And the difference between waiting and not waiting is…? What’s the practical difference?
-Joe
That way Laura Bush can get her licks in first:
It’s a not-disaster disaster!
Or maybe the media made the effort to go places you didn’t? Or maybe you “read” all these things the same place you read how New Orleans “dodged a bullet”.
Procedurally, that was correct. In real world terms, once you’ve sent the magic letter, do you sit on your ass or do you behave in a proactive fashion, particularly since you’re supposed to have your own State Action Plan? Yes, the Federal response was flawed. The mechanism and degree of that will hopefully be determined such that it isn’t repeated. Beyond that, the Mayor and Governor screwed the pooch. They had buses at their disposal, could have gotten people out, and they failed to do so. It’s all well and good for me to ask county dispatch to strike a second alarm on the assignment, but I’m still obligated to fight the fire with my first alarm companies.
Come now.
We all know that the only truly valid report will be the one chaired by Dubya with Brown and Chertoff as the co-writers.
Anything else is just a librul circle-jerk.
-Joe
They actually had a FEMA official on NPR this morning defending the fact that FEMA refused to send medical supplies to emergency hospitals – EMERGENCY HOSPITALS, mind you – because the right forms weren’t filled out. The doctors had complained that FEMA refused to send them supplies because they didn’t send the forms in, BECAUSE THE HOSPITALS DIDN’T HAVE FAXES!!!
“Those doctors are used to just snapping their fingers and getting whatever supplies they want,” said the official. "“But this is the federal government and we have to have our procedures followed.”
Un-fucking-believable. I begin to see the extent of the problem.
The hospitals did have faxes of course. Couldn’t use them because their fax lines were down.
Do you really think there is no “practical difference” between discussing FEMAs performance before you know the death toll and after you know the death toll? Or are going to just judge them based on how good they looked?
We all know they don’t look good, but before I crucify them, I want to know what harm came from their incompetence.
Again, what’s the practical difference? If the death toll is 800 will that mean they get 800 Blame Units? Is there a scale where it’ll jump to 1.5BUs per death if it passes 1,000?
The fuckup was huge and it resulted in deaths through bureaucratic wrangling. There were those whose mission in life was supposedly to make sure this didn’t happen. There were people who made their living (allegedly) because they had a job to make sure those screwups didn’t happen. Hospitals went without medicine. Does it matter whether the death toll at that hospital was 10 or 100?
Memories are short, and there are too many people looking to take advantage of that.
-Joe
Latest reports says that the death rate from the Cherbobyl Oopsy is not nearly as high as originally dreaded. From this we can derive that the reactor was better designed than we thought.
Well, really, it’s too early to judge. We can’t know anything until several half-lifes have passed, now can we?
Let’s give it a couple hundred thousand years.
Don’t want to rush to judgement until all the radiation and birth defects have quite worked their way out of the gene pool.
-Joe
Do you have a cite for this? I can’t find anything on Google news re: FEMA and fax machines.
And in the meantime, has anyone heard a single word of contrition or admission of failure from any of the state and local officials?
Have we heard any word of contrition or admission of failure from any federal officials? We have now heard statements of accountability from federal, state and local officials, but I don’t know anyone who has expressed anything like what you are looking for.
well, last night I saw a news clip of the governor saying “the buck stops here”. odd that you hadn’t heard of it, I know you always want to accurately portray the opposition.
Irrelevent even so.
What’s your logic here, Sam? Bush has no need to apologize until everyone else does? Isn’t he supposed to take a leadership role?
I know - culpability starts at the bottom and works its way up, is that it?
In that case, I’m sure Nagin can just wait until every last no-show bus driver has apologized. Does that make sense to you?
Keep flailing, though. It’s entertaining.
-Joe