<...from Salon.com - an admitedly left-leaning outlet...>

"No one can say they didn't see it coming"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.


The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in California comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

Bush is completely aloof, not in touch with reality. He already broke the record for most days in vacation held by our other great leader reagan.
This president is horrible in catastrophies, shows his lack of cojones and leadership. Just like in 9/11, and Iraq his admin. was presented with the facts of a catastrophy in New Orleans, and they decided to ignore them, in all three cases with tragic results.
Where will he fail us next?
What other tragedy will this president ignore/bring upon us?

http://www.here-now.org/shows/2005/09/20050901.asp
For more information on the mismanagement of this tragedy, at all levels of the government

interesting side note in case you guys hadn't heard this before...at the beginnings of the season the nola meterologists said that the 2005 hurricane season predictions set the gulf coastal states to have as high as a 44-56% chance of getting hit by a hurricane, if not a massive one...

blaming bush for a natural disaster....this is the dumbest thing i've read yet.

hey tingaling, you really do have a reading problem don't you? or perhaps it's a comprehension problem? facts are facts and the fact that this administration cut funding that could have prevented the major flooding from the levee break does make it his fault...you right wing nuts only read every other sentence....

Did you read the story above?
Have you read a newspaper?
Do you know how any of this works.

He cut the funds to make New Orleans safe from a hurricane, that everyone knew could destroy New Orleans. What do you call that? I call it homocidal negligence.
This was no secret, I have heard that this could happen for years now. His policies made it worse.

What do you think tagalong? huh? If you want to read dumber things, just read any of bushes speech transcripts.

IT WAS A HUGE NATURAL DISASTER. A force by which no one can say whether or not certian steps which may have been taken could have contained it.

you say right wing nut but that is incorrect. I did not vote for Bush but I am tired of everyone pinning all that is wrong with our country, the world on the politicians, they are merely reactionary to our society. The Society of you, me and everyone else who looks at others to blame and ingores their own contribution to what is wrong. Those with money, be it developers or whoever pressure the government to get what they want, why? Money. How is this possible? People want what they provide so they know there is a profit. Those people at different times are all of us. I would find it more correct to blame all of us and the comfortable lives we carve out for ourselves instead of placing a larger concern on more important issues. The easy thing to do is just blame the people WE voted for (maybe not you in particular but a lot of your fellow americans.)

as negligent as it is to cut funding from FEMA and ignore a high-risk area, and as much as i despise the bush administration, and am a bleeding blue blood heart liberal, I have to say that this goes a bit beyond me.

ultimately the disaster happened and i think it's of poor taste to politicize the event. why squabble politics when the lives of millions are irrevoccably changed. shouldn't we spend our time figuring out solutions to current problems than pointing fingers at who's responsible?

reinforcing levees might have worked this time, but it all seems like a duct-tape fix to me that would merely delay a disaster of this magnitude.

yes, the more important thread would be "Katrina - what can we do?"

Ants, Tagalong,

You're correct, but let's allow those more fixated on hating and politicizing than helping keep busy among themselves, out of the way.

IT IS NOT POLITICIZING IT IS ACCOUNTABILITY THAT IS AT STAKE.
I FEEL FOR THOSE PEOPLE THAT WERE VICTIMS,
BUT WE CANT SAY THAT BECAUSE IRAQ HAPPENED, THE HURRICANE HAPPENED, BUSH IS OUT OF BOUNDS FOR:
A-CRITICISM
B-ACCOUNTABILITY

BY YOUR LOGIC, BUSH CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS AND W CAN'T SAY ANYTHING. I'M ANGRY BY HIS MISMANAGEMENT OF ALL THESE SITUATIONS. I DONT CARE IF HE WAS VOTED IN OR NOT, HE IS STILL ACCOUNTABLE TO ALL OF US.

WE ARE ALLOWING THIS PRESIDENT TO LITERALLY GET AWAY WITH MURDER.

melquiades, you are politicizing this. There are still people trying to get out of the city. The dead haven't even been buried. I'm all for a debate, but right now we should be discussing how to help those people and not placing blame.

whatever,
good luck in the search and rescue effort, A

Melquiades, capital letters don't bolster your case.

admittedly, i have a very strong dislike of g.w.bush, still i don't think i'm willing to attribute this to him. but have we ruled out the possibility of lingering Y2K glitches?

even led zeppelin knew about it.
"When The Levee Breaks"

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South
They go no work to do,
If you don't know about Chicago.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take you...
Going down... going down now... going down....

George Bush is a complete fucking idiot. There is substantile scientific proof that not only has a large metor not only struck our Earth in the past, but will probably do so again in the future. What does Shrub do about this? Plays cowboy in Crawferd while a 5 mile chunk of Neptune could be heading our way.

just a thought...release of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere...thereby changing the earth's
ozone layer and the atmosphere in general...has been
theorized for years to be capable of changing weather
patterns and causing unusual weather conditions...
bush's policies have not helped this situation..but even
though i'm not necessarily a fan...i would also say that
many presidents before him have been negligent as well.
i don't think bush is helping the situation however..to say
the least.

i do agree that this is not really the right time for this debate
though...i can't imagine what some of these people are going
through.

This just in - There may be a major georaphic altering earthquake somewhere in California sometime in the next 1000years. But our we developing a foam layer to absorb the earths pent up rattling rage? No! We just allow people to go on living with the status quoe paying insurance for their property to defend such calamities. Screw you Bush, and while Im at it - Fuck off God.

evilplat even though you're a total smartass and I'm pretty sure I disagree w/your politics those last two comments made me smile - not easy to do today. Thanks.

evilplatypus, the disasters you are talking about are far-fetched, not much or too expensive to fix. NOLA wasn't, it has been predicted for years.
Im sorry if ya'll feel this way, Ill stop now, but Im still outraged, and I hope that at least some of you are. Bush has put us at more danger everywhere.
Bad Foreign Policy
Bad Environmental Policy

Ill sop now, mourn for NOLA, and while you are at it, for the USA

It aint easy

i'm not sure that the cuts made by bush would have helped or not. to me the salienbt point is that the welfare of many has been short-changed by this administration for the good of a few. they promised to preserve wetlands - then gave them away to developers. they slashed funding to pay for a war that was un-necessary. politizing it? don't you think dumbya leaving his record long vacation two days early and diverting to fly over the site is politizing? search for survivors, bury the dead, and make sure no one like chimpy is ever elected again.

Don't despair, Melquiades.

No one's (at least I'm not) defending George Bush (or any of the other politicians who participate in the political process) on anything. My point is that to fixate on one person you hate, perhaps justifiably, is to ignore the complex reality of a situation like this. This trivializes your other, LEGITIMATE points and arguments about this president.

Melquiades - The world is about risk. Life is about risk. Politics is about risk. Economics is about risk. Standing in the middle of the freeway is a risk. Swimming with a shark is risky. Living in a trailor in Nebraska has its risks. Living in a city 8 feet below the water is a risk. 50 years of politicians in New Orleans pissing away funds on such novelties as money losing gambling boats while they knew their levees where not able to resist a surge stronger than a cat-3 hurricane is down right comical.

the more salient critique might be leveled at the feds (whether you include bush or not) for the approval for development/erasure of the protective wetlands along the gulf coast of louisiana.

we may or may not be able to stop natural disasters through artificial means like levees and pumping, but there is no excuse for knowingly destroying the land's natural means of taking care of itself - and us. we knew the implications of this development, but it was allowed to go forward for profit.

still couldnt the government had, say several hundred thousand bottles of water, certain medications, ready made meals sitting in a warehouse that would have allowed us to get some much needed help on the ground sooner. isnt all of this part of homeland security???anyway, cryin wont help ya.prayin wont do ya no good. when the levee breaks mama you gotta move...

Though I'm typically a corporation-basher, I'm proud to report that the Hoosier State's own Eli Lilly has stepped up with a donation of $1mil cash and $1mil in insulin and other medicines.

Whether any infrastructure exists to deliever this donation remains to be seen.

who needs terrorist with GB at the helm. GOD HELP US!!!

i'll step up and defend bush. jeez, i can't believe all the idiots here blaming bush for the devistation created by not only a hurricane, but a complete lack of preperation/foresight by the residents, the city, and the state, combined with a slow response by the local agencies and relief agencies. The 'blame' for this if any, goes directly on the shoulders of the city and the state. the CAUSE of the problems go many years into the past, unfortunately the EFFECTS happened very quickly.
heres to a positive hope the people of New Orleans get help quick and this disastor is quickly resolved.

Well, now there is a shoot to kill order against looters in the city...

As someone from New Orleans who escaped and was looking online to see discussions. We all know that all the infrastructure in this country is old and needs massive redoing. The levees have been a huge problem and many people are with out homes like me. Mine was burried by the flooding water from the 17th street canal break. In school we learned that this was the problem and that the Core of Engineers was working on a solution. Unfortunately we see that engineers look at thigns as numbers. Engineers havea tendency to be tunnel visioned like all professionals.

Instead of arguing about all of this find out what you can do to help these people. We help the Tsunami now help your country. Politics are not going to get me back to my house. Get my portfolio back. Redo my artwork. It is not going to get the poor housing.

Think about WHERE DO YOU PUT AND HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH UP TO 3 MILLION PEOPLE DISPLACED AND HOMELESS?

I don't have income any more and am stranded in San Antonio. Please lets help find ideas and use our design and problem solving education to helping people live and build new lives.

o+
nobody is blaming bush for the hurricane. that would obviously be unfair. however - this is the third case of people dying due to the incompetent actions of his administration. the other two? 9.11 and iraq.
so what is his response? he told good morning america yesterday - "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees..." this is a bald-faced lie. as it was when they said no one could imagine anyone flying airplanes into buildings. this time everyone anticipated it. his administration tooks steps that made it worse.

ohhh i was so pissed when I heard that. Not 3 weks ago I saw a (PBS) NOVA special on the levees failing in NOLA, the wetlands, etc.... He is aloof out of touch, and a moron to say the least.

Did anyone listen to All Things Considered last night. Robert Segel was pissed at that too. His interview with Homeland Security chief is my favorite interview ever.

The admin now is doing what they do best spin control....
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/bush.katrina.ap/index.html

Hope fully it will get people help faster.

interview with Chertoff on NPR


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4828771

"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine," the president said. - http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/bush.katrina.ap/index.html


which is why we need to stay steadfast in oure resolve with the freedom haters and their WMD's

We're not blaming Bush for the hurricane- We're blaming him for not reacting fast enough. Troops should have been in the city within 24 hours of the storms passage. Food, medical supplies, and temp. shelter should have been provided to the refugees. Order and logistics should have been instigated within 24 hours.

As I ranted in the other post, Bush and his entire administration should step down. for their lack of poor leadership. The fact that so many people have died since the storm is disgraceful and there are no excuses for the lack of order.

Oh ,and one of his responsibilities when he took office was to care for the welfare and health of the American citizens and that of the country as a whole.

health, safetly, and welfare of the public

hey, isn't that our motto?
is this somehow my fault?

Five questions for you guys:
1). How old is the dowtown core and immediate surrounding area of New Orleans and how long have people been inhabiting this area with the realization that they are actually below sea level?
2). When were the levee systems constructed and do you realize they were designed and built to withstand Cat. 3 storms?
3). How can you equate funding cuts (although a very bad decision by the president last year - as stated in the article) to the utter decimation of a city that has existed well over a hundred years in an area that is ultimately a "sitting duck" with a levee system designed to withstand a much smaller storm?
4). Have you cosidered the devistation in both Gulfport and Biloxi? How do you relate cut funds to those cities? They have been basically erased from the surface of the earth. At least the people of NO have homes they can attempt to salvage and businesses to which they can return after the floods have receeded. The people of Gulfport and Biloxi have absolutely nothing.
5). Thought - Do you think the people of Venice (Italy) would be outraged with political leaders should the ocean waters rise drastically to flood the city, realizing the city was constructed in a swamp to begin with and has existed as such for hundreds of years? They would likely and will likely be infuriated by our (you and I) reliance on the automobile and aid in global warming and increased melting of the ice pack.

I think Bush has made some terrible decisions, but it is quite a stretch to pin this natural disaster on him exclusively.

once again, no one is pinning the natural disater on bush, but the preparation of the government before and after has been very, very slow.

"I think Bush has made some terrible decisions..."

agreed.

"but it is quite a stretch to pin this natural disaster on him exclusively"

not exclusively, and i doubt anyone would. but...

the fact that this very occurrence has been a hot subject in n.o. over the lasts couple of years, however, is a key point and one relevant to the ire at bush. at issue:

1. money earmarked for levee construction and flood protection was redirected to the war effort. simple as that.

2. key wetlands which protected the shore and served as breaks for storm surges have been allowed to be developed or erased over the past 5 years, a function of their downgrading as critical protected lands at the behest of developers and industry.

3. homeland security has been a burden rather than a help in this instance, slowing down and confusing the response. national guard are looking to local law enforcement for directions; locals are looking to the national guard. no one knows who's supposed to be directing.

he's not the only one responsible. and there is a history of vulnerability. but it comes down to what signals were available and what was done about them. sound familiar?

and with a community of ppl where 32% of it's population are in poverty, the government and bush should have known that they would need help.

quickly,

1)the area has been inhabited for centuries--actual dates can be found in the interwebnet. formally settled by europeans in the late 1600's

2)current system in the 1930's, i think. but, again the www can probably tell you more accurately. as they say on Reading Rainbow: don't take my word for it; check it out yourself.

3)let's just say a whole host of US political figures have ignored this issue, not just bush. see below.

from the Times-Picayune, February 17, 1995:
An Army Corps of Engineers "hit list" of recommended budget cuts would eliminate new flood-control programs in some of the nation's most flood-prone spots - where recent disasters have left thousands homeless and cost the federal government millions in emergency aid.

Clinton administration officials argue that the flood-control efforts are local projects, not national, and should be paid for by local taxes.

Nationwide, the administration proposes cutting 98 new projects in 35 states and Puerto Rico, for an estimated savings of $29 million in 1996.

Corps officials freely conceded the cuts, which represent only a small portion of savings the corps ultimately must make, may be penny-wise and pound-foolish. But they said they were forced to eliminate some services the corps has historically provided to taxpayers to meet the administration's budget-cutting goals.

and on February 8, 2000:
For the metropolitan New Orleans area, Clinton's budget was seen as a mixed bag by local lawmakers and government officials. For instance, while Clinton called for $1.5 billion to be spent at Avondale Industries to continue building LPD-17 landing craft, his budget calls for significantly less than what Congress appropriated last year for Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity hurricane protection and for West Bank flood control projects.

4)gulfport and biloxi, while having massive destruction, will not face the magnitude of problems that N.O. will mainly due to the recession of the storm surge and easier access to repair of infrastructure.

5)venice faces it's own unique problem and is in the process of solving it--the political red tape has slowed this process to a crawl, but then again, the water is rising at a crawl's pace. not in immediate danger as was n.o.

still people insist on blaming bush..? where was the governor and mayor? when 911 happened both the mayor and governor were LEADING the effort with actual leadership, directing the recovery effort, not screaming 'where is the help'. where was the plan of action by the governor and mayor for the impending disaster, they knew it was coming, THEY got out of harms way....the very people who knew best (or should have known best) of how to deal with the city and state, disappeared, didn't lead, and allowed the situation to worsen and get out of control. period. but i guess its easier to blame the administration then to use your brain.

o+
It seems to me that the people who are Blamimg Bush are backing it up with facts. Everyone knows that the problem is more than any mayor or state can handle. If you havent noticed, this is a National Disaster that has hit multple states. This is specifically the reason FEMA was created. Unfortunatley Bush is phasing out FEMA's authority and financing to foucus on DHS. So ya Bush is to blame.

b.s losdogedog, i've seen no leadership out of louisiana and specifically new orleans. all the other states that have been hit have shown strong leadership and direction. that is the key. there were 1,000's of working and empty buses (school and otherwise) in the city when the mandatory evacuation was ordered. did the mayor get people loaded and out? no. and there's countless other pre-emptive measures that could have been taken to save thousands of lives and take the load off emergency help. speaking of FEMA, louisiana, and specifically NO knew for several decades of the impending danger of hurricanes, yet what disaster training or emergency systems did they have in place? none. no-one is realising this isn't a surprise problem,and to just blame bush is beyond moronic.

i think that the developement of the wetlands would have been more of a local government or state government screwing the pooch rather than the federal. unless those wetlands were owned by the federal government i dont see how it would be just the feds signing off on the deal. there are wetlands near my home in NE florida that developers have been trying to get at for a while and their has been no involvement of the feds unless you count a house rep speaking up about it.

ive heard several times on the news of people saying i survived such and such hurricanes without a problem so i thought this would be the same.... the lack of full information to the public is the main failing of all of the admins involved. Not telling them how much stronger this storm was compared to most of the others.

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."

As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis

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

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS HURRICANE PLAN

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)

Mississippi versus Louisiana

"...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?