Bush throughout his terms seemed to be mostly interested in entrenching his own poorly formed opinions and expanding the power of his own buddies nd sucking up to the nutcases. True to from from his previous business efforts and his activities in Texas, he consistently showed a sort of Midas touch. In his case however, everything he touched turned to shit, not gold.
“Mission Accomplished”
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
Enough said.
Oh, no. You’ve forgotten:
“We have full confidence in [Bernard Kerik’s] integrity.”
“I’ve got full confidence in my new press secretary [Scott McClellan].”
“Secretary Rumsfeld’s energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support.”
“Al Gonzales is an honorable and honest man, and has my full support.”
“We still have full confidence, the president has full confidence in President Wolfowitz.”
Now those aren’t all Bush’s hiring (or firing) decisions, but it’s a pretty long list of people in whom he expressed his full confidence, who would have been well advised to start circulating their resumés as soon as he opened his mouth. At this point I’ve taken any predictive statement by the President as a sure bet.
That makes absolutely no sense. 80% of the population left the city on their own accord before the hurricane hit. There was plenty of advanced warning. Bush had already released funds for disaster relief before the hurricane struck. If Nagin had followed his own disaster plan the loss of life would have been negligible. His delay in announcing the evacuation was further complicated by his invitation to ride out the storm at the Superdome (which was not equipped to handle the people who showed up). He’s lucky the center of the hurricane missed the city because it probably would have taken the roof off the stadium.
Many of the people who stayed behind had transportation but chose not to leave based on the Mayor’s announcement. The few people who actually needed transportation could have been moved to the designated FEMA sites if the Mayor and the Governor used the National Guard. The equipment necessary to move the people was already in place (metro busses).
Cite?
Before I link to a cite I’m going to call you on your claim of 6 months first. Keep in mind I underestimated the number I posted.
There are allegations that the Justice Department (the prosecutorial office of the federal government, traditionally and legally mandated to be non-partisan) has hired people to senior positions based on their polical beliefs, rather than experience or education, that they have tilted their prosecutions toward Democrats in, or running for, elected office, that United States Attorneys who refused to go along with the above were fired, that members of the President’s staff have impeded the investigation by ignoring subpoenas, and that electronic documents within the White House were not preserved in accordance with federal law.
The US is big on personal liberty — or at least, it used to be. He has robbed as much freedom from us as he could, while making the word “freedom” itself into something dirty and unpalatable. His legacy, apart from Iraq, is his bloated Nanny-Gestapo state.
He cannot be blamed for Katrina. There was PLENTY of warning-the City of NO and the state emergency agency screwed up. As was pointed out, there were enough school buses to evacuate the population-people stayed because the city didn’t do anything. yeah, FEMA was incompetent, but Bush wasn’t to blame. The bast one i heard was the hysteria after the storm-the NOLA PD had ONE!! functioning boat-to pluck people from rooftops!
Plenty of money had been given to NOLA (for emergency plans)-it was misappropriated and diverted to stuff like yacht club slips (for politiican’s boats).
I guess you missed the video that made the rounds. “Helluva Job Brownie” told Bush directly and in no uncertain terms, that it was going to be very very bad. He did nothing. So, yes, he gets his share of the blame.
I have experienced a few hurricanes. Evacuating is a financial strain with a car and a credit card. It is impossible for people with no resources. I can’t imagine facing a natural disaster with no money or family. Even if Mayor Nagin failed to evacuate the city properly, it still doesn’t excuse the Federal lack of response to a human tragedy that was unfolding on the news in real time. Bush and FEMA claimed to be unaware of the situation in NO. I refuse to believe that we have become a nation that ignores the poor, weak, and vulnerable.
That’s some pretty deep denial, man!
Well, YOU left out “I’m the decider” and “I’m the commander guy.”
But I think I covered the key ones: Lying us into a war (authorizing torture was part of that, really) and abandoning the poor black folks in NO.
Touché. It is obviously the nation we have become, but I would like to believe that individual Americans still care about the poor, weak, and vulnerable.
Look, I don’t want to be rude but you don’t know what you’re talking about. The Federal government was set up PRIOR to the hurricane. Everybody and their aunt was warned about the hurricane personally by the Director of the Hurricane Center. All the Mayor/Governor had to do was see that people evacuated out of the city. That’s all they had to do. FEMA would have taken care of it from there. But no, Nagin fucked it all up. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what would happen because he did. He participated in the Hurricane Pam exercise and there was a plan in place. He made a video that specifically addressed the need to evacuate. Instead, he invited the lost tribe of stupidity to a hurricane party at the Superdome. Instead of sticking to the evacuation plan he trapped them in a city without the resources to care for them or a way to get supplies to them after the hurricane.
Everything he needed to move the truly needy was sitting right there. He could have bussed the people out BEFORE the hurricane hit like he was supposed to do. By trapping the people in New Orleans he caused FEMA to shift resources away from the areas hardest hit by Katrina. He made it worse by not having any type of command center. He didn’t even have a satellite phone.
But to address your situation. I’m not buying the hardship case of driving a car to a free rescue station. That’s your responsibility. If you expect the government to pull a rescue helicopter off the East Coast at $1000/hr because you don’t want to spring for a tank of gas then you’ll have to wait your turn at rescue.
Blah! I am only sharing personal experience about the cost to evacuate and sustain yourself after a hurricane. I think everyone gets it after Katrina. The government will not help you in a natural disaster, if you are poor, too bad and too sad. Not only will the government not help you, but the insurance companies will not pay for your property damage, and government cronies will swoop in with exploited guest workers to build casinos and luxury condos where your house once stood.
I have never read anything about FEMA stations set up to take in evacuees before the hurricane. I’ll take your word for it. There was a scramble to set up places for people to go after the hurricane.
Okay, I’ll go with your argument that Mayor Nagin fucked up, mismanaged the response to the hurricane, and had a blow out party with hookers and booze instead of evacuating people. It still does not explain the lack of FEMA response to those people after the levees broke. The tragedy played out on the news every horrible day. It is unconscionable to me that our President and FEMA, not only failed to respond, but claimed to be unaware of the situation in New Orleans.
Now, if you feel no responsibility for other people and believe the government has no responsibility to help people in a crisis, then you don’t have to worry. The U.S. government seems to agree with you. This is the new world order under Bush, survival of the fittest and most sinister.
Please understand that I’ve invested a lot of time researching Katrina. And if you read my posts about it you’d know I didn’t give FEMA or Bush a pass. But I don’t see how you can say the Federal Government didn’t provide for the people in need. They were bussed all over hell’s half acre to hotels for months and a community of trailers were set up to house people.
As for the days immediately following Katrina, you don’t realize how much equipment was sent into the city. I’m not going to dig through my files but I calculated that they used over 35% of all the rescue helicopters that the Coast Guard had. I’m talking about the entire inventory in the United States. Think about that for a moment. This was a huge logistical nightmare. You have to bring fuel and support for this equipment close to the disaster area. That’s why it’s so important to relocate people away from the area. One rescue helicopter at $1000/hr hauls maybe 4 people versus a bus that will haul 70 people at a cost of $1000 for 8 hrs. I’m probably underestimating the cost of the helicopter. The bus is probably over estimated because that is what a tour bus would cost. The city Metro’s are a sunk cost requiring only a driver, which the National Guard should have been able to provide
It’s not just that Nagin screwed up, it’s that he made it exponentially more difficult to deliver the resources that were already set up somewhere else. New Orleans was cut off from civilization. You can’t driver over a bridge that doesn’t exist. All the supplies and resources had to be relocated from a safe place away from the hurricane to a city underwater.
Federal relief was extensive and immediate. The problems caused by Nagin could not be undone in the blink of an eye. It was a multi day operation to extricate the remaining people. This was delayed a full 2 days because the Governor would not call up the National Guard. 20% of the population needed to be plucked out of the city, one helicopter at a time. That’s a lot of people.
I realize the media hype made it sound like nothing happened but this was a huge disaster from a logistics point of view. Even after 2 1/2 years there are still people living in the trailers provided which I would think is a long time to extend aid.
From a [true] Republican perspective, the fact that he had to be beaten down not to give illegal aliens amnesty is a black mark from which he will never recover in my mind. I would honestly slap him across the face if I ever met him, and I voted for him.
He tried to give the country away (a bit), and he sent my brother to Iraq to police people who will never give up their feuds, putting him in harm’s way.
I honestly disrespect and politically hate him. I drive around with a custom Republican Against Bush bumper sticker.
I hate Bush, but the “I’m the commander guy” was really “I’m a commander guy”, supposedly meaning that he listens to the commanders on the ground.
I’ll defend misquotes from Gore, too, if you want. And I think he’s a self-serving pompous ass.
I disagree…the job you just inadvertently described belongs to local and state governments.