o+, I agree with you 100% that there, was and is, no leadership from the mayor and govenor, which was a major part of the problem. At least in the initally. I especially despise the mayor, after I learned today, that he allowed several foreigners to get ahead of the bus line. His head will roll later.
Understand that the moment the situation is declared federal, which it did on the second day, the local leadership has absolutley no authority. This is a result of new procedures after 911. It seems to me that if the feds (i.e. Bush) are in charge, they should take the hit for bumbbling the situation. All of us have been paying alot of taxes for our government to keep us safe in times of crisis. this has not happened.
I agree with some who say its a mistake to trust them in times of need.
I have not seen leadership in any other areas either. Do you know name the mayor of Buloxi Mississippi?
Honestly, I feel sorry for Rebublicans, since its now coming to light what the rest of us already knew. GWB is a dip shit. I guess only time will tell.
I don't just blame Bush...I blame the entire Bush administration. Bush lamented today how Trent Lott lost his family home and how he will be eagerly awaiting the day where he can sit on the porch of his friend's re-built house on the Gulf Coast....if only the poor folk on NOLA had the same luxury. Cheney is still on his vacation and always AWOL in situations like this. I hope o+ can post a photo of Cheney hugging the locals at the convention center when he decides to stop by and show his support...let alone show some compassion as a human being. Dennis Hassert (who raised issues on whether NOLA was even worth rebuilding), skipped out on the emergency budget bill to attend a Republican fund raiser in Indiana. Rumsfeld is tied up trying to decide if Clint Black should headline the 9/11 anniversary memorials. Condi Rice is shopping for shoes on 5th Avenue! Did I mention that Halliburton has already in line to spearhead the rebuilding effort? Sheesh o+, what country are you living in?
Point blank, in 2004 as the cost of waging a midguided war in Iraq continued to increase and the funds that went to pay for that was taken away from many domestic programs. It was your Bush that proposed spending less than 20% of what the Army Corps of Engineers said was required to mantain the levees around Lake Pontchartain. Why do even think the levees are even there? When the levee gives, water rushes in...and it is the best attempt that the people of NO have to protect their city...a city they would agree probably shouldn't be there in the first place...but unfortunately is. If this administration isn't even going to fund the local states to even attempt to protect themselves...then really what is the point of having a federal budget to begin with, let alone a government?
The hurricane was catastrophic and is obviously itself not Bush's personal doing...but as the leader of his Republican party, it is his administration that is in charge and making the decisions that imapct peoples lives. For the last 4+ years at the helm, he has obviously proven that does not possess the intelligence, the experience, nor the skills to handle what is expected of a president of this country. o+...Do you really this he is the best person available (let alone Republican) to be running this country? Be honest.
Oh...and why were the buses there? If they were completely loaded before the storm...where where they to go? Do you expect the city mayors and governor to lone brokers the evacuation of an entire city, and entire region?! Where are they to go...+o? The Astrodome?? The federal level of government is there not just to collect taxes and authorize troops off to war. There was a catastrophic breakdown on the federal level of leadership and it is Bush, his administration, and his own appointments that were on the clock before, during, and after the hurricane hit. There is no blaming Clinton on this one, there is no Saddam or Osama to blame either...the shit hit the fan on Bush's mis-guided leadership and everyone knows it.
bryden, what you have just said is the most idiotic thing i have heard in a while, everyone is now dumber for having read it.
the cause of the devistation is mainly attributed to the levee breaks,
a system that since the 1970's (yes bryden, that is way before a bush administration you can convieniently blame for everything) has been woefully inadequate, because of the leadership in louisiana and new orleans pissing away money to other pointless political issues. even if at the beginning of the bush admin they would have quadrupled the levee budget, it's a 20 year min. project, and we would still have the same situation.
again, blame lies at the feet of the governor and mayor, people who should have known better, and been leaders.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 legislated Federal regulation of certain wetlands. While the boundaries of their power are fuzzy and continually up for debate, I think in this case the Federal government had a clear responsibility (or at least the legal right) for regulation due to the close connection of these wetlands to interstate commerce (the Port of New Orleans) and navigation (Mississippi River, Gulf of Mexico).
It also could be argued that the Federal government had a responsibilty to regulate all of the waters surrounding New Orleans, including taking measures to protect the city from flooding, with NO being one of nation's (and the world's) largest and busiest ports.
This has been well established even before the Clean Water Act, all the way back to the Rivers and Harbors act of 1899.
What I absolutely despise about Bush (well, among so many other things...but right now) is that he has no idea of how to say "the buck stops here." He is back from Crawford in DC but his little mind is permanently in Texas. The way he uses words like "that is unacceptable" implies that those DC paper-pusher federales don't know how to do things. He has always represented himself as a western outlaw outsider ("bring em on", "dead or alive") despite the fact he is the consumate eastern aristocrat and despite the fact that HE is the one who is supposed to be leading, not playing catch up after several weeks on the ranch. In the same way that he blames the CIA (his dad's own pet agency) for "intelligence failures," he's also passing the buck now.
am i missing something here? since when is the U.S. president some kind of king or dictator that micromanages everything? he's largely a figurehead, a leader, not involved in the nuts and bolts.
the president doesn't have the authority to hire and fire state (elected) officials. the symbolic 'buck' always stops with the president, but who is really responsible?...for the failure to evacuate their residents? who gave the call to evacuate 18 hours before instead of 72? for the 20% of New Orleaners who neglected to evacuate? for slow federal response?
hurricane contingency plans are made by Louisiana & New Orleans, not by Bush.
maybe there is no single person 'responsible' (though New Orleans city officials ought to take the brunt of the blame), maybe it's the fact that a 'competent, quick-acting, efficient government' is an oxymoron....a truth that daily clogs the arteries of well-intentioned liberals.
Bush has accomlished everything that he and his administartion have set out to do, that is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.Why wouldn't he deserve to take a year of vacation, his mission has already been accomplished and he'll eventually get around to helping out those in
New Orleans when he is good and ready.
"In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.
as a former louisianan/new orleanian and a frequent visitor to the gulf coast of mississippi, the idea that the state and local officials could possibly have had the resources to take a leadership role is laughable. it's not leadership and organization so much as lack of money. louisiana and mississippi are poor states and have been trying to simply stay afloat economically for the last two decades.
mintcar's posting of the job of homeland security (hsa), when considered together with the federal downgrading of formerly protected wetlands and barrier islands so that they could be developed (epa), reassignment of funds for levee construction/restoration and flood management (corps of engineers) to the war effort (pentagon) when everyone knew about the decade-long hurricane trend that we're in (noaa), make this a federal issue.
I would be defensive too if I realized that I have been supporting a political party, an administration, and a man who was obviously has no clue as to the destructive consequences of their/his political actions.
Bush plays the figurehead well, it comes from the priviledged life he has always lived. The Texas social elite trains his type well to appear every bit the leader, while always delegating the difficult and dirty work to others. Bush is not a well-read man and he has been comfortably isolated his entire life from the struggles that many in this country, let alone the world, has had to endure. In the end, I think he will be looked at as a tragic figure...an frankly dim-witted and manipulated man led to believe that if he plays the part well enough, then he could actually run the United States of America.
I would really like to support my president, regardless of his party affiliation...but c'mon, how many f*ck-ups are you going to give these people before realizing that things don't have to be this way. If o+ and nicomachean want to rationalize this as simplistic liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, Franken/Coulter argument...then that is what is idiotic. I am as much of a Democratic liberal who supported Clinton as I am a Republican conservative who supported Reagan. My criticism is as an concerned and embarrassed American and is not limited to party lines or political agenda. People died this week needlessly and people lives are now catastrophically destroyed because of specific decisions and policies that were made and put into action by this administration. This sh*t has been going on now for over 4 years.
great posts. nicomachean... my point also goes beyond "whose fault was it anyway". in a time like this, it's the president who should, no matter who was supposed to do what, act as a unifier. kanye west's comments -unscripted- on national tv should give the president some clue that this is metastasizing into an ever-growing abyss nationwide. he should say "i'm responsible" and "i'm going to carry the ball".
people died and are dying, bryden, because of a hurricane, broken levee's and a complete lack of preparedness and evacuation plan by both the mayor of NO and the governor.
this imbicilic blaming of the bush administration shows an ignorance of history (the fact that the levee problem is over 40 years old, and NOT a federal problem) and a simplistic assesment of the actual difficulties of the situation. it's sad that a terrible disaster is seen as an opportunity to blindly attack bush.
yeah, javier, kanye west's racist comments will really bring the nation together, using a relief effort to accuse the president of not caring about blacks, and supporting the killing of them in NO?
WTF is wrong with you people that you would actually use those
comments as a positive?
disgusting.
I'm so pissed right now, if only because FEMA and Homeland security knew for DAYS that a Hurricane was going to hit the Gulf Coast... and the Feds weren't prepared for shit. They've been training all of this time to respond to a terrorist attack that they don't know about, and here they have advanced warning and 5 days later we are still seeing old people dying in their wheelchairs, hundreds waiting on levees for days to be rescued, and thousands waiting in designated emergency centers who haven't had water for 72 hours. It's unforgivable, and I am frankly ashamed that this is what this country, which up until a few days ago I considered one of the most civililized in the world, has done to its own citizens. I'm a moderate, but if Chertoff and our President don't know as much as me, who is sitting at home watching CNN and reading the newspaper, they should get the f--- out of the way and let someone else run the show.
Just one more thing.... clearly local government dropped the ball - but when that happens, whose responsibility is it to pick up the peices? I simply reject the fact that we can pin this all on local emergency responders who were obliterated and rendered ineffective by a loss of command and communication after the storm. Is the federal government not supposed to be the safety net?
o+ ... you have excellent reading abilites because my post really did mention in there somewhere something about kanye west "unifying" and the country becoming more unified. WTF is wrong with your screen?
javier, if you think Kanye's diatribe was unifying, you must be wearing earphones and listening to the beatles, since when does racism = unification?
sad.
o+ ... what I wrote: kanye west's comments -unscripted- on national tv should give the president some clue that this is metastasizing into an ever-growing abyss nationwide. If you think you have the reading ability to pass an SAT with a decent score, think again.
The levees broke on Tuesday in New Orleans. On Wednesday and Thursday, we started evacuating people ... I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results,Bush told reporters in Biloxi.
o+: what kanye west said just laid bare what people have been thinking but hiding for a long long time. it's not just "president bush doesn't care about black people;" it's "president bush doesn't care about POOR people." how the hell are these racist comments? racist against whom?
he was able to honestly express what we all knew but didn't have the guts to say.
the truth is, we should be having this dialogue. we all have to wonder if the relief effort would be significantly better if the victims had money and influence. (answer: yes)
don't be a child, javier, you know what Kanye's comments were really about- an ignorant jab at the bush admin. but i see you work the same way so i'll leave it at that.
What anal cavity have you been sticking your ear up to, o+? If you think Kanye West is a racist, then here I go...I'll be a racist too and repeat verbatim his words because I truly agree with him. George Bush doesn't care about black people. There I said it. Call me racist. And I'll respond with something else. Everyone else he works with, including Condoleeza Rice, is a racist who know only of helping blacks via gi bills that require them to mortgage their lives or through "shoot to kill" policies in the old south.
Janosh, I'm with you: I'm embarassed, I'm ashamed, and I'm scared. If a disaster that we could see coming several days in advance is this badly mishandled, what's going to happen at the next terrorist attack, or huge earthquake, or whatever unforseen event that lurks out there?
Setting aside blame and party politics, I'm just talking logistics: we're supposed to be the most advanced nation, and look at us humbled by inefficiency and selfishness. Watching Mary Landrieu (dem senator) trying to look like she's suffering because her family's (no doubt huge) homes were all lost and she's thanking the president for coming to visit, when on the next channel I'm seeing a crying woman holding an 11-month-old baby with no diaper on because there flat out are none to be had, just like there's no food and water for any of the thousands still trapped in NO - well, fuck. I'm ashamed. And scared.
wow, if you actually believe that, i feel sorry for you javier. i was hoping this disaster would bring out the best in people, but obviously
vitriolic circle jerking brings about unification quicker. keep up the good work.
I'm not about to be "unified" with anyone that thinks this is okay, or that the federal government did everything that they could have. It's not okay, and we should have done better. After the folks that are left are safe, heads better fucking roll.
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04bush.html?hp&ex=1125806400&en=23cce9f23aa42f66&ei=5094&partner=homepage]As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis
[/url]
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: September 4, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 - Faced with one of the worst political crises of his presidency, President Bush abruptly overhauled his September schedule on Saturday as the White House scrambled to gain control of a situation that Republicans said threatened to undermine Mr. Bush's second-term agenda and the party's long-term ambitions.
In a sign of the mounting anxiety at the White House, Mr. Bush made a rare Saturday appearance in the Rose Garden before live television cameras to announce he was dispatching additional active-duty troops to the Gulf region. He struck a more somber tone than he had at times on Friday during a daylong tour of the disaster region, when he had joked at the airport in New Orleans about the fun he had had in his younger days in Houston. His demeanor on Saturday was similar to that of his most somber speeches after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," said Mr. Bush, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
All of a sudden the hurricane moral is PLUR? Peace Love Unity Respect
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a live interview...
<<Her condescending filibuster continued: "Anderson, tonight, I don't know if you've heard—maybe you all have announced it—but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a $10 billion supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating.">>
Cooper suspended the traditional TV rules of decorum and, approaching tears of fury, said:
Anderson Cooper << Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.
And when they hear politicians slap—you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up.
Do you get the anger that is out here? …
I mean, I know you say there's a time and a place for, kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. I mean, there are people who want answers, and there are people who want someone to stand up and say, "You know what? We should have done more. Are all the assets being brought to bear?" >>
As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis ?? And should anyone remind that the Valerie Plame-Wilson Grand Jury term is close to expiring? Well? What if in the midst of all this a few of them Rangers get lassoed up with indictments?
o+, please feel sorry for all of us who believe that george bush doesn't care about black people. the tragedy of the aftermath was just unavoidable.
NO. the tragedy was avoidable. it absolutely has to do with race and class.
these issues MUST be addressed. don't fool yourself into thinking it has nothing to do with race and class. if you fail to talk about these things, the recovery of the Gulf Coast will be severely flawed.
It IS about unification, o+. everyone's needs MUST be addressed, or they will be neglected, as the tens of thousands have been neglected by the federal government for the past five days.
I didnt read the whole article, but prior to the flooding many states offered the feds equipment and resources. None were accepted. For instance, Chicago Mayor Daley said he spoke to FEMA officels and was ready to send equipment, mapower etc. FEMA accepted was on small fire truck. Some People in Mississippi are still waitng for help.
The Bursting Point
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 4, 2005
As Ross Douthat observed on his blog, The American Scene, Katrina was the anti-9/11.
On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.
Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.
The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.
And the key fact to understanding why this is such a huge cultural moment is this: Last week's national humiliation comes at the end of a string of confidence-shaking institutional failures that have cumulatively changed the nation's psyche.
Over the past few years, we have seen intelligence failures in the inability to prevent Sept. 11 and find W.M.D.'s in Iraq. We have seen incompetent postwar planning. We have seen the collapse of Enron and corruption scandals on Wall Street. We have seen scandals at our leading magazines and newspapers, steroids in baseball, the horror of Abu Ghraib.
Public confidence has been shaken too by the steady rain of suicide bombings, the grisly horror of Beslan and the world's inability to do anything about rising oil prices.
Each institutional failure and sign of helplessness is another blow to national morale. The sour mood builds on itself, the outraged and defensive reaction to one event serving as the emotional groundwork for the next.
The scrapbook of history accords but a few pages to each decade, and it is already clear that the pages devoted to this one will be grisly. There will be pictures of bodies falling from the twin towers, beheaded kidnapping victims in Iraq and corpses still floating in the waterways of New Orleans five days after the disaster that caused them.
It's already clear this will be known as the grueling decade, the Hobbesian decade. Americans have had to acknowledge dark realities that it is not in our nature to readily acknowledge: the thin veneer of civilization, the elemental violence in human nature, the lurking ferocity of the environment, the limitations on what we can plan and know, the cumbersome reactions of bureaucracies, the uncertain progress good makes over evil.
As a result, it is beginning to feel a bit like the 1970's, another decade in which people lost faith in their institutions and lost a sense of confidence about the future.
"Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown/What a mess! This town's in tatters/I've been shattered," Mick Jagger sang in 1978.
Midge Decter woke up the morning after the night of looting during the New York blackout of 1977 feeling as if she had "been given a sudden glimpse into the foundations of one's house and seen, with horror, that it was utterly infested and rotting away."
Americans in 2005 are not quite in that bad a shape, since the fundamental realities of everyday life are good. The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.
Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.
We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
"...Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet."
In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.
The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.
"...contrast the Louisiana situation with the one next door in Mississippi - Gov. Barbour (R-MS). What's been lost in all the blather over New Orleans is that it was really Mississippi that took the big hit. The buildings in New Orleans are still standing; the Gulf Coast of Mississippi basically has been scrubbed, like God took out a pencil eraser and just erased it...I really don't like to find fault at times like this, but one thing that was missing was a quick recognition that in such a situation the potential for civil collapse is nearly 100%. Once the weather settles, you need to immediately declare marshal law and send in the MPs. That's basically what Haley Barbour did in Mississippi - there were a few early problems but very quickly the MPs were patrolling what was left of Biloxi and Gulfport and keeping a lid on things. Back on Tuesday when I put on the news and we all saw Kathleen Blanco bursting into tears, I knew that was the wrong message and would bring trouble. Louisiana and New Orleans basically have those touchy-feely, "I'm okay, you're okay" soft-leftie types in charge. Their education took a few days and has been expensive.
Amidst all the hyperventilating that's going on, it's actually a good time for a civics lesson, particularly watching the competence of the people in Mississippi and the gross incompetence of almost all concerned in Louisiana....Mississippi got hammered much worse than Louisiana but is barely in the news because the leadership has been much more competent. Ms. Blanco is clearly way out of her league in this situation.
This was a good reminder that LA has for decades been our worst managed and most corrupt state...."
nicomavhean,
Your pointing out the obvoius and your argument sophmoric. The whole world knows that the evacuation plan failed and that the mayor and govenor were clearly unable to show leadership. But so did the President.
The fact remains that this situation was predicted and, by law, it is the job of the federal government to midigate. Which they failed miserably.
when the levee breaks...
o+, I agree with you 100% that there, was and is, no leadership from the mayor and govenor, which was a major part of the problem. At least in the initally. I especially despise the mayor, after I learned today, that he allowed several foreigners to get ahead of the bus line. His head will roll later.
Understand that the moment the situation is declared federal, which it did on the second day, the local leadership has absolutley no authority. This is a result of new procedures after 911. It seems to me that if the feds (i.e. Bush) are in charge, they should take the hit for bumbbling the situation. All of us have been paying alot of taxes for our government to keep us safe in times of crisis. this has not happened.
I agree with some who say its a mistake to trust them in times of need.
I have not seen leadership in any other areas either. Do you know name the mayor of Buloxi Mississippi?
Honestly, I feel sorry for Rebublicans, since its now coming to light what the rest of us already knew. GWB is a dip shit. I guess only time will tell.
I am going to go get drunk!!!
o+
I don't just blame Bush...I blame the entire Bush administration. Bush lamented today how Trent Lott lost his family home and how he will be eagerly awaiting the day where he can sit on the porch of his friend's re-built house on the Gulf Coast....if only the poor folk on NOLA had the same luxury. Cheney is still on his vacation and always AWOL in situations like this. I hope o+ can post a photo of Cheney hugging the locals at the convention center when he decides to stop by and show his support...let alone show some compassion as a human being. Dennis Hassert (who raised issues on whether NOLA was even worth rebuilding), skipped out on the emergency budget bill to attend a Republican fund raiser in Indiana. Rumsfeld is tied up trying to decide if Clint Black should headline the 9/11 anniversary memorials. Condi Rice is shopping for shoes on 5th Avenue! Did I mention that Halliburton has already in line to spearhead the rebuilding effort? Sheesh o+, what country are you living in?
Point blank, in 2004 as the cost of waging a midguided war in Iraq continued to increase and the funds that went to pay for that was taken away from many domestic programs. It was your Bush that proposed spending less than 20% of what the Army Corps of Engineers said was required to mantain the levees around Lake Pontchartain. Why do even think the levees are even there? When the levee gives, water rushes in...and it is the best attempt that the people of NO have to protect their city...a city they would agree probably shouldn't be there in the first place...but unfortunately is. If this administration isn't even going to fund the local states to even attempt to protect themselves...then really what is the point of having a federal budget to begin with, let alone a government?
The hurricane was catastrophic and is obviously itself not Bush's personal doing...but as the leader of his Republican party, it is his administration that is in charge and making the decisions that imapct peoples lives. For the last 4+ years at the helm, he has obviously proven that does not possess the intelligence, the experience, nor the skills to handle what is expected of a president of this country. o+...Do you really this he is the best person available (let alone Republican) to be running this country? Be honest.
Oh...and why were the buses there? If they were completely loaded before the storm...where where they to go? Do you expect the city mayors and governor to lone brokers the evacuation of an entire city, and entire region?! Where are they to go...+o? The Astrodome?? The federal level of government is there not just to collect taxes and authorize troops off to war. There was a catastrophic breakdown on the federal level of leadership and it is Bush, his administration, and his own appointments that were on the clock before, during, and after the hurricane hit. There is no blaming Clinton on this one, there is no Saddam or Osama to blame either...the shit hit the fan on Bush's mis-guided leadership and everyone knows it.
bryden, what you have just said is the most idiotic thing i have heard in a while, everyone is now dumber for having read it.
the cause of the devistation is mainly attributed to the levee breaks,
a system that since the 1970's (yes bryden, that is way before a bush administration you can convieniently blame for everything) has been woefully inadequate, because of the leadership in louisiana and new orleans pissing away money to other pointless political issues. even if at the beginning of the bush admin they would have quadrupled the levee budget, it's a 20 year min. project, and we would still have the same situation.
again, blame lies at the feet of the governor and mayor, people who should have known better, and been leaders.
but o+, they want a christ to crucify...cause someone made them cry.
..if we're lucky, they'll take their ball and go home.
The Clean Water Act of 1972 legislated Federal regulation of certain wetlands. While the boundaries of their power are fuzzy and continually up for debate, I think in this case the Federal government had a clear responsibility (or at least the legal right) for regulation due to the close connection of these wetlands to interstate commerce (the Port of New Orleans) and navigation (Mississippi River, Gulf of Mexico).
It also could be argued that the Federal government had a responsibilty to regulate all of the waters surrounding New Orleans, including taking measures to protect the city from flooding, with NO being one of nation's (and the world's) largest and busiest ports.
This has been well established even before the Clean Water Act, all the way back to the Rivers and Harbors act of 1899.
o+, ppl are blaming bush for the lack of response and preparedness not the flooding or the hurricane. even bush has admitted they have faltered >>
"The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
What I absolutely despise about Bush (well, among so many other things...but right now) is that he has no idea of how to say "the buck stops here." He is back from Crawford in DC but his little mind is permanently in Texas. The way he uses words like "that is unacceptable" implies that those DC paper-pusher federales don't know how to do things. He has always represented himself as a western outlaw outsider ("bring em on", "dead or alive") despite the fact he is the consumate eastern aristocrat and despite the fact that HE is the one who is supposed to be leading, not playing catch up after several weeks on the ranch. In the same way that he blames the CIA (his dad's own pet agency) for "intelligence failures," he's also passing the buck now.
agreed javier.
am i missing something here? since when is the U.S. president some kind of king or dictator that micromanages everything? he's largely a figurehead, a leader, not involved in the nuts and bolts.
the president doesn't have the authority to hire and fire state (elected) officials. the symbolic 'buck' always stops with the president, but who is really responsible?...for the failure to evacuate their residents? who gave the call to evacuate 18 hours before instead of 72? for the 20% of New Orleaners who neglected to evacuate? for slow federal response?
hurricane contingency plans are made by Louisiana & New Orleans, not by Bush.
maybe there is no single person 'responsible' (though New Orleans city officials ought to take the brunt of the blame), maybe it's the fact that a 'competent, quick-acting, efficient government' is an oxymoron....a truth that daily clogs the arteries of well-intentioned liberals.
Bush has accomlished everything that he and his administartion have set out to do, that is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.Why wouldn't he deserve to take a year of vacation, his mission has already been accomplished and he'll eventually get around to helping out those in
New Orleans when he is good and ready.
From the Department of Homeland Security Website:
"In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.
...Who's job? Michael Chertoff.
as a former louisianan/new orleanian and a frequent visitor to the gulf coast of mississippi, the idea that the state and local officials could possibly have had the resources to take a leadership role is laughable. it's not leadership and organization so much as lack of money. louisiana and mississippi are poor states and have been trying to simply stay afloat economically for the last two decades.
mintcar's posting of the job of homeland security (hsa), when considered together with the federal downgrading of formerly protected wetlands and barrier islands so that they could be developed (epa), reassignment of funds for levee construction/restoration and flood management (corps of engineers) to the war effort (pentagon) when everyone knew about the decade-long hurricane trend that we're in (noaa), make this a federal issue.
good summary of the current situation.
I would be defensive too if I realized that I have been supporting a political party, an administration, and a man who was obviously has no clue as to the destructive consequences of their/his political actions.
Bush plays the figurehead well, it comes from the priviledged life he has always lived. The Texas social elite trains his type well to appear every bit the leader, while always delegating the difficult and dirty work to others. Bush is not a well-read man and he has been comfortably isolated his entire life from the struggles that many in this country, let alone the world, has had to endure. In the end, I think he will be looked at as a tragic figure...an frankly dim-witted and manipulated man led to believe that if he plays the part well enough, then he could actually run the United States of America.
I would really like to support my president, regardless of his party affiliation...but c'mon, how many f*ck-ups are you going to give these people before realizing that things don't have to be this way. If o+ and nicomachean want to rationalize this as simplistic liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, Franken/Coulter argument...then that is what is idiotic. I am as much of a Democratic liberal who supported Clinton as I am a Republican conservative who supported Reagan. My criticism is as an concerned and embarrassed American and is not limited to party lines or political agenda. People died this week needlessly and people lives are now catastrophically destroyed because of specific decisions and policies that were made and put into action by this administration. This sh*t has been going on now for over 4 years.
great posts. nicomachean... my point also goes beyond "whose fault was it anyway". in a time like this, it's the president who should, no matter who was supposed to do what, act as a unifier. kanye west's comments -unscripted- on national tv should give the president some clue that this is metastasizing into an ever-growing abyss nationwide. he should say "i'm responsible" and "i'm going to carry the ball".
people died and are dying, bryden, because of a hurricane, broken levee's and a complete lack of preparedness and evacuation plan by both the mayor of NO and the governor.
this imbicilic blaming of the bush administration shows an ignorance of history (the fact that the levee problem is over 40 years old, and NOT a federal problem) and a simplistic assesment of the actual difficulties of the situation. it's sad that a terrible disaster is seen as an opportunity to blindly attack bush.
yeah, javier, kanye west's racist comments will really bring the nation together, using a relief effort to accuse the president of not caring about blacks, and supporting the killing of them in NO?
WTF is wrong with you people that you would actually use those
comments as a positive?
disgusting.
I'm so pissed right now, if only because FEMA and Homeland security knew for DAYS that a Hurricane was going to hit the Gulf Coast... and the Feds weren't prepared for shit. They've been training all of this time to respond to a terrorist attack that they don't know about, and here they have advanced warning and 5 days later we are still seeing old people dying in their wheelchairs, hundreds waiting on levees for days to be rescued, and thousands waiting in designated emergency centers who haven't had water for 72 hours. It's unforgivable, and I am frankly ashamed that this is what this country, which up until a few days ago I considered one of the most civililized in the world, has done to its own citizens. I'm a moderate, but if Chertoff and our President don't know as much as me, who is sitting at home watching CNN and reading the newspaper, they should get the f--- out of the way and let someone else run the show.
Just one more thing.... clearly local government dropped the ball - but when that happens, whose responsibility is it to pick up the peices? I simply reject the fact that we can pin this all on local emergency responders who were obliterated and rendered ineffective by a loss of command and communication after the storm. Is the federal government not supposed to be the safety net?
o+ ... you have excellent reading abilites because my post really did mention in there somewhere something about kanye west "unifying" and the country becoming more unified. WTF is wrong with your screen?
javier, if you think Kanye's diatribe was unifying, you must be wearing earphones and listening to the beatles, since when does racism = unification?
sad.
o+: "the fact that the levee problem is over 40 years old, and NOT a federal problem"
are the corps of engineers a local agency or a state agency?
'cause they're not letting anyone else anywhere near the levees - to do anything...
o+ ... what I wrote: kanye west's comments -unscripted- on national tv should give the president some clue that this is metastasizing into an ever-growing abyss nationwide. If you think you have the reading ability to pass an SAT with a decent score, think again.
The levees broke on Tuesday in New Orleans. On Wednesday and Thursday, we started evacuating people ... I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results, Bush told reporters in Biloxi.
It's impossible to defend something like this happening in America, Newt Gingrich said of the hurricane response.
o+: what kanye west said just laid bare what people have been thinking but hiding for a long long time. it's not just "president bush doesn't care about black people;" it's "president bush doesn't care about POOR people." how the hell are these racist comments? racist against whom?
he was able to honestly express what we all knew but didn't have the guts to say.
the truth is, we should be having this dialogue. we all have to wonder if the relief effort would be significantly better if the victims had money and influence. (answer: yes)
don't be a child, javier, you know what Kanye's comments were really about- an ignorant jab at the bush admin. but i see you work the same way so i'll leave it at that.
What anal cavity have you been sticking your ear up to, o+? If you think Kanye West is a racist, then here I go...I'll be a racist too and repeat verbatim his words because I truly agree with him. George Bush doesn't care about black people. There I said it. Call me racist. And I'll respond with something else. Everyone else he works with, including Condoleeza Rice, is a racist who know only of helping blacks via gi bills that require them to mortgage their lives or through "shoot to kill" policies in the old south.
bush has admitted in the past as to not understanding poor people. this is no surprise.
Janosh, I'm with you: I'm embarassed, I'm ashamed, and I'm scared. If a disaster that we could see coming several days in advance is this badly mishandled, what's going to happen at the next terrorist attack, or huge earthquake, or whatever unforseen event that lurks out there?
Setting aside blame and party politics, I'm just talking logistics: we're supposed to be the most advanced nation, and look at us humbled by inefficiency and selfishness. Watching Mary Landrieu (dem senator) trying to look like she's suffering because her family's (no doubt huge) homes were all lost and she's thanking the president for coming to visit, when on the next channel I'm seeing a crying woman holding an 11-month-old baby with no diaper on because there flat out are none to be had, just like there's no food and water for any of the thousands still trapped in NO - well, fuck. I'm ashamed. And scared.
wow, if you actually believe that, i feel sorry for you javier. i was hoping this disaster would bring out the best in people, but obviously
vitriolic circle jerking brings about unification quicker. keep up the good work.
I'm not about to be "unified" with anyone that thinks this is okay, or that the federal government did everything that they could have. It's not okay, and we should have done better. After the folks that are left are safe, heads better fucking roll.
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04bush.html?hp&ex=1125806400&en=23cce9f23aa42f66&ei=5094&partner=homepage]As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis
[/url]
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: September 4, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 - Faced with one of the worst political crises of his presidency, President Bush abruptly overhauled his September schedule on Saturday as the White House scrambled to gain control of a situation that Republicans said threatened to undermine Mr. Bush's second-term agenda and the party's long-term ambitions.
In a sign of the mounting anxiety at the White House, Mr. Bush made a rare Saturday appearance in the Rose Garden before live television cameras to announce he was dispatching additional active-duty troops to the Gulf region. He struck a more somber tone than he had at times on Friday during a daylong tour of the disaster region, when he had joked at the airport in New Orleans about the fun he had had in his younger days in Houston. His demeanor on Saturday was similar to that of his most somber speeches after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," said Mr. Bush, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
sorry about the broken link above
All of a sudden the hurricane moral is PLUR? Peace Love Unity Respect
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a live interview...
<<Her condescending filibuster continued: "Anderson, tonight, I don't know if you've heard—maybe you all have announced it—but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a $10 billion supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating.">>
Cooper suspended the traditional TV rules of decorum and, approaching tears of fury, said:
Anderson Cooper << Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.
And when they hear politicians slap—you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up.
Do you get the anger that is out here? …
I mean, I know you say there's a time and a place for, kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. I mean, there are people who want answers, and there are people who want someone to stand up and say, "You know what? We should have done more. Are all the assets being brought to bear?" >>
http://www.slate.com/id/2125581/?nav=tap3
As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis ?? And should anyone remind that the Valerie Plame-Wilson Grand Jury term is close to expiring? Well? What if in the midst of all this a few of them Rangers get lassoed up with indictments?
o+, please feel sorry for all of us who believe that george bush doesn't care about black people. the tragedy of the aftermath was just unavoidable.
NO. the tragedy was avoidable. it absolutely has to do with race and class.
these issues MUST be addressed. don't fool yourself into thinking it has nothing to do with race and class. if you fail to talk about these things, the recovery of the Gulf Coast will be severely flawed.
It IS about unification, o+. everyone's needs MUST be addressed, or they will be neglected, as the tens of thousands have been neglected by the federal government for the past five days.
face the REALITY, man.
If only more people had gone into engineering instead of finger pointing . . .
I didnt read the whole article, but prior to the flooding many states offered the feds equipment and resources. None were accepted. For instance, Chicago Mayor Daley said he spoke to FEMA officels and was ready to send equipment, mapower etc. FEMA accepted was on small fire truck. Some People in Mississippi are still waitng for help.
The Bursting Point
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 4, 2005
As Ross Douthat observed on his blog, The American Scene, Katrina was the anti-9/11.
On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.
Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.
The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.
And the key fact to understanding why this is such a huge cultural moment is this: Last week's national humiliation comes at the end of a string of confidence-shaking institutional failures that have cumulatively changed the nation's psyche.
Over the past few years, we have seen intelligence failures in the inability to prevent Sept. 11 and find W.M.D.'s in Iraq. We have seen incompetent postwar planning. We have seen the collapse of Enron and corruption scandals on Wall Street. We have seen scandals at our leading magazines and newspapers, steroids in baseball, the horror of Abu Ghraib.
Public confidence has been shaken too by the steady rain of suicide bombings, the grisly horror of Beslan and the world's inability to do anything about rising oil prices.
Each institutional failure and sign of helplessness is another blow to national morale. The sour mood builds on itself, the outraged and defensive reaction to one event serving as the emotional groundwork for the next.
The scrapbook of history accords but a few pages to each decade, and it is already clear that the pages devoted to this one will be grisly. There will be pictures of bodies falling from the twin towers, beheaded kidnapping victims in Iraq and corpses still floating in the waterways of New Orleans five days after the disaster that caused them.
It's already clear this will be known as the grueling decade, the Hobbesian decade. Americans have had to acknowledge dark realities that it is not in our nature to readily acknowledge: the thin veneer of civilization, the elemental violence in human nature, the lurking ferocity of the environment, the limitations on what we can plan and know, the cumbersome reactions of bureaucracies, the uncertain progress good makes over evil.
As a result, it is beginning to feel a bit like the 1970's, another decade in which people lost faith in their institutions and lost a sense of confidence about the future.
"Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown/What a mess! This town's in tatters/I've been shattered," Mick Jagger sang in 1978.
Midge Decter woke up the morning after the night of looting during the New York blackout of 1977 feeling as if she had "been given a sudden glimpse into the foundations of one's house and seen, with horror, that it was utterly infested and rotting away."
Americans in 2005 are not quite in that bad a shape, since the fundamental realities of everyday life are good. The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.
Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.
We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
the ugly truth
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343324p-292991c.html
last paragraph:
"...Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet."
hehe
In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.
The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.
(from Mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans)
"...contrast the Louisiana situation with the one next door in Mississippi - Gov. Barbour (R-MS). What's been lost in all the blather over New Orleans is that it was really Mississippi that took the big hit. The buildings in New Orleans are still standing; the Gulf Coast of Mississippi basically has been scrubbed, like God took out a pencil eraser and just erased it...I really don't like to find fault at times like this, but one thing that was missing was a quick recognition that in such a situation the potential for civil collapse is nearly 100%. Once the weather settles, you need to immediately declare marshal law and send in the MPs. That's basically what Haley Barbour did in Mississippi - there were a few early problems but very quickly the MPs were patrolling what was left of Biloxi and Gulfport and keeping a lid on things. Back on Tuesday when I put on the news and we all saw Kathleen Blanco bursting into tears, I knew that was the wrong message and would bring trouble. Louisiana and New Orleans basically have those touchy-feely, "I'm okay, you're okay" soft-leftie types in charge. Their education took a few days and has been expensive.
Amidst all the hyperventilating that's going on, it's actually a good time for a civics lesson, particularly watching the competence of the people in Mississippi and the gross incompetence of almost all concerned in Louisiana....Mississippi got hammered much worse than Louisiana but is barely in the news because the leadership has been much more competent. Ms. Blanco is clearly way out of her league in this situation.
This was a good reminder that LA has for decades been our worst managed and most corrupt state...."
nicomavhean,
Your pointing out the obvoius and your argument sophmoric. The whole world knows that the evacuation plan failed and that the mayor and govenor were clearly unable to show leadership. But so did the President.
The fact remains that this situation was predicted and, by law, it is the job of the federal government to midigate. Which they failed miserably.
would it be less sophomoric to cry and yell at Bush because he hates poor people?
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