I’m not sure, other than bringing up disparate themes you hope will exucse Bush, civil rights has to do with anything. It’s not an issue of civil rights in any way related to what people have criticized the government for in the past whether the federal government can seize and commandeer property (especially state property!) for use in saving lives in a national emergency (declared state on the 26th and federal on the 27th, note). In fact, it doesn’t much have anything to do with anything. Nice try though.
Bush was trying to do exactly that! He went through the proper channels and was rejected by Blanco. Why is that? Isn’t she in charge?
Let’s get this straight. Blanco refused federal help when it was offered (three days before the hurricane hit!), but she now wants to blame Bush for not realizing what an idiot she was and taking over anyway?
Well, he does happen to be the President, right? Managing things like the DHS and FEMA are his gigs. And the ultimate authority in massive trans-state national emergencies in which the Governors and Mayors repeatedly say are beyond their capacity to deal with: that does in fact lie with the feds, right?
I’ve never said that Bush deserves sole blame. I’ve said that the buck ends up at his door. If your subordinate fails to do something, it’s the managers responsbility to see that it gets done anyway.
Please reread my post. The analogy I drew was with an atomic bomb strike. Had there been such a disaster, there would have been no forewarning. The DoHS is supposed to be able to respond to such a disaster. If they can’t even handle this, where they had days to anticipate, where will they be when the bomb strikes?
Blame the locals all you want, if it gives you some personal satisfaction. It doesn’t change the fact that the DoHS’ primary mission is to be able to step up in precisely these kinds of circumstances, yet this has revealed that DoHS is a complete failure, a shill to make the administration look good.
The curtain has been pulled back, Dorothy. Dare you look?
I’m sorry, but that isn’t the situation. First of all, the specific situation quoted in the paper is a lot smaller than “federal help.” She pretty clearly asked for federal help and the mobilization of FEMA. And, indeed, the President mobilized FEMA and empowered them to act. It’s the issue of who has command over the state guard they were quibbling over. But it’s not at all clear yet as to how that affected the actual delivery of the requested federal help.
But whether or not the feds get unified command control over state police (as opposed to coordinated control) is hardly a reason for directly requested federal help, which has no bearing on what the governor wants or does, to be delayed or non-existent. It’s not even clear that this debate would have held up any particular actions being taken by anyone.
You’re proving my point. Everyone had “days to anticipate” this hurricane, especially Governor Blanco. If she had done her job and enforced a mandatory evacuation order (with or without federal assistance) we would simply be looking at property damage today. She could have greatly minimized the staggering death toll we will soon be looking at. Not only did she not help, it’s now becoming clear that she actually hindered evacuation efforts!
She can’t really have it both ways here. She can’t refuses Bush’s help and then blame him for not helping.
The hurricane, but your fragile little mind can not notice that while it is justifible to blame local government on the failure to get the people out, the monumental failure to deal with the aftermath rest with Bush and his administration, they told the people lies on how under their tutelage Homeland Security was going to be effective on dealing with threats to our nation, and there is no way to deny that preparing for a natural disaster was part of that deal.
Your point is utterly irrelevant. Regardless of who does or does not anticipate an emergency, the DoHS is responsible for taking care of the mess afterwards. The DoHS has completely failed in this capacity.
The administration has had **years ** to get the DoHS in shape for this. They claimed it was up to the task long ago. Apparently not.
Contrast with your earlier quote:
" her first worry is that she might be considered responsible for the safety of her citizens?!?!" And how would Bush be doing anything differently if he avoided action because of how it would have, “played?” Look, I dislike people being denied civil rights and due process for 4 fucking years in Guantanamo Bay. 48 hours? Not so much.
I’ll try one more time: there would be no “aftermath” (at least not to this extent) had Blanco not obstructed evacuation efforts.
Again, fighting over who will have command control over the state guard and local police forces is simply not the same thing as “refusing” all federal help entirely, tying up Bush’s hands so that all he could do was sit back and accept guitars from country music stars helplessly. That position, the position you are taking and apparently the implication that the recent spate of administration spin is meant to give, is nonsense.
Again: the Governor clearly is at fault here in many different ways. But the idea that this somehow makes her solely responsible for the failure of the entire federal effort is just a ridiculous evasive tactic.
Stephe96.
You might want to go back to the Washington Post article which must have been written in haste.
They now say on their page Wefuckedupbigtime
So much for that cite.
[sub]fuckin’ liberal media[/sub]
QUOTE=threemae]Contrast with your earlier quote:
" her first worry is that she might be considered responsible for the safety of her citizens?!?!" And how would Bush be doing anything differently if he avoided action because of how it would have, “played?” Look, I dislike people being denied civil rights and due process for 4 fucking years in Guantanamo Bay. 48 hours? Not so much.
[/QUOTE]
Imagine this scenario: Bush goes on TV Friday night and announces, "A major hurricane is due to strike the Gulf Coast early on Monday. Because of the potential for massive loss of human life I have mobilized the National Guard to be enforcing, against the will of Governor Blanco, a mandatory evacuation order. Governor Blanco has determined this is unnecessary but I am overruling her. The trucks are rolling and National Guard troops will soon begin forcibly removing New Orleans residents from their homes. Deciding to stay, to ‘ride it out,’ will not be allowed under presidential order. This means you, Fats Domino. "
Now. Even after the destruction of Katrina, how do you suppose “AirHead America” and the Move-On-Dot-Idiots would be reacting to this? Would they say, “Wow. You know, I disagree with Bush on a lot of things, but this time he showed me that he can determine what the problem is and really move fast to anticipate it. We all owe him a lot of thanks today, and I for one would like to lead the cheer!”? You think? Maybe?
Or would the lunatic libs be howling for his impeachment? “We elect governors for a reason!!! He can’t trample over the Constitution for his own personal reasons! He thinks he’s a king who can just take people from their homes in the middle of the night???”
Be honest. What do you think? (And, no, I’m not saying Bush should not have done something like this simply because of the possible political fallout…)
Wow. She declared a state of emergency. Then what did she do?
I agree that people screwed up at every level. State and Local should have had a plan for getting everyone out ahead of time and for managing police and guard activities afterwards. Feds should have planned for this and been able to swoop in (within 6-12 hours after the hit) as though this were an attack with no warning.
People are focusing more on the federal screwups, not because the feds deserve all the blame, but rather because their incompetency has much greater implications for the rest of us.
We don’t have to worry about Louisiana officials mucking up the response to an L.A. earthquake or Boston terrorist attack. We DO have to worry about FEMA, the DHS and the Bush administration, particularly since they’ve diverted so much money to homeland preparedness and seem to have so little to show for it.
Definitely. Remember all the talk about, “I fucking hate Rudolph Giuliani, but boy, does he ever inspire confidence!”
The whole thing about critiquing a guy no matter what he does seems to be mostly a republican thing. Remember Clinton?
She then went and shot everybody in the Superdome, making her the greatest Governor the world has ever seen-- right, Steph?
Or maybe you could just recognize incorrect information.
Ass.
I’m not in NY so I don’t recall much ‘hatred’ for Rudy…not that it wasn’t there, but it’s not like I saw much evidence of it.
But I have to be a bit more cynical than you, sadly. I cannot imagine, under any circumstances, a situation in which Michael Moore or Al Franken or Barbra Streisand would ever say anything positive about Bush. Their hatred appears to be pathological.
Please. Whether or not she declared a state of emergency is irrelevant to the larger picture of her actually obstructing federal help three days before Katrina hit. She declared a state of emergency. Fine. She should’ve immediately mobilized the National Guard and began implementing her state’s mandatory evacuation procedures. She did nothing. She saved herself and vanished for a few days.