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I'm proud of you Mikey. Admitting you have a liberal problem is the first step to rehabilitation.

;)

"Pelosi, speaking at a news conference, said Brown had "absolutely no credentials" when Bush picked him to run FEMA.

She related that she urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Brown.

"He said, 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

Is that enough, Mikey? I mean, can a person get anymore fucking stupid than Bush. "what didn't go right.."

nuff said...

When you said the wetlands have been eroding since the Johnson administration, you meant Andrew Johnson, right? I think perhaps there is some blame that can be laid on the federal government's shoulders. Perhaps not on Bush personally, but, nonetheless, at the federal level. But first and foremost, I believe the mayor of NO and the governor of LA really screwed the pooch. After that, it was like a chain reaction wreck. There were mistakes made all around, but the worst were at the local and state level.

Cait,

Why were the worst mistakes at the local and state level. Give some examples?

Of course, there were failures all the way around from top to bottom, but remember, a pending catastrophe at that magnitude, the local and state agencies can only do so much. Give that LA and MS are perhaps two of the most depressed states financially, what resources did they really have? I thought that is where FEMA and DHS are supposed to come in. Since this was a storm threatening not just one state bu several, isn't it suffice to say the federal government should have stepped in from the get go? And according to this state contingency plan people are waving around like it was etched in stone, there are many mentiones of FEMA in there. An guess what - according to record, the contigency plan was put it place. Fema was asked to help. But they are so buried in beauracratic red tape - CREATED BY BUSHCO - because Fema was place up under the most expensive joke of all time formally know as th Department of Homeland Security, that they could not get it done. Or as I say, choose to use the excuse of red tape, to not get it done.
Shit, the very words right out of their own mouth proves it - Chertoff and Brown both said the situation as they saw it, didn't merit for them to take an immediate response. So they waited. They gambled. They lost. period. They fucked up.
Where did Bush fail in all of this? Well, besides the fact that he put these two fucking clowns in charge of such important services, he failed by not leading. He should ahve taken charge and said :You know what guys, let's just go do this, take the gamble and if nothing happens, the only fools we will look like were for taking too quick of a response. Sure the liberals will scoff at us." instead, they waited, and now possiblly 10,000 people are dead because of it.

For anyone to defend that are place the heaviest blame back on the local governments for having limited resources is just plain assinine.

The first thing that should have been done is to evacuate everyone possible from NO. The fed didn't have the assets on the ground for that. The city could have used school buses, metro buses, vans. Even though Nagin is black, I think he and the others in charge thought that the ones they left behind were throwaways, because they were poor, black, and so many were helpless. That really angers me, more than anything else that has happened since this disaster struck. Those poor people were flat out abandoned by those that could have helped them. FEMA has no legal authority. Their brief is to "coordinate with other agencies" and is primarily for relief effort only. The guard should have been sent in much sooner, but only the governor has the authority to do that. Bush would have had to supercede Blanco's authority to send in guard before asked. She dilly-dallied around and left it way too late. Had Bush superceded her, many, probably including me, would have been furious that he had usurped what is a sovereign "state's right" (and, no I'm not an old gray haired segregationist, either, although that was one of their favorite battle cries). I think we need to keep the federal government out of our business as much as possible. Do I think there were screw ups at the federal level. Oh, you betcha. Do I think the most flagrant and egregious were federal mistakes. Nope, I don't. And, one other thing I'd like to point out. Whatever you may think of America/Americans on a daily level, when something like this happens, I think we see the true soul of our people. The response to the disaster, and not just in monetary terms, has been enormous. People have opened their homes, their schools, their wallets. It's at times like this that I remember why I love this country and her people. We can be petty, overbearing, whatever, name a sin. We have plenty of people who will use this to bilk others and commit crime. But, we can also be some of the most compassionate and generous people on earth. We've shown this time and again, and nowhere more so than with this horrible catastrophe.

The screw ups at the local level determined the size of the snowball of screw ups on up.

The federal response is and will be based upon the local situation.

Build a bad 'foundation' and the rest of the structure will be crap....

"The first thing that should have been done is to evacuate everyone possible from NO. The fed didn't have the assets on the ground for that. The city could have used school buses, metro buses, vans."

And where was the state and city going to get those kinds of resources to get nearly 3/4 of a million people out of the city? Even more so, where the hell do they take them? And even more so, when they get them to this place, what do they do with them? Something of that magnitude cannnot be handled on just a local or state level. You are talkimg about a million plus people from 3 different states. Who is supposed to be in charge? Where do these reources come from? Who is supposed to feed and house these people? Who is supposed to take care of their medical needs? Again, the only entity I know of that has the resources available (or is supposed to if they aren't off invading other countries for fun and profit) is the US Government. Heck, we are even supposed to have a special department just for that kind of thing. I used to be called FEMA.

"Even though Nagin is black, I think he and the others in charge thought that the ones they left behind were throwaways, because they were poor, black, and so many were helpless."

Well if the shoe fits...last time I checked, most of those people left behind ARE black, poor and helpless.

"hose poor people were flat out abandoned by those that could have helped them. FEMA has no legal authority."

Last I checked, Nagin was at and still is at ground zero. So is the governer and the lt. governer and many other state officials. And even if fema really needed legal authority to help out, they were asked, and they did not respond. Partly because Brown didn't feel the situation was that bad and partly because his hands weere tied because FEMA is part of the dept. of homeland insecurity. And while we are on "legal authority" the US Military has no "legal authority" to go invading other countries - but that didn't stop us.

"The guard should have been sent in much sooner, but only the governor has the authority to do that."

I know. But when the gaurd is over in another country fighting for coporate oil, it is awfully difficult to get them back to protect the STATE in which they are supposed to be gaurding.

"Bush would have had to supercede Blanco's authority to send in guard before asked. "

He did when someone feeding tube was taken out. Shit, the entire fucking congress of the United States did that. Supercedeing states rights when states don't want or need it and then turning their back when they do want or need it seems to be Status Quo for the good ole' bush whitehouse.

"She dilly-dallied around and left it way too late."

She certainly dillie dailed in Baton Rouge all right. Probably went to silly old briefings and tried to work out stupid little details like where to get the reources to help the impending doom. How dumb of her. Maybe if she was more like Bush who was hard at work on his ranch in Crawford Texas while some stupid old storm threatened the sntire gulf region, than things would have gotten done. I think it would have been too much of a burden on Bush if he picked up the phone and said "I am here if you need me for anything.." Wait he did do that. For Jeb.

"Had Bush superceded her, many, probably including me, would have been furious that he had usurped what is a sovereign "state's right" (and, no I'm not an old gray haired segregationist, either, although that was one of their favorite battle cries)."

Yes God forbid his approval rating drop anymore what would he have done. 10,000+ people have died, but at least he didn't infringe on any states' rights.

"I think we need to keep the federal government out of our business as much as possible."

Except only when it is deciding what is morally right for us. Or telling our schools that they are obligated to send every kids record to the military. Yea, they shouldn't be in the business of saving lives or anything stupid like that. At least we agree on one thing - they sure are good at killing people. (see iraq)

"Whatever you may think of America/Americans on a daily level, when something like this happens, I think we see the true soul of our people"

Yes, we do. And it is pretty sad we cannot rely on our own government to help.

THAT is the whole point Nunya - the city and the state were supposed to have a plan to deal with situation like this.

Well, though, Nunya makes a couple of very good points. If they had evacuated all those people in a timely manner, where would they have taken them. That would have required federal coordination. And frankly, the more I'm seeing and hearing, the more I'm beginning to think Homeland Security really messed this up. FEMA probably should never have been put under their direction. It seems FEMA asked for permissions and for items, and no one at HS could make a decision. So, apparently this was a major failure by government at every level. And ultimately, yes, Bush is to blame, in the same way that any field commander is to blame when his subordinates make mistakes. But I still think Nagin and Blanco bear at least as much blame as the feds.

I agree with you Mikey. Blanco and Nagin screwed up and are just as much to blame as Bush, as Cait points out.

More importantly (not to take anything away from the victims) this scares me beyond fear - this was the forst real test since 9-11 to put DHS into action, and they failed not a little, not moderately, but miserably. And I hate to say it in this case, but I was correct all along in saying it has been a dog and pony show, all talk and no walk and a huge waste of money. Our government failed. Now let's fix it and do it right this time.

Could you imagine the mass chaos that would ensue if this was a larger city and had a dirty bomb gone off?

I know you guys are very die hard and supportive of Bush, but you have to admit somewhere, the feds fucked up big on this one and they need to fess up. And things need to be fixed. They keep talking about "lessosn learned" but how can they learn and lessons if they don't think they messed up?

I agree with you on this one. There needs to be a massive overhaul at several levels. Every state and certainly every large city needs a workable "disaster" plan. Homeland Security needs to get its shit together, as does FEMA. There needs to be some real work done on communication and there needs to be someone at each level who has authority to make decisions within their purview, without stepping into someone else's turf. Even people who support Bush are beginning to come to the conclusion that he screwed up. On one of the Fox shows last night, Scarborough, even he said that though he's been a Bush supporter, he thinks Bush messed this up. And a colonel on the show, also a supporter, said he didn't know if he wanted a CIC who took long vacations when there were troops dying in Iraq and people dying in NO. Pretty tough words.

That is a great point. Taking a month and a half long vacation (I don't care if he can "vrtually run the country" from his ranch - and the last time I checked, the CIC is supposed to have some facility to do command and control at all times at any given moment) does not look good when there are troops that have been battling for two years over there now without a break.
I digress though. The man wants to take a long vacation, fine. Just do your damn job. In this case, he failed 100% as did many others.

And now Brown is off the case, but more interestingly, his resume is full of outright lies. I am shocked.
They make people go through hellish hiring processes and embarassing background checks to get a low paying job at a wal-mart but they just place a guy into such an important position (an under secretary) without any kind of check? I don't buy it. I think the good ol boy network was well in effect here. Bush gave one of his buddies a job, and that is unacceptable. Now it is a question of WHO put his resume on steroids?