I actually edited that blog a bit, because I didn't agree with all it had to say. It was too extreme for me so some of it was deleted. I didn't write it, I am just sharing it, although it isn't in it's original form. It went a little too far in parts IMO.
I don't think anyone should accuse me of being part of the American Left. I'm a registered Republican. I've never voted for any Democrat - ever. That being said, I don't think GW is very popular with the true conservative crowd. However - from all the sources, it seems that the local, state, and Federal authorities all performed pretty miserably in this regard. I'm not pinning it all on GW. But the Newsweek article (I am assuming that it does contains kernels of truth), does not paint an entirely rosy picture of him.
If you're keeping track, these boobs let 569 buses that could have carried 33,350 people out of New Orleans-in one trip-get ruined in the floods. Let me explain why this doesnt fly. What people fail to realize about those buses, is the simple fact that with them hindsight is 20/20. New Orleans gets 2-3 big scares like this every year. 80 percent of the time the storm veers off and it doesnt even rain in New Orleans. Alot of people get tired of spending all that money leaving on a day that was supposed to be disasterous and just was another "Normal Day" With the buses, you cant load all those people up 3 days before the storm is going to hit because 3 days before dealing with mother nature, you dont know if the storm is going to veer one direction or the other. 2 days before its projected to hit, maybe you start thinking about it and hope that it again veers off like it always does. 24 hours, you can tell better where it is headed. At this point, people start to take the evacuation call serious and start packing there things. Now you get all the Buses in that bus yard over to the Superdome, #1 you have to gas them up, #2 Where do you take the people, #3 How long do they stay and who is going to pay for it, #4 Whats the point of even putting them on the bus when they will be stuck on I-10 during the storm anyway. It took my family 6 hours to get from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Any other day that is a 30 - 45 minute trip. Dont get me wrong the local gvernment has alot of blame it needs to take, however the after math is what truly needs to be answered for. We did not take care of our own city for 5 days and thats a damn shame
Where do those 33,350 people go? Was the astrodome ready at that point? You are "between a rock and a hard place" - you can't just "drop off" 33,350 people! Having just gotten back from the New Orleans area (I went over to help out this weekend) I can share a lot of opinions - I plan on writing it up a bit later this week after I catch back up...
Is Mayor Nagin responsible for this? 'Racist' police blocked bridge and forced evacuees back at gunpoint http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311784.ece By Andrew Buncombe in Washington Published: 11 September 2005 A Louisiana police chief has admitted that he ordered his officers to block a bridge over the Mississippi river and force escaping evacuees back into the chaos and danger of New Orleans. Witnesses said the officers fired their guns above the heads of the terrified people to drive them back and "protect" their own suburbs. Two paramedics who were attending a conference in the city and then stayed to help those affected by the hurricane, said the officers told them they did not want their community "becoming another New Orleans". The desperate evacuees were forced to trudge back into the city they had just left. "It was a real eye-opener," Larry Bradshaw, 49, a paramedic from San Francisco, told The Independent on Sunday. "I believe it was racism. It was callousness, it was cruelty." Mr Bradshaw said the police blocked off the road on the Thursday and Friday after Hurricane Katrina struck on Monday 29 August. He and his wife Lorrie Slonsky, also a paramedic, had sheltered with others in the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter. When food and water ran out they were forced to head for the city's convention centre, but on the way they heard reports of the chaos and violence that was taking place there and inside the Superdome where thousands of people were forced together without running water, toilets, electricity or air conditioning. So Mr Bradshaw spoke with a senior New Orleans police officer who instructed them to cross the Crescent City Connection bridge to Jefferson Parish, where he promised they would find buses waiting to evacuate them. They were in the middle of a group of up to 800 people - overwhelmingly black - walking across the bridge when they heard shots and saw people running. "We had been hearing shooting for days. What was different about this was that it was close by," he said. Making their way towards the crest of the bridge they saw a chain of armed police officers blocking the route. When they asked about the buses they were told their was no such arrangement and that the route was being blocked to avoid their parish becoming "another New Orleans". They identified the police as officers from the city of Gretna. The following day Mr Bradshaw said they tried again to cross and directly witnessed police shooting over the heads of a middle-aged white couple who were also turned back. Eventually, late on Friday evening, the couple succeeded in crossing the bridge with the intervention of a contact in the local fire department. Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna police department, said he had not yet questioned his officers as to whether they fired their guns. He confirmed that his officers, along with those from Jefferson Parish and the Crescent City Connection police force, sealed the bridge and refused to let people pass. This was despite the fact that local media were informing people that the bridge was one of the few safe evacuation routes from the city. Gretna is a predominantly white suburban town of around 18,000 inhabitants. In the aftermath of Katrina, three quarters of the inhabitants still had electricity and running water. But, Chief Lawson told UPI news agency: "There was no food, water or shelter in Gretna City. We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people. If we had opened the bridge our city would have looked like New Orleans does now - looted, burned and pillaged." Mr Bradshaw and his wife were evacuated to Texas and have since returned to California. They condemned the authorities, adding: "This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt reception given to us by ordinary Texans. "Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept and racist... Lives were lost that did not need to be lost."
the blame should be distributed to both the federal and local governments. although the state is considered soveriegn that doesnt excuse the federal governement to pick up the pieces, it tries to control other aspects of our lives they cannot conveniently decide this one is the local government and nut us attitude. Im not the biggest fan of W but do try to see both sides. It seems as though he is being let down by the people around him, almost like he is the bumbling idiot people stereotype him to be, and the others use hiim as a pawn. if you recall when we first went to war we went under false pretenses tha iraq had nuclear weapons, still they are not found. But W went on the information passed to him. This time it seems as if he wasnt told the right information on the extreme condition NO was in. But if both times he did know and still reacted the way he did, god help us all. As a minority, i do see the situation as black and white, rich and poor, but i also see that all classes and all races saved our country this time. As soon as the hurricane hit the government was figuring out what to do while the great people of this country united as they volunteered and donated their time and money to help those who were affected. in a way it is also great to see the minority communited strengthen to help out. it might be hard to agree that race or class might actualy have been a factor if your not in the lower class or a minority but it is easy to see that if you are in that class only to see images of the extreme situation, i mean days on top of a roof without water and food, people waving the flag and spraypaintng save us or help us on their roofs, eldery men and women floating on items in that sick water, but all you see is one color of people. Albeit, there are alot of caucasian men and women the media wont show that are in mississipi and alabama but from what i know they did not go through the extreme end as people did in NO just my two cents
Halfbreed I'm starting to see a trend with your posts of late of a vast left wing conspiracy including here in the D & D that leftists are unfairly blaming the President and those who support him are being rhetorically persucuted. I agree that sometimes the rhetoric from some posters who don't agree with the president gets overheated and hyperbolic, (and I'll include myself in there too) but seriously you can't honestly believe that the Fed is somehow blameless in this? I agree that a lot of blame falls on the locals but this was a disaster that was obviously going to need significant Federal involvement due to the severity and size of the storm was guarenteed to strike across state lines. While so much attention has been focussed on what went wrong in NOLA we shouldn't forget that in Mississippi there have also been complaints that the Fed haven't acted rapidly enough yet I haven't heard any blame of the local officials there. I myself believe that many have been too quick to blame GW Bush and the Fed. response but at that doesn't mean they are excused from any blame and it is totally the responsiblility of the locals. The locals screwed up badly but so did the feds.. As an executive though he bears the responsibility for the actions of his subordinates especially if they are his appointees. If his subordinates are acting secretly without his knowledge that would ameliorate it somewhat but would also show that his leadership is weak since his subordinates are acting secretly without his knowledge. Merely saying that its not Bush's fault because his subordinate messed up doesn't let him off the hook. Critics of Pres. Clinton rightfully criticized Clinton for what happened in Waco even though Janet Reno came out and publically took the blame. As far as GW Bush getting none of the credit you must be only reading the post from a certain poster who name rhymes with the director of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. GW Bush gets lots of credit for things like rallying the country after 9/11, going into Afghanistan, heck even a staunch Bush critic like me is praising him for nominating John Roberts. Many posters like yourself seem to have a counter knee jerk reaction that everytime people criticize the Pres. its just pure lefty Bush hatred. I would say you should take your own advice to look a things without your own Bush colored glasses.
Oh yes I have a witness to this. you wont here about this in the news either. Gretna in New Orleans is comparable to Jersey Village in Houston. To give someone an understanding of what Gretna is like. Just Like JV, you will get pulled over by the cops for next to nothing. Now I wont say that Gretna is racist, but I will say that Gretna takes care of its own and if you fit the description (whatever they deem that description to be) they will check\take you out. I know this from personal expierence. I was born in Jefferson Parish.
I would like to point out that Mayor Nagin was asked about the Buses and he did say he had made mistakes. But in regards to the busses sitting there. He stated that he could not find near enough people willing to actually drive the buses. Good try though. Deflect away.
Considering that the busses were the primary evacuation plan set in place by New Orleans Government, shouldn't the plan include the drivers of such? It was a dumb plan, but it was the only viable option. It wasn't carried out at all. That's a mistake. I guess that should be blamed on the Fed's, though. The busses sitting in their docks during the flood shows that that evacuation method was never even tried.
I am not going to pretend to know what actually happened (like those of you claiming "LOOK AT THE BUSSES") But seems plausible to me, that with an impending danger, and the second strongest storm ever coming. That many of the supposed drivers, might of fled, or couldnt make it. Lets say Nagin is being truthful and could only of rounded up a handful of drivers willing to stay behind as the storm approached. Would chaos of evolved, as people fought of space on these buses? I dunno, but I can easily call him a liar if youd like me to.
Blanco, Nagin, and Bush should all resign. If it's a failure at all levels, city, state, and federal, then let's have accountability at all levels. If these three are allowed to stay in power, then it basically means you can do a horrible job and there are no real reprecussions except getting re-elected. That doesn't cut it for me. I want all of these guys gone.
personally I find it really hard to believe that it took him 5 days to get the "true" picture. A president is never on a complete vacation. Anyone who kept track of this storm 48 hours knew how this was going to be panned out with all the massive destruction. personally, the only thing I didn't foresee was the local violence (sniping/shooting) and the violence triggered with evacuees in other states. The government (President/Governer/Mayer) have all this plus much much more information and statistics of the most likely outcome. The president or any government leader just doesn't make a decision and run with it w/out consulting his staff. now lets just imagine his staff kept him out of the loop and our country was w/out a president for 5 days (as this article makes it seem like), don't you think he would be in tune with CNN like 99% of the country? Why isn't there a massive outcry for mississippi and alabama?? They are the ones the received a great deal of destruction. The top two topics you hear for NO is the flood and looting/violence. These two go hand in hand. If we could go back 48 hours before the storm knowing what we know now, how would it have played out different?? Nothing at all except there would have been thousands of more evacuated, thus creating less people needing rescuing and less looting. If 75% of evacuees had left before the storm, then we would not have the humanatarian issue we have now. Who recommended the mandatory evacuation BEFORE the storm? IMO, the governer should hold the brunt of the responsibilty. The mayor could have prevented much of the problem and the president was left in charge of putting the fire out.
I was just thinking that I would need a joint the size of a telephone pole to conceivably make it to the planet he comes from. I am utterly flabbergasted that anyone actully believes the things that halfbreed says.
I agree with you, but the following passage was particularly striking for me... If the Governor truly did speak to Bush and ask him for "everything" that could be done at 8 PM Monday, there should have been masses of military personnel and supplies sometime Tuesday. That did not happen in part because Bush just went to bed. I totally agree that blame needs to be properly placed at all levels of government (300+ unused buses truly pisses me off), but Bush's contribution to the monumental f***up that was the aftermath of Katrina was substantial.
I want Bush gone as much as just about anyone here, but I disagree that he should resign. As bad as it was, the HL Security chief should have been on the horn with Bush and should have had troops and supplies to NO by Tuesday. That is as high as I think the resignations should go because no matter how little the member's of Bush's administration want to deliver bad news, it cannot stop the person most directly in charge of the situation, which was the HL Security chief. He is in charge of FEMA and he allowed the situation to spiral out of control by allowing Brown to mismanage it to death. There was plenty Bush could have done and he should be accountable for it, but this doesn't rise to the level of resignation of the POTUS.
I think Bush has to be accountable because he created the department of home land security, and folded FEMA into it removing it as a cabinet level position. If he hadn't done that, the head of FEMA would have never been Mike Brown, and perhaps the previous guy would have had the courage to tell him how bad it was. You are as good as the people are around you. If you surround yourself with yes-men, then you shouldn't complain when you have no clothes on and no one bothers to tell you.
On Nightline tonight former Terrorism director Richard Clarke said that at the Whitehouse they have a document that allows the President to suspend Posse Comitatus getting around any legal concerns regarding federalism issues in the event of a major disaster. Also according to Clarke Posse Comitatus only restricts Fed. troops from arresting anyone but does nothing to keep Fed. troops from helping rescue people or providing logistical support. So even if the Gov. was uncertain or incapable of giving a clear request for help from Fed. troops the Fed still could've acted anyway once they realized that the situation was beyond the controls of local authorities.
Bush supporters who don't see enough blame to go around in this will continue to ignore this reality. It is better to blame everything on the local govts. than have anything land in Bush's lap for this.
