I am going in with a bias...towards the President. You might have read some of my posts here, enough to figure out that I am the LAST person on this board to take cheap shots at the President. I defend him just as much as anyone here does and I also take heat for it. But even I can admit that this administration's response to this national tragedy has been far less than it should have been. So can Newt Gingrich who said: According to an article in the Chronicle. Hell, even Bush himself said "The results are not acceptable" according to that same article. LINK
Bush calls the results "unacceptable" and them praises Mike Brown for his efforts. Typical. Want to know how clueless these Republicans are? Check out this article from CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html The big disconnect on New Orleans The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday. The sanitized view came from federal officials at news conferences and television appearances. But the official line was contradicted by grittier, more desperate views from the shelters and the streets. These conflicting views came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say: Conditions in the Convention Center # FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11) # Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04) # CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you. # Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure. Uncollected corpses # Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate. # Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. # Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead. Hospital evacuations # Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well. # CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. (Watch the video report on corpses stacked in hospital stairwells -- 4:45 # Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03) Violence and civil unrest # Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that. # CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. ( The federal response: # Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well. # Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering. # Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help. # Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there. # Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one. Security # Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. # Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day. # Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation. # Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.
Right, because it's only the big bad Republicans who are doing anything about this. Give me a break. I've already asked one person to do this, but I'd like for you to toss aside your silly political grudges in our nation's time of need. Thanks in advance.
on principle i agree, but how is pointing out that what our "leaders" are telling us is different than what the situation really is being a "silly political grudge" ?
Sorry dude, you don't get a pass with an op-ed that smells as bad as The French Quater. Whine all you want about attacking the source, but the writer isn't a reporter, the article has ZERO references and the "American Thinker" is as blindly, radical-right partisan as they come. Everyone on this board that read the tripe from your "source" should wash their hands to get the filth off. Lets see some more topics from The American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/index.php The Madness of The Left September 2nd, 2005 Exploiting Cindy: Standard Operating Procedure September 2nd, 2005 Race, Class, and Baloney in The Big Easy September 2nd, 2005 Welcome Rush Listeners! It's nice to know that the radical-right is in NO way using ideological politics to dismiss this tragedy--please, crawl back into your troll abode wesnesked
In America, we are allowed to freely discuss topics. Had Mr. "I'm a uniter not a divider" not polarized the country, then perhaps many Amiercan's wouldn't take every opportunity to take shots at him. Bush built this house and now he needs to live in it.
I'm not sure if you read the article or not, but it wasn't like it was super policatly biased. Its hardly a push to say that politics in Lousiaina have been and still are corrupt and this corruption had an affect on how funds are distributed in NO. I never said that the article was fact, but just that it was a good read and that it does give H-town some props.
Well, I love Houston props as much as the next guy! Especially when dealing with Metroplex Back-Slappers in Dallas... But, the article was harsh in so far as saying we should not take political shots at the government, but it's okay to blame the suffering in New Orleans on Democrats (The Govenor) and the "bad" corrupt people that live there. form the article: "Their consequences can be minimized by honest and capable political leadership. It appears that New Orleans could have done much better. We would honor the suffering and deaths by insisting that any rebuilding be premised on a solid moral and political foundation." So....the author is not blaming poor planing, underfunded flood control projects, government or national guard/FEMA/police response, but the inffective POLITCAL leaders of New Orleans and Louisiana. Look at the last sentence: "We would honor the suffering and deaths by insisting that any rebuilding be premised on a solid moral and political foundation", The reason I am hoppin' mad is because we are being called out by the right for bringing politics into this debacle--what is the author saying?
The initial response and attitude shown by US federal government in the aftermath of Katrina are a lot like those of Chinese government in dealing with SARS a little over two years ago. Some heads rolled in China, not sure about here though ...
I think we're all saying that New Orleans has been known to be under sea level surrounded by two major water sources for well over 100 years. Hell, Galveston raised itself after its storm, so the technology has been around at least that long to raise the city. Scores of presidents, Republican and Democrat, have come and gone with nary a thing being done to New Orleans. Yet, somehow this is Bush's fault. An incredibly stupid argument, to say the least.
Now that we spent all this money on homeland security, do you feel more or less safe after Katrina? Bush has made himself an easy target. Personally, I wonder where are tax dollars have been spent if after 5 days we still can't maintain order or evacuate the city considering we had 2-3 days of advanced notice. If we had a chemical/biological attack or dirty bomb, it would require mass evacuations. How safe do you feel?
Actually "commendable" is the proper word. Do you think that the Tsunami effort overseas had as many quickly handled rescues or meals or water provided (5 days or less)? Some of the fantasy world as mentioned above, is in the nature of not understanding the time it takes to organize/mobilize a response. A plan on paper almost always NEVER goes exactly as envisioned. There is lag time in between hearing the call for help and the response... ALWAYS. Furthermore, it seems that everyone forgets that the LEVEE breech was near 24 hours AFTER the storms passing, if not longer. This throws most of the plan already acted upon back onto the drawing board. Over 1000 rescues in 2-3 days is indeed "commendable." Torry Holt, from the NOLA area, said today to the people there, "You gotta leave when the say leave." He sees it correctly. A MANDATORY EVAC was called. This issue of not trusting the government did not spring up after the storm, it was clearly there BEFORE it hit. If local government said "EVACUATE NOW! It's MANDATORY!" and the people didn't believe/trust/heed the warnings... how is it govt.'s fault? And yes, I USE THE ROLLEYES! In response to the truly assinine. This is natural disaster greater than any other in recorded modern history on U.S. soil... how in the world is this preventable? We do not control the weather. Some of humanity needs to realize this, and now focus all of these energies on helping to mobilize response. It's not a movie. Wake up. It's not an individual, or group of individuals' fault. This is like nothing before. And we must think, and act... not throw blame around. Realize how fragile the balance of life/order/civilazation is... and now FIGHT to restore it. Future preparedness, and heeding the warnings to evacuate will tell if we have learned anything from this.
Did you actually follow any of those rescue efforts? People DID heed warnings. They went to the Superdome as requested. People are dying every day at the Superdome. Others were in HOSPITALS. Stupid them for not being healthy, right? This is as ignorant as it gets. You had gangs attacking hospitals. It does NOT take 5 days to get military forces into a city, if anyone actually gives the order. You can airdrop food within 24 hours - it's done all the time. It didn't happen here. It's one thing to get troops in to protect every individual citizen, but you had 10,000 people at the Superdome, and no one even tried to get stuff to them. Whoever you want to blame, this is a clusterf*** of incompetence.
An excellent post, ima_drummer. I guess hell has frozen over, because I agree with Newt Gingrich. Keep D&D Civil!!
Things would be easier if the people of NO weren't forming gangs and shooting at law enforcement and rescuers...
