I’m not going to vote for a Republican because no matter who’s nominated it’ll just be more of the same so long as the current junta control the GOP. OK, maybe if the Pubbies nominate McCain and the Dems nominate Lieberman I’d think about it… But even then I’d think hard about it, but regardless of the outcome, I’d figure our leadership would improve a great deal.
So short answer, voting Democratic, long answer, probably voting Democratic.
No one asked me if I thought the occupation of Iraq took precedence over work on the levees. Did someone ask you?
Honestly, you are saying you would have voted for a republican before Katrina?
I am sorry, but I find that very very hard to believ. You seem to me to be one of the most left leaning people on this message board, and that says alot.
Depends on what you mean by “is” … I mean, “before.” There was a time when the Repubs were sufficiently close to the political center that they could conceivably have nominated a candidate who would have appealed to me more than some, say, center-right Democrat from a southern state. No longer, and not since Reagan, really.
ROTFLMAO!! 
Well, the locals had always been asking for more money for the levees, going back decades. But as you point out:
So it’s the domain of the feds, and politicians from Alaska and Montana have higher priorities than some levees a thousand miles away, so they don’t get what they need.
To blame the Bush administration on the levee failures is kind of pointless. Yes, he did slash the funding, but even if the funding were there, the levees that failed wouldn’t have been involved. If you want to blame bush, you also have to blame every administration for the last 70 years.
But talk of the levees is really just a Red Herring anyway. “It’s not our fault the levees gave way” line is ignoring the real complaint, and that is the pathetic and bungled response that is continuing on until this day. And as has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread, there’s no avoiding that the Bush administration and their actions holds a majority of the responsibility for that monumental fuckup.
Always the last to know Part 2: According to Salon:
For those unaware, Michael Brown has just resigned as head of FEMA. (This after it turned out he had never been confirmed by the Senate in the first place.)
Are you sure? I didn’t see anything in the link saying that the ACoE had dominion over the levees. It seemed to just be guidelines on how to appraise them for insurance purposes. I tried reading it a couple times but didn’t see anything I could point to on there.
GlobalSecurity.org implies that the levees are controlled on a local level:
I’m extremely disappointed in the Federal response to Katrina but I haven’t seen anything hard saying that the levees were outside the ability of the locals to enhance and maintain.
This is essentially what I’ve been saying in this and other threads-yes, there were mistakes made on many levels, but seeds were sown which predate the current administration, and I’m happy with an investigation to identify the areas of failure as opposed to rushing forward with tar and feathers.
Definitely. Mustn’t jump to conclusions on flimsy, albeit overwhelming, evidence. Should wait until Thanksgiving.
Better yet, wait till after the 2006 elections.
Are you incapable of reading that I’ve supported a bipartisan investigation into the whole response? Or does that not play into your gameplan of ignoring anything which isn’t supportive of your view that Bush is the antichrist? Some of us on the right send messages indicative that we’d meet at a middle ground, and you ignore them, and then wonder why we conclude you’re unreachable. Nah, strike the last sentence. You don’t give a fuck-candidates unembraceable to the middle and bitching is your mantra. You’d be lost without it.
I’ve found that when I, who generally lean left, advance a moderate viewpoint, only those on the right unwilling to compromise seem to respond. It appears that the same happens when someone on the right tries to make motions towards the middle.
Thanks for being willing to have a bipartisan investigation, danceswithcats. I don’t think personally that an investigation is called for, because I think the problem is obvious. But if a bipartisan investigation is what is required to build consensus between parties to assure this never happens again, I’m all for it.
I agree that certain aspects of the problem are obvious. That said, unless all the issues are investigated, the learning cannot be considered fruitful. From the President on down, I’d like to see a level of report delivered which is equal to those from the NTSB. Yes, Mr. Bush will get some tar, and let that tarring serve as an example to any other person who wishes to occupy the oval office.
I think elucidator was attempting to draw an amusing parallel between the current administration’s previous jump to conclusions based on flimsy evidence and the present rush to do the same in the case of Katrina–he’s agreeing with you in other words.
However, elucidator has a penchant for speaking rather eliptically, plus he’s a bit of a dick, so I could easily be wrong.
I think the problem you’re having here is that so often investigations of the sort you’re describing turn into elaborate stalling gambits, dragging on and on until the public interest in the event being investigated turns into apathy, at which point a report is quietly released to sink into oblivion. I’m sure you’re not advocating anything of the sort, but given the track record of the present administration, that’s exactly what it would be, if not an out-and-out whitewash as well. Something that was mandated to be completed by, oh, next year about this time, well, that’d be different. And extremely unlikely.
My worries about a bi-partisan commission come from the ‘partisan’ part. Even if it’s a truly bi-partisan commission and not one weighted towards the Republicans as has been put forth by the majority leaders, it will end up just mired in politics. An independant investigation, while not without it’s political moments (see Starr), can make more progress if a career professional is at the helm (see Fitzgerald), and have more of a chance to ultimately force the right changes to be made.
My guess is that Halliburton will be assigned the job to investigate.
And regarding those who are saying, “just slow down now, let’s wait, let’s take our time and investigate…” Sorry, but that ship has sailed. If we don’t start nailing down the facts and documents now, there will be nothing to find later.
After the Rove incident and Enron and other such events, I don’t want to give the evil Bush elves any more time to shred documents while we politely wait in the foyer and get tea, cookies and sociology lessons from Barbara Bush. Call me a cynic, but Bush is already covering his ass on television “you say Brown resigned from FEMA today? Gee, I’ll have to wait to get back to Washington to see if that is true…”
This hardly bodes well for an honest investigation led by the overlords.
Maybe we can at least wait until we know how many people died before pronouncing judgement.
Or not. Whatever floats your boat.
This makes interesting reading. From the Congressional Research Service dated yesterday:
Maybe I’m misreading, but this does seem to put the ball in the administration’s court. Blanco did what she was expected to do procedurally, and whatever follow-through (or failure of same) appears to be on the federal level. This, of course, does not address whatever issues (bureaucratic, corruption, lack of foresight, etc.) that may have plagued the state and Blanco’s execution of duties in general leading up to Katrina, but it does seem to answer those who claim that her timeliness and/or failure to follow protocol were in the wrong.