day goes to hell. Now multiple that by a billion and that's what this country is facing.
Sorry, but I am so f*ing sick of finger pointing at this time I can't stand it.
If it's that hard for the federal government to understand that after a hurricane food and water are needed, then the system is disastrously flawed. Anybody with a television knew what had to be done, and anybody with any authority should have moved heaven, earth, and red tape to make it happen immediately. It's not the lack of military response that is most heinous, it's the lack of humanitarian response from FEMA.
Next up from Mkae, "Nixon Did A Lot Of Work For Charity".
The big question is surely "will flooding affect the release of the next Girls Gone Wild DVD?"
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