The NY Times has probably the best round-up of what went wrong to date:
Disaster officials, who had drawn up dozens of plans and conducted preparedness drills for years, had long known that the low-lying city was especially vulnerable. But despite all the warnings, Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed the very government agencies that had rehearsed for such a calamity. On Thursday, as the flooded city descended into near-anarchy, frantic local officials blasted the federal and state emergency response as woefully sluggish and confused.
“We’re in our fifth day and adequate help to quell the situation has not arrived yet,” said Edwin P. Compass III, the New Orleans police superintendent.
The response will be dissected for years. But on Thursday, disaster experts and frustrated officials said a crucial shortcoming may have been the failure to predict that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city would be breached, not just overflow.
They also said that evacuation measures were inadequate, leaving far too many city residents behind to suffer severe hardships and, in some cases, join marauding gangs.
Large numbers of National Guard troops should have been deployed on flooded streets early in the disaster to keep order, the critics said. And some questioned whether the federal government’s intense focus on terrorism had distracted from planning practical steps to cope with a major natural disaster.
Disaster experts acknowledged that the impact of Hurricane Katrina posed unprecedented difficulties. “There are amazing challenges and obstacles,” said Joe Becker, the top disaster response official at the American Red Cross.
Under the circumstances, Mr. Becker said, the government response “has been nothing short of heroic.”
But he added that the first, life-saving phase of hurricane response, which usually lasts a matter of hours, in this case was stretching over days.
While some in New Orleans fault FEMA – Terry Ebbert, homeland security director for New Orleans, called it a “hamstrung” bureaucracy – others say any blame should be more widely spread. Local, state and federal officials, for example, have cooperated on disaster planning. In 2000, they studied the impact of a fictional “Hurricane Zebra”; last year they drilled with “Hurricane Pam.”
Neither exercise expected the levees to fail. In an interview Thursday on “Good Morning America,” President Bush said, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” He added, “Now we’re having to deal with it, and will.”
Which, of course, puts the widely ridiculed Bush quote in a new light. This simply wasn’t what was predicted would happen:
President Bill Clinton: Yes, I think that’s important to point out. Because when you say that they should have done this, that or the other thing first, you can look at that problem in isolation, and you can say that.
But look at all the other things they had to deal with. I’m telling you, nobody thought this was going to happen like this. But what happened here is they escaped — New Orleans escaped Katrina. But it brought all the water up the Mississippi River and all in the Pontchartrain, and then when it started running and that levee broke, they had problems they never could have foreseen.
It will be interesting to see what the post-mortem on these disasters and the response will be, but I am willing to bet it is significantly different from the heated stuff we are seeing over the past few days. Already, there is more and more evidence that the noxious memes about levee cuts causing the breach are being dispelled:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way–inundating much of the city–were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.
However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn’t handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.
“I don’t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case,” said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. “Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place.”
Now that won’t stop the partisans from being, well, partisans, but it is nice to dispel the nonsense, if only briefly. I am sure there will be a lot of lessons to learn from this catastrophe, and that will take time and sober analysis that can come after we save all these poor souls who are really going through hell.
And one more thing- I don’t know if this will have any impact on the BRACC decisions, but it should. Last night, Joe Scarborough was broadcasting from an Armory somewhere in Mississippi, asking why the soldiers were not there handing out water.
The answer is simple. The Armory had been shut down. We had already existing ‘pre-positioned’ assets all over the country, and we chose to close them years ago. Just more things to think about.
Andrei
Hey John.. guess what? This isn’t about the levees. It’s about what is happening now that the levees broke.
Quick point: some 80% or so of the people in New Orleans did get out prior to the hurricane. Those left behind are the poor in this country and that city. We could easily switch this conversation into what the GOP has done for poor people lately.
But you know what… it’s not about that either. It’s about what is happening right now.
People need help. They need competent leadership to fix this FUBAR situation and get them out of there. they need to be saved.
Then we can bicker over the levees or what the GOP has done for the poor people of this country lately.
Jorge
John,
The levees aren’t the only story here. If you believe that its ok for the President and the Vice President to stay on vacation while a category 5 hurricane heads toward a major American city, then you have a very, very different definition of leadership than I do.
BinkyBoy
In conjunction with the claims of underfunded levee work were claims that FEMA had been gutted and was headed by an incompetant moron.
Both are right, but the underfunded levee’s just had less to do with the full disaster than the incompetant moron, John.
Anderson
But, you wanna talk about levees, let’s talk levees:
Who in their right mind would ASSUME the levees wouldn’t break?
That’s what levees do. “When the levee breaks, Mama, you gotta go.” Not “When the levee’s topped by the storm surge, Mama,” etc.
The 1927 Mississippi Delta flood, before this the worst flood in U.S. history, happened when the levee broke.
To assume this was ridiculous and makes fools of the, um, assumers (if that’s a word). Someone give me ONE GOOD REASON why it could simply be *assumed* that the levees would hold in all events.
Clever
This is really crap. It has been known for decades that this scenario wasn’t just a possibility, it was an eventuallity.
You’re right, its wrong just to blame one person. This is not entirely Bush’s fault. It is an administration wide, LA statewide, and NO gov’t failure to accept reality and take the necessary steps to protect and evacuate their citizens.
It’s not even partisan. There is NO LEADERSHIP. Bush is running around doing photo ops, Clinton is repeating the meme of ‘We had no idea’ [Mr. Bill did, for chrissakes], and the fricking FEMA director is a MASSIVE IDIOT.
It’s not about the damage that the storm did. It is the failure of the gov’t to respond to the situation. Atrios has the following, which should put things into perspective.
A Brief Timeline of the Berlin Airlift
June 24, 1948: Blockade of Berlin begins.
June 25, 1948: Berlin airlift begins.
May 12, 1949: Blockade ends.
September 30, 1949: Airlift ends.
A Brief Timeline of the Tsunami Disaster
Dec. 26, 0059 GMT Quake hits.
Dec. 26, 0130 GMT Tsunami hits.
Dec. 28, Relief operation begins.
Jan 1. US Aircraft carrier arrives in Indonesia, sending helicopters, heavy machinery, and water purifcation equipment to Banda Aceh.
Now tell me there’s no reason to be frothing, cursing angry at the incompetence being shown in this situation.
Doug
Hopefully we’ll be hearing about how “Hurricane Katrina changed everything.”
-Government is not an enemy to be starved and drowned in a bathtub. It’s a vital tool of our communities that needs to be well funded, well planned, and participated in by the citizenry.
-Business and free markets are not the answer to everything. There is no particular market incentive for individual businesses to build the levees high and strong or to take the long view of the environment and refrain from building in the low lands or from draining the swamps.
-Our nation’s resources are best spent at home, not pursuing the noble but largely worthless (to the American People) goal of spreading democracy in the deserts of Iraq.
-Permanently cutting the estate tax should not be high on the government’s agenda.
jaime
So a whole post dedicated to defending Bush’s levee remark. What won’t you defend? Sheesh. This is the same administration that said it couldn’t possibly have forseen planes being used as weapons or the inevitability of an insurgency in Iraq. The only problem was, they were all anticipated at one point or another by many people. I would have written that statement off as just another mush mouth Bush moment, but this falls into a pattern; one of a serious lack of imagination from some seriously dense people.
Trent
Bush flew back in the middle of the night from a vacation to sign the Schiavo bill.
For a hurricane, he flew to San Diego (or AZ?) to strum a guitar with a country singer.
BinkyBoy
There were concerns from engineers that the levee would break being broadcast on Saturday or Sunday, while the storm was still considered a class 5. So for the President to stick his little groundhog head out of the earth and claim “we had no idea the levee’s would break” is just out of touch.
For fuck sakes, the US was evacuating a whole god damn city and he couldn’t be bothered from clearing brush on the ranch to make sure there was appropriate resources available and the right people in charge?
Narvy
Not really. The particular exercises mentioned did not “expect” the levees to fail. (Can an exercise expect something?) To me, this means that planning for the exercises assumed the levees would all hold. This doesn’t negate the history of statements concerning the risk and the fact that at least one breach has occurred and been declared a disaster during President Bush’s term. One would think that someone in the administration could have recognized the possibility. But maybe not. Maybe the President meant “I don’t think anyone in my administration anticipated the breach of the levees.”
John Cole
Look, you can call me an apologist, you can call me anything you want, but I am not the jackass who made all the offensive, irresponsible, and outrageous statements trying to pin this on Bush. I have no idea why the levees were onlydesigned for cat 3, it makes no sense to me whatsoever why the money was not spent YEARS ago to upgrade to the best possible protection possible, as well as numerous other steps regarding thecoastal development and erosion.
You guys can flay Bush all you want when we know what happened regarding the response, and I will join in if Kevin Drum’s speculation is an accurate representation of facts. I think I have earned enough credibility on matters regarding this administration to defend what I think is defensible, because I am wholly willing to savage them when they engage in indefensible behavior.
But this nasty, mean, ugly attempt to pin the flooding and the breach of the levees on Bush budget cuts is something I will refute and continue to refute, whether you like it or not. I will not defend the decision not to fund the projects fully, which I think is inexplicable, but I will refute the bullshit that popped up immediately.
John Cole
Narvy and Binky, try reading.
The anticipated breaches were from storm surges, not the way this breach happened.
BinkyBoy
John,
all I’m saying is that while the storm was heading back out into the gulf and expected to gain strength to a CAT5 there were active predictions that the levee’s could fail. I just think it was idiotic to say they didn’t “anticipate” the failures.
But I’m not that critical of the levee support or lack thereof, I don’t know enough about it and I’ve tried to stay out of it. I’m only commenting on the things I have witnessed and one of those things has been a tragic lack of preparedness and leadership from those that needed to display those qualities. It goes right up the ladder to where the buck has never stopped, the tap dancing little twit in the cowboy costume.
After 9/11 I never understood how people were saying “the amazing leadership of Bush”. All I saw was him hugging a firefighter and trying to deflect the critisism of his Air Chicken One flight.
Andrei
Fine by me. We’ll just keep calling you on it in return. When you stop defending things that don’t seem that important in the grand scheme of things that need defending, people will stop arguing with you about them. Funny how that works. It’s called “picking your battles” in the business world. Works great in meetings when you’re trying to get something done in the bureaucracy of corporate America.
You know what, the question you should be asing yourself is “Who gives a fuck about the levee funding meme?” I mean really… You derail political foootball then jump right in there at linebacker like it’s still a game on your blog. Stop treating it like a contest and people will stop commenting like it’s one.
LEE
i’ll tell you what’s a bunch of crap. reading andrei and jorge trying to blame persons/republicans/politics on a hurricane. i am continually stunned reading dumbass posts on this site. i enjoy intelligent discussion, but i’m at a loss. you guys are simply losers. period.
dennis
However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn’t handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline
In my geology classes WAAAYYYYY back in the day we talked about levee failure around New Orleans–either from a strm surge OR simple collapse. If people really thought a levee breach was impossible they should basically be flogged for not paying attention to history. Man made things FAIL, sooner or later they FAIL.
You must plan for all foreseable eventualities.
Mike S
Judging from past experiance with people who have criticized Bush policy, I don’t put much stock in what the guy from the A.C.E said. Telling the truth is not the best way to keep your job with this administration.
Cullen
John – sorry, but it seems self-evident that the federal government has utterly failed this first real test of its homeland security mandate. I know we’re in an age of non-accountability, but this failure is prima-facie evidence of the Bush administrations continued incompetence. A major American city, almost a week after such a major catastrophe, has devolved into Mad Max: Thunderdome. If that’s not a failure, and one that was utterly predicted and predictable, then I don’t know what is. Sure, there will be plenty of blame (and correctives to employ for prevention) to spread around, but, for once, can Bush be a man and say the buck stops here? I won’t hold my breath.
Mr.Ortiz
The mayor of New Orleans ispissed. Listen to the audio.
BinkyBoy
Clap harder LEE, its the best way to make all the bad people go away.
KC
Lets not overlook the fact Clinton can be wrong. Look, I don’t think the administration is responsible for the levee break. Whatever effect budget cuts had on the levee system, the storm was responsible for the levee break. However, I think it is fair to ask about the allocation of resources, what caused resources to be pushed away from levee improvments, etc. If the administration, Congress, the state of Louisianna, etc. had a hand in it, people have a right to know. From what I’ve seen, it looks fairly indisputable that FEMA was deprioritized in favor of focusing on terrorism to some extent–something that probably didn’t seem like a bad idea to a lot of people, perhaps most. Likewise, tax cuts and a war ensured we’d have to sacrifice something. Unfortunately, natural disaster preparedness may have been it. Criticism outside the proper context is wrong, but denying the administration (as well as Congress) played its part in the stripping of disaster preparedness at the federal level, especially when the evidence seems pretty real, is not right either.
What I’m most concerned about though isn’t the who did “it,” but the president’s lack of response to the tragedy (as well as LA’s governor). I’m sorry John, but I watched him come out to California and thought to myself, what the hell is that guy doing? So did a lot of other people, not all Dems either. Everyone knew there was a strong likelihood of a hurricane coming towards New Orleans by Friday, wikipedia already has a great article up on it if you don’t believe me. I think what most people are angry about, real or perceived, is the leadership vacuum that has existed for days, even days before the storm hit hard.
There will be Congressional hearings no doubt to sort through all the technical details of what went wrong. But, to me, I saw and felt a real leadership void in this country over the last few days. I saw a president and federal officials who up until yesterday seemed disengaged. So did a lot of other people around me, including Republicans, including wingnuts like my father who often thinks Bush is just below Jesus on the scale of divinity. That’s what most people I know are distrought about. Of course, perceptions can change and no doubt will as things move forward.
BumperStickerist
A US Carrier group happened to be in the area around Bandeh Aceh and, fortunately, could immediately respond. If it were a typhoon that did the damage and the Carrier Group had to steer clear of it, aid would have been delayed.
Also, the first shipments in the Berlin Airlift were to resupply British and American commands. The first shipments earmarked for civillians weren’t for four days. Also, the Berlin Airlift had the benefit of working runways on bases in the city, not to mention a functioning system of roads. Not to mention that the airlift could only provision 1/9th of the resources needed by the population at the start.
Since some here will need convincing – here’s the link:
cite
.
So the Berlin Airlift didn’t just happen overnight.
es
How could we have known about planes flying into to buildings? How could we have known that an insurgency would rise up in Iraq? How could we have known about the levees breaking? Three more years of this criminally negligent administration, surely there will be another “How could we have known?”
KC
The conservative Washington Times, of all newspapers, underscores my point above.
Jorge
“i’ll tell you what’s a bunch of crap. reading andrei and jorge trying to blame persons/republicans/politics on a hurricane. i am continually stunned reading dumbass posts on this site. i enjoy intelligent discussion, but i’m at a loss. you guys are simply losers. period.”
Um, I’m blaming Republicans on a hurricane?
But let’s pretend I know what you mean – the only one you might get right is “persons.” And yes, I blame 5 years of Bush’s failed leadership for a lot of things. Fema being gutted is one.
I love most Republicans – the donation I made for aid relief went to Southern Baptist missionary efforts in the area. On Wednesday night they’d provided 500,000 meals in the area and the vast majority of the Southern Baptist convention is controlled by Republicans. Again, as hard as it is for Bush apologist to understand, many of us who have such strong feelings for GW don’t judge Republicanism based on this one twit.
John S.
John,
Here are some very simple questions for you, and they shouldn’t offend your sensibilites.
As head of the government, is it NOT the President’s role to accept responsibility for the failures of government?
This isn’t a matter of blaming Bush for the disaster, but rather, in the botched aftermath of the disaster, doesn’t the buck (or at least shouldn’t it) stop with Bush?
Jorge
I agree with the Moonies times? I must be wrong.
BinkyBoy
The house just approved a $10.5 billion disaster aid relief bill.
Will the oil dollars pay for it?
John Cole
What dishonest nonsense. I didn’t ‘pick’ this battle. The people who, mere hours after the levee broke, charged that it was Bush’s fault.
How bout this. I will go around accusing Mayor Nagin and Governor Blancho of killing thousands through their woeful incompetence, and then when people react, you can chide them for ‘picking the wrong battle.’
John Cole
Of course. How about a fucking couple weeks to actually asses what has happened before we start declaring the aftermath ‘botched.’
And can we cut the damned tsunami references. The tsunami affected regions weren’t still under 8-20 feet of water three days after the tidal wave hit.
melior
Thank God President Bush has you true believers to rush to his defense. You’re absolutely right, nothing is his fault. Nothing. The buck does not stop with him, as long as you can find someone to point at. Leadership is not about leading.
Staying on vacation was perfectly justified. Redirecting millions from NO storm protection to the Iraq debacle was perfectly sound. Appointing political hacks with no experience to take over FEMA was brilliant and harmless.
I wonder how you sleep at night.
John Cole
On a bed, you stupid prick.
Andrei
More bullshit. You have picked this one… You are “fighting back” against it and posting publicly about it. Why? Who cares about this meme? In the grand scheme of things to defend, you have picked this one to play defense on with your blog. Why? Seriously… does it matter?
Will it matter six months from now? Or will bigger issues surrounding the disaster be more important?
Go right ahead. I’d let make that entirely foolish mistake of a remark in the first place. Try it…. watch what happens. I’ll gladly sit on the sidelines.
LEE
binkyboi: it’s a disaster. not good to celebrate, ummmkay? gov’t, is, inevitably inefficient. sorry, libs, but it’s the truth. aid has come, will come, and continue to come. it’s sad. all tragedies are. it’s sad when, even as people suffer, political blaming is in high gear. shame hath no timetable, it seems.
Anderson
Shit, it’s like we need a step-by-step analysis as in the Plame case.
How about:
(1) FEMA anticipated, or should have, as early as 9/11/01 if not before, that levee failure (including breaches) was a likely and catastrophic possibility if N.O. was hit by a strong hurricane.
John, will you buy that?
melior
‘Where’ would be on a bed.
‘How’ would be without a conscience.
Asshat.
Mike S
Up until yesterday I was in full agreement with this. Then I saw the excuses coming from people like Cherty, Brown and Bush and remembered what happened the last two times questions weren’t asked and answered right away. We got the 9/11 and the Iraq war whitewashes. And let’s not forget the promice to look into the use of intel for Iraq that hasn’t and most likely won’t happen.
Krista
Frankly, I think that Bush is showing piss-poor leadership, but I question whether Kerry would have been any better. The state of American politics today (and Canada’s the same) is that whoever has the most money, the most rich friends, and can say all of the right things, wins. There is no room for sincerity anymore. Anybody who is sincere, or principled, gets thrown to the wolves. What does that leave you with? A rich president (or prime minister) who is permanently indebted to those who are also rich and powerful. They then have no grasp of reality, and are way too used to having their advisors do their thinking for them. If elections weren’t so ridiculously expensive, maybe we’d see some much better people getting involved in federal politics.
Here it’s the same…Martin is indebted to a bunch of Quebec crooks and thugs, and they’ve all been robbing us blind for years, but our only other option is a right-wing creepy rich boy who would have bent over for Bush years ago.
Cullen
Your fever is growing, John. There’s a growing chorus on your side of the aisle who finally acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, the Bush policies have led us to this tragic situation. Sure, he didn’t break the levee, but stop parsing the details and look at the bigger picture of what everyone is saying.
jaime
“How about a fucking couple weeks to actually asses what has happened before we start declaring the aftermath ‘botched.’”
Because people are dying NOW. The time to act in a tragedy is immediately. 3 days after is not the time to start activating the national guard, but days before.
Strumming guitars, eating cake, and marveling at Trent Lott’s future porch is ignorant at worst, tin-eared at best. As I said before, this fits a pattern we’ve seen before, a reactive administration preoccupied with its own adventures. Why didn’t anyone have the imagination to think up planes flying into buildings? Some did. Most of the others were imagining Star Wars II.
jobiuspublius
My history book says, cover ups ala 9/11.
jaime
“Frankly, I think that Bush is showing piss-poor leadership, but I question whether Kerry would have been any better. ”
Why? Because he’s a Massacheussetts librul? Or because he windsurfs and plays hockey instead of football? Or is it the botox.
jobiuspublius
Oh, Nagin, Blanco, and friends are … who are they?
Mike S
Since the GOP has taken power and “starved” the agencies that are responsible, I suppose this is true. If Clinton were still in office these boards would be filled with screams for impeachment, FOX would have round the clock “impeachment watch and many dems would be enraged as well.
Krista
None of the above. It’s because the Democrats, instead of selecting a candidate based on principle, and based on how they felt the candidate might help the country, selected Kerry solely because they thought he was the only one that had a chance to beat Bush. Who knows…he very well might have risen to the occasion and done a fantastic job. But I think that with a few notable exceptions, if you put a good man into politics, before long, they lose most of their principles and integrity and become a tool for the behind-the-scenes power players in their respective party.
LEE
mike s: riiiiight….clinton would’ve held the levies with one hand while signing legislation and feeding people with the other. are all ya’ll from the DU? just checking to see if there are any normal people are here (oops, what’s normal, when everything, even politicizing tragedies, is fair game?
Clever
BumperStickerist:
Point 1:
Indeed, a carrier was stationed nearby, and that was extremely lucky for those in Bandeh Aceh…but this wasn’t some far away land, it was New Orleans and MS. Why the Texas Air Force/Navy and surrounding states Nat’l Guard wasn’t steaming/flying/driving out as soon as was safe to do so is beyond reprehensible. It’s about immediate and overwhelming response.
Point 2:
Yes, it took 4 days, but again, far away and yet there was a concerted effort and most of all leadership and a plan, both of which lacked in the aftermath of Katrina. One day later they had a massive operation underway, with leadership all the way up the ranks focused on a singular goal. Truman was not out playing guitar on the day of that crisis. He was meeting with advisors on what was the best to do.
Shortened points:
Considering the fact that this tragedy occured on US soil, with considerable forewarning, there should have been a coordinated, immediate, and overwhelming response. There was not. In the two cases I cited earlier, there was little to no warning, but yet there was immediate and coordinated, and ulitmately crucial immediate response from the highest levels of gov’t.
I commend you for bringing the balance to the imagery I brought forth, but in no way does it account or excuse for the absolutely horrid response of the federal gov’t, FEMA, or the president himself.
John Cole
They acted iummediately. Supplies and people were put in place. And things went horribly fucking wrong when the levee broke. It is a fucking disaster, and they are doing everything they can to take care of those people.
And your chief concern- political advantage.
The Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of New Orleans, respectively.
I am well beyond civility with some of you folks, but I will try anyway. What fever? You mean not immediately rushing to blame everyone insight for not doing enough? it is a disaster. We are just now starting to stop the levee breaches. We have no idea still of the true scope of the mess. Relief and the like won’t happen overnight, despite what we want to happen. Added to that, the rescue mode was made much more difficult by the sheer numbers of people who needed to be rescued, so other things took longer. Not to mention the city is underwater and the roads are a messand powerlines are down.
There will be a time for figuring out what happened later, and there are, I am sure there will be plenty of blame to spread around, and, more importantly, lessons to be learned.
But that isn;t what you guys want. Mock Bush for not immediately rushing to the scene. To do what? He gets to the scene, and you mock him for walking around greeting and consoling victims. What did you want him to do?
And one more fucking thing, just because someone does not immediately agree that the appropriate course of action is to agree with everything Kos and John Aravois say condemning the president does not make someone an apologist.
Just out of curiosity, how many comments did you have at Americablog, the Daily Kos, Eschaton, and the hundreds of other libs who actually chose to ‘pick’ this meme did you make? How many comments condemning this nasty bullshit did you leave? Could you direct me to some?
Or is your real concern that I have chosen, among a hundred other things I have written about, to refute this bullshit because it is just fucking nasty?
Honestly, I don’t know why some of you guys come here. When you agree with me, everything is hunky dory, but the moment I disagree with you, or I don’t drink the Kos kool-aid, I am an apologist, a sycophant, a Bush defender, not getting it, etc. never once do you think maybe I am right when I disagree with the dominant lefty rhetoric- only when I agree. And I am the sycophant? Do you guys even know what the word means?
It is amazing.
Narvy
Score one for John. The disaster scenarios I’ve found all seem to have assumed that what we are currently witnessing (and it was predicted) would result from “overtopping” of levees, not a break. But don’t you think that that’s a rather fine distinction for a sound bite media moment? The conflation of overtopping and breaching seems to be universal in the media and the blogosphere (except here), and the result is to make the President’s remark sound bad. So the President gets a point for accuracy and nobody outside this thread will ever know or acknowledge it.
I did find some interesting stuff while trying to justify arguing with John. Take a look at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, undated but certainly way before this week, and Scientific American, October 2001, and weep for the fecklessness of local, state, and federal governments.
John S.
A couple of weeks? Have you been watching the same news I have? I know they tend to sensationalize these things, but it seems like the ‘botched’ card was played two days ago.
Davebo
Maybe it’s time we turned FEMA back into a spook agency like it was in the 80’s.
It doesn’t seem too effective at disaster assistance, and the CIA doesn’t seem too effective at gathering intelligence.
Krista
I think everybody’s emotions are running so high right now. It’s one thing to not agree with each other on a regular day. But it’s easy to get frustrated when you feel that if the people in charge had only thought of things the way that you do, lives might have been saved.
And there are some people who are just crappy debaters and don’t know how to respect someone’s opinion, even if they don’t agree with it.
Andrei
Be a little more like Giuliani during 9/11 I think I heard some people say. I’d agree with that sentiment.
Next question.
Narvy
I’ve looked at some of the comments posted at Daily Kos, and it’s Free Republic turned inside out. Same ungrammatical spewing of uninformed opinion, same illogic, same hate speech, only the targets are different. Bleah!
Davebo
“They acted iummediately. Supplies and people were put in place.”
Yeah right. That explains why the USNS Comfort “may” be ready to pull out of Baltimore by tonight.
By the time it and other Naval Support ships arrive in the Gulf we’ll only need them as morgues.
“And your chief concern- political advantage.”
Once again John displays his canny extrasensual perception. The same skill he used to divine that poor Casey was embarassed by his mother.
Here’s a question for ya John. If you’re sending 500 buses into NO to gather up folks at the Dome and Convention Center wouldn’t it have been smart to stop by a Walmart on the way and grab some food and water to haul in?
Just hang in there John. Michael Chertoff and FEMA Director Michael Brown should be receiving their Presidential Medals of Freedom any day now.
Cullen
Oh, never mind. Not worth arguing about. The history will be written. Some will have been right and some will have been wrong, and we can only hope that the people who suffered did not do so in vain.
Mike S
Poor Lee. He must ignore the point in order to remain an active member of the cult.
How much was that picture of Bush on AF1 during Sept 11? Keep defending your boys Lee, the public is opening their eyes and seeing what a great leader they have.
BinkyBoy
I’m tired of reiterating the points that Bush has not led. He has not been able to console America, to request conservation of gas, to encourage donations and to guarantee that there is capable leadership in the background, doing what needs to be done to make sure people are rescued, fed, watered, arrested or anything else.
He gets up, makes grinning idiotic statements about how we’ll win on the ground and those that could never think negative of him clap their hands with glee, certain that all those damn lefties will certainly see the leadership they do.
Well we don’t. We see none of it. We see a little child, caught with his zipper down but secretly glad to have his penis flapping to the breeze. We see a man who has no compassion. We see a man who has gutted FEMA, sent the National Guard on a wild oil chase, and strummed his guitar while NOLA burned.
Yes we’re angry. We’re tired of the automatic defense, we’re tired of seeing an inept, incapable president being apologized for, being defended and being clapped on by trained seals. We’re tired of corruption, we’re tired of being called un-American for not believing his lies.
And you wonder why we want to hang every albatros around his neck?
I’m done trying to point out that the lack of leadership in this national disaster was phenomenal. That it shows the terrorists and our allies how unprepared we really are for sudden change. It shows its all a puppet show, that there really are no clothes on the Emporer. Its all just proof that those that are responsible for leadership are guilty of negelegence and hubris.
For the record, I don’t believe JC is apologizing for the Bush Administration, I think he’s just seeing that things are getting done as time goes on. He’s a lot more patient than most of us, I think. Hopefully, someday, those responsible for the lack of leadership and direction will be held responsible, but I won’t hold my breath, as recent history has proven, no one is ever responsible for their actions in the age of Personal Responsibility.
Andrei
None. I rarely read them as I have little time for their points of view, or I don’t want to register with them to post comments. I glance at DailyKos a lot, but I don’t consider myself a die hard Democrat. I only read it to see what the Dems think they should do, not because I’m Kossack or whatever.
That’s a little self-serving. You assume you are right and we are not. Prove it I say. The reason we get on you is because we disagree with you. You seem to think that our act of disagreeing with you and calling you out on certain things is somehow not the same when you do it to others.
Ok… live in that bubble if you want. I don’t care.
Guys like me argue with you because I think you can handle it since you dish it out so effectively. Ok… maybe I’ll just revert to using this blog as a means to find links to more useful stuff, which quite frankly is the real reason I read it. I find you are a better filter for links to real content than any other political blog I have found. I just get sucked in with the comments far too often.
Don
Unbelievable. I have enjoyed reading your slightly right-of-center writings from my slightly left-of-center position since I discovered this site but the last few days might be the disgust that makes me quit reading. The administration makes a consistent series of half-assed screwups in this, just like they do in Iraq, and you’re going to glom onto a subtle reading of Bush’s statement.
The call in 2004 should have been “It’s the competency, stupid!” but somehow that avoided being well addressed. Now we’re seeing the same thing play out all over again in an endless series of mediocre responses and the response from the apologists is the same as ever: no no, there’s no One Big Wrong to point at, you’re just being partisan. The levee failure isn’t the exact kind those articles mentioned. The denied upgrades aren’t ones that would have fixed things. That’s not exactly what he meant about expectations. Well the state government didn’t do so great either.
Bah. A failure to make one giant catastrophic screwup isn’t a defense. A meal is ruined by a hundred little mistakes just as completely as a burned entree and a child just as dead from dehydration from a dozen little delays as one long one. The party that repeatedly proclaimed “run it like a business!” can’t even manage Just In Time shipping of bottled water.
Northman
I figure there is more than a fair share of Bush-bashing going on over this, but he does tend to invite such things and his statement regarding the levee break is an example of why.
Regardless of how the breach occurred, it was certainly a possibility that was being played up on the news prior to Katrina’s landfall and it makes him appear out of touch to pretend it was a total surprise that no one could possibly have predicted.
Despite that, laying the blame solely at his feet does strike me as foolish.
The major lack in New Orleans seems to have been in preparation. Calling for evacuation with little thought or planning for food, water, and shelter for the evacuees, not to mention transportation for those who had none. Too few resources from people to equipment pre-placed to deal with the disaster.
A poster from a different thread remarked how the pictures reminded him of a Third-world country. He had a point. Nobody would expect a country like Indonesia to be able to get aid to a disaster region, particularly one that was in the midst of a civil war, but the resources of the United States are orders of magnitude beyond anyone else’s. The world is basically shocked that it is taking the US so long to mobilize what are, quite frankly, massive resources to bring to bear on this problem.
John Cole
DID YOU READ THIS POST, OR DID YOU JUST IMMEDIATELY BITCH AT ME FOR WRITING IT?
I can argue just fine. If you want to debate things, Fine. I get tired of immediately being called an apologist, etc.
And you aren’t arguing with me about the topic of this post. You are telling me I am wrong to even have written it.
Davebo
Xavier University spokesperson: 400 students still trapped at the university. One person is already dead.
Hope they aren’t complaining…
Anderson
John’s being too patient, if anything. “How do you sleep?” Jesus, people, quit quoting John Lennon titles. If I were John, I’d be finding out from my web guru how to block people.
I think that Bush et al. screwed this one going & coming, but if John doesn’t want to go there right now, abusing him ain’t going to help.
mac Buckets
John, you have my sympathy, trying to reason with the Bush-haters. The left will always be there to whine like 6-year-old-girls. It’s difficult just to pat them on their heads and say, “whatever,” but maybe it’s the best tack. They can’t be reasoned with — they only want Bush’s head on a pike.
Andrew J. Lazarus
All Bush needs now is to start reading from The Big Lonely Goat. This is the exact same cardboard cut-out Bush as 9/11, what’s missing is Cheney to give him his script and a quick snort and send him out to the then-fawning media.
Now the country will start re-examining the incompetence of the Bush Administration in the light of new knowledge. The “whoever could have guessed” defense—is that about Osama or Katrina!?
Next week, Bush boasts he’ll track down Katrina dead or alive. In a month, we invade Venezuela in search of Chavez’s rumored Water of Mass Destruction.
Don
Hard to imagine anyone would call you an apologist.
Andrei
I read it. I was particulary annoyed that this article took up a significant amount of pixel space on your homepage as opposed to the housing the victims post which has yet to see any comments. It made it scream as if this was important than what to do about housing the victims. That is in large part due to quoting the stories in large chunks, but hey, you can link those things and make this story appear less important as the housing the victims one. That’s how editors work.
I was also a bit perturbed at the comment:
Because you effectively started a partisan post by tryin to dispel partisan “nonsense.” Contextually, this is a right-leaning blog, so maybe you are dispelling ALL partisans on this point, but since it’s not explicit, and since you are railing against a left-leaning meme, along with the fact you call it nonsense (an opinion and not a fact, need we remind you), you turn the topic into a partisan post.
You get in the way of learning the lessons of the catastrophe and helping those in need by starting the conversation with partisan, opinionated comment. You could have easily just left that ENTIRE first sentence out and said the exact same thing, but you DIDN’T.
And in that context, I claimed that this levee meme issue wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. And I stand by that comment.
No. I’m telling (ok… asking) you to stop bringing up useless topics like the levee meme in the wake of the disaster that takes focus and attention from what you have already admitted is the most important thing: helping those that need help right now.
KC
I do want to note that on Monday, at least for a moment, many of us thought NOLA had been spared the worst. See this and this. Perhaps the president was thinking the same way?
Rusty Shackleford
Where is Dick Cheney?
I am serious, where is Dick Cheney?
Darrell
The problem with not answering the Bush-haters is that if their lying bullsh*t goes unchallenged, more people begin to believe it as if it’s true. “Bush funding cuts are the reason the levee broke!!” turns out to be a bullsh*t claim, but one the left was repeating loudly and often. That claim, according numerous engineers in a position to know was nothing but a bunch of partisan crap
Davebo
KC,
But the rest of us woke up Tuesday morning and saw the news.
And the real preparations should have been made in the week prior. Just hoping New Orleans is spared the worst is not a good strategy IMO.
““I’m not looking forward to this trip,” Bush said as he set out for a firsthand look at the destruction in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.”
Well, it is hard word and all.
Darrell
Why is it so important to know where he is?
I think this is instructive
Don
Instructive of what? It’s below sea level? Consider us all illuminated. Next time you see someone drowning in the ocean you can take the time to ponder if they should have looked at the undertow reports or worn some water wings. Me, I’m gonna throw them a life preserver.
Darrell
Don wrote:
Pound away on those strawmen Don. I hear it’s good exercise
The Comish (sic)
Wow. John, I don’t know what you did to deserve such an army of mouth-breathing, red-faced sycophants, but it must have been bad. Michael Jackson bad.
Andrei, you’re an idiot. You criticize John for commenting on the “underfunded levee” meme, because you allege it’s unimportant. Presumably, the only important issue is that people are dying because Bush is a big poopyhead, and all pixels should be spent on that issue.
John didn’t start the meme. He was merely telling the truth about the meme; a truth that is decidedly unfortunate for the sand pounders in this thread who are desperate to hammer down Bush’s approval rating, even as bodies float through the New Orleans streets. (You folks are all class.) So I guess that stuff about the importance of truth/Truth to Power/etc. only applies when the truth illustrates Chimpy McHitlerburton’s evil nature?
Andrei goes on to criticize the number of sentences that John spent on debunking the “unimportant” levee meme. Andrei feels that the “housing” post should have been longer, because that’s more important.
… Yes, the same person that was just criticizing John for talking about “unimportant” issues is now wasting precious pixels on the relative length of his posts.
The lack of self awareness really astonishes me sometimes. He says:
“I’m telling (ok… asking) you to stop bringing up useless topics like the levee meme in the wake of the disaster that takes focus and attention from what you have already admitted is the most important thing: helping those that need help right now.”
My response: Pot. Kettle. Black.
Zack Mulf
“Now that won’t stop the partisans from being, well, partisans, but it is nice to dispel the nonsense [that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case]
So one comment from an anonymous CoE “official” is enough to confirm your prejudice that these claims are “nonsense”? Your forelock tugging to The State is reminiscent of the Stalin regime.
What a pathetic little person you are.
mac Buckets
Big ups to Houston. Clutch City comes through again when it’s needed most.
Here’s to those volunteers who came in last night after work, stayed until dawn, went to their regular jobs today, and then are coming back to the Dome after work.
All for poor strangers. Massive ups.
The Comish (sic)
Davebo said:
“Well, it is hard word and all.”
Any minute now, Andrei is going to swoop in and criticize Davebo for wasting precious pixels on an unimportant issue.
… [sound of crickets chirping, watch ticking, etc.] …
Well at least we can rest assured that Bush bashers are NOT using this tragedy to score cheap political points. Thanks for staying above the fray, guys.
Seriously, you’re all class.
Cyrus
John,
I disagree with you about this, but it’s abundantly clear over the past few months (roughly the length of time I’ve been reading you) that you aren’t an apologist, if you ever were.
Davebo Says:
Xavier University spokesperson: 400 students still trapped at the university. One person is already dead.
Hope they aren’t complaining…
Davebo, exert your mental faculties and try to comprehend that it’s possible to sympathize with someone while not cursing and condemning the most immediately obvious cause of their problem.
Andrei Says:
You seem to think that our act of disagreeing with you and calling you out on certain things is somehow not the same when you do it to others.
Guys like me argue with you because I think you can handle.
There’s a Monty Python skit you’ll like. A guy goes into an argument clinic but he just gets called names. It turns he got the wrong door by accident and he goes into the abuse room. There’s a difference between the two. I haven’t seen you explaining why John is wrong, only calling him names. And I’m not asking you to refrain from calling Bush etc. names, only our host.
And mac Buckets Says:
John, you have my sympathy, trying to reason with the Bush-haters. The left will always be there to whine like 6-year-old-girls.
According to Dante, the deepest and innermost circles of hell are frozen over. This might explain why Jonah Goldberg and John Derbyshire have joined “The left,” according to you. Not to mention dozens of elected Republicans. Because if you haven’t noticed, they are all talking about the failure of the federal government to prepare and respond to this. Sure, I haven’t seen them specifically blaming Bush, but what does it tell you when they of all people are asking for more federal intervention?
pmm
Krista wrote:
Wow, that should be a mandatory disclaimer on darn near any post on this website.
StupidityRules
Darrell, the worst natural catastrophy ever to hit the US and the VP is nowhere to be seen. Politically after all that has happened it’s a bit curious.
I can only imagine two reasons.
Either he’s very sick, or he doesn’t care.
Don
Just taking your statements at face value, bub. The full extent of what you said was “I think this is instructive” as if any of us were unaware of the physical realities. If talking about level 3 vs level 5 levys isn’t helpful or on point, what is “hey look, it’s below sea level” in the scope of things?
BinkyBoy
Comish, are you here to feign pity for the unfortunate victims or just bash on lefties? If its just bashing on lefties, well, you’re welcome to try, but so far all I see is you trying to defend John, when John does a damn good job all by himself. Would you like to attack the point that the president is non-existant? That its becoming clear its all a puppet show put on that leaves victims of tragedy in more harms way than if we had a real leader? No, well then you’re as fucking useless as those you are attempting to bash.
Rusty Shackleford
Cheney just got off his duff on Wednesday and returned to DC from vacation.
Cheney Watch
Vice President Cheney, who had been spending part of August at his home in Wyoming, returned to Washington yesterday, his spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, tells me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
John Cole
I will attack that point. The President exists.
BinkyBoy
Whats in that suit, John? What happens if you cut the strings?
The Comish (sic)
Well said, Cyrus. It’s amazing how much more convincing an argument is when it does not prominently rely on an insult. That’s a lesson that I could probably stand to learn a little better.
So could Zack Mulff:
“So one comment from an anonymous CoE “official” is enough to confirm your prejudice that these claims are “nonsense”? Your forelock tugging to The State is reminiscent of the Stalin regime.
“What a pathetic little person you are.”
And what evidence do you have to support the proposition that John is wrong and the “underfunded levee” claims are well-founded? What scientific studies have you performed? Note: Posts on the Democratic Underground are not more credible than the Army Corps of Engineers.
Thus, we can rest assured that even if John is relying on someone else’s opinion, at least the opinion upon which he’s relying is informed. From whose teet are you sucking?
Once again, pot … kettle … black.
StupidityRules
Rusty Shackleford, question is if anyone except his spokeswoman has seen him…
Andrei
Ok… here’s some fodder for all you then that want to discuss the levee meme’s legitimacy and the related issues surrounding Bush’s policies on things like FEMA than on what needs to happen right now. Note the date of the article:
Disaster in the making
Have fun.
Andrei
Oh please… Bush was elected to a second term after a first term that was underwhelming at best with all the crap, misinformation and mismanagement that happened in the run up to war.
Honestly… I have to wonder Darrell, does truth really matter to you? You guys won the fucking election already. What, that wasn’t enough for you?
Andrei
Then you haven’t been reading what I wrote. I think you meant to say you disagree with me why I think John is wrong… which of course you are welcome to you’re opinion that I’m wrong like I’m welcome to my opinion that John focused on a useless partisan defense point against the levee meme at the wrong time.
Anderson
Wending our way back to the top, let’s look at Clinton’s remark:
In other words, the levee’s breaking & the attendant problems were unforeseeable, says Clinton. Now, that is horseshit. Pure horseshit—not even bullshit, in the recently trendy philosophical sense.
Are we supposed to refrain from calling that horseshit? For how long, exactly?
(Another few steps down in my low opinion of Bill. I guess he’s so excited to get called on in these emergencies, he could care less what he says or how he whores himself.)
Matt
Soooo, if Bush had returned immediately from his vacation, he could have done what? Used his super breath to blow away the hurricane ? Used his heat vision to turn it into vapor ? Use his super strength to drop a mountain in front of the levee to stop the water rushing over it ?? Wow, I had no idea Bush had that kind of power. Screw the power ties, give him a big S and a cape.
As a result of the wonderful invention called the telephone, Bush can do anything from his ranch in Crawford that he can from the Oval Office. Why is this concept hard to grasp ?
Most of you on the left have lost your minds. Only utter lunatics could blame Katrina on Bush.
Matt
*He has not been able to console America, to request conservation of gas, to encourage donations and to guarantee that there is capable leadership in the background, doing what needs to be done to make sure people are rescued, fed, watered, arrested or anything else.*
Are you fucking high ? Seriously ? You must be completely 100% stoned out of your fucking head to not have seen Bush make statements, beg for cash donations, enlist Clinton and Bush 41 to raise money, etc. Seriously, HE’S NOT A FUCKING SUPER HERO.
Its not that you hate Bush that aggravates- I couldn’t stand Carter- its that most of you are all so god damn stupid that you’ll take any issue, any at all and turn it into Bush bashing, even if the bashing makes absolutely no sense and has no basis in fact.
beloml
Someone named Robert Modean left this in the comments at One Hand Clapping, and it makes the most sense to me so far:
Disaster preparedness is the responsibility of State and Local authorities – in this case LEMA (The Louisiana Emergency Management Agency). There is a state-wide director for disaster relief in every state – that person is called the Governor.
There is a local director for disaster relief in every municipality – that person is called the Mayor. FEMA is a coordinating body that assists State and Local authorities in getting the resources they need.
Because they are the “go to” people most folks are under the impression that they are in charge, and in fact if the State and Local authorities abdicate control over a disaster area they will take over.
Typically after the initial response to a disaster the local guys do just that, leave FEMA in control. That’s because they have the experience and personnel to manage disasters of this scale.
Disclosure: I’m a volunteer coordinator for MEMA (The Missouri Emergency Management Agency), I’ve been through three major floods and a few big storms that generated enough tornado damage to get the affected counties disaster relief – believe me when I tell you what we are seeing from FEMA now is lightyears ahead of what I’ve seen from them in the past.
Typically it took two to three days just to get the disaster declaration, then another two to three to get FEMA deployed – of course by then the local guys had been on the ground working around the clock for five or six days and we were more than happy to dump everything in FEMA’s lap.
That’s the way the system is designed. Bush saw that and tried to skip a few steps to speed things up, he pre-declared the areas disaster areas. So what we are seeing in NO is the result of a convergence of factors:
First, the storm damage was bad, but the flooding has made relief efforts ten times harder than anything they could have imagined.
Second, Mayor Nagin’s performance has been pathetic. This is the worst case of poor planning and criminal incompetence I’ve ever seen. Like I said, Bush declared the gulf coast area a Federal Disaster area on Saturday – two days before Katrina hit. That freed up FEMA resources for local and state coordinators and allowed for the pre-positioning of supplies so they could be rapidly deployed to the affected areas.
Mayor Nagin waited until the last minute to call for an evacuation of the city, but the poorest people could not evacuate – why weren’t school busses used to get them out of town?
Mayor Nagin made the last minute decision to declare the Superdome and COnvention centers as refuge relocation points – why weren’t they stocked with water, food, bedding, generators, and fuel? Why weren’t hospitals offered additional resources by the Mayors office?
Mayor Nagin made the decision to allow looting and told the police to focus on Search and Rescue – but looting hinders S&R efforts (as we’ve seen) and no one I know could believe that decision – it’s emergency management 101, preserving order preserves life.
There’s plenty of blame to go around – Blanco deserves her share too – but the real culprit in the aftermath here is Nagin.
Nash
This is flatly contradicted by statements from some of the disaster gamers involved, including that overflow of levees followed by breach (because of that overflow) was likely at category 3 or above and possible at strong 2.
So, it’s not correct to say that it wasn’t predicted to happen.
StupidityRules
Matt, I agree with you. He should stay at his ranch. Why should he have to be at White House? He obviously likes to clear brushes and ride his bike. Hopefully we’ll get a real president instead who’ll manage all the hard work without having to vacation like the French.
And I thought he was appointed by God? Wouldn’t that atleast give some semi-god powers?
What he could have done is to show some of leadership qualities. But with Cheney dying somewhere I guess the puppet is all alone.
BinkyBoy
Oh, I’m sorry Matt, did that offend you?
Isn’t it odd that most of the country, including NRO commentators that are strong apologists for Bush are saying the exact same thing?
What world are you living in? The man didn’t speak about the disaster until Thursday. It almost required a pry bar to get him out of his vacation, why? Why were democrats the first ones to call for a special session but have gotten ZERO credit for it?
I’m glad you and the unicorns in your little world are getting transmissions from a totally different dimension, but when all the fallout hits your precious party, you can just remember what was said here.
Andrei
As was stated earlier… I think many would have been satisfied to have had Bush channel Giuliani in times of crisis.
Mark
Note also that the current best guesses as to how the levees breached is that they were overtopped and then scoured away. A strong storm surge leading to overtopping of the levees was _definitely_ foreseen by pretty much everybody well ahead of time.
jg
Why does the right keep refuting absurd statements no one is making? I admit the left can get shrill but nobody is saying that Bush should’ve stopped the hurricane. How can a serious discussion be had when one side isn’t listening to the other. One side is getting all its information about what the other side is saying, from biased talk radio and FOX. FOX and Rush take what the left is saying about disaster preparedness and a president whose enviro policies and funding cuts may have worsened the damage and turn it into an easily digested and refuted soundbite for the minions, the left thinks Bush should’ve stopped a hurricane. You can’t talk them out of this meme either since they don’t hear the left speak. They only engage the left so they can throw these twisted soundbites at them and watch them react. Meanwhile next week Congress will work hard to ensure Paris Hilton can inherit tax free.
The Comish (sic)
Andrei, there’s no time to discuss such unimportant things! For the love of gawd, THINK OF THE PIXELS!
And I’d like to thank BinkyBoy for bravely talking about the real issue here:
“What world are you living in? The man didn’t speak about the disaster until Thursday. It almost required a pry bar to get him out of his vacation, why? Why were democrats the first ones to call for a special session but have gotten ZERO credit for it?”
Terrible atrocities are occurring in New Orleans. Surely we should focus on the real issues: Whether the Democrats are getting enough credit for being the first to call a special session. I guess those of us that suspected your rabid criticism was all about partisan politics have been proven wrong.
And thanks for pointing out Bush’s utter failure to return to Washington … because traveling a couple hundred miles AWAY from New Orleans is the only way that the President can really manage the relief operations.
And thanks for criticizing the President for his utter failure to calm the stricken citizens of New Orleans by making a television appearance within minutes of the attack. True, he had to get off the phones and stop planning rescues and relief to appear on television, and the actual citizens of New Orleans were without power, so they have no idea when — or even whether — he appeared on tv or radio. But making a speech to the rest of the country is much more important. Because in New Orlean’s greatest hour of need, it should really be all about *us*.
edddie
Obviously Bush thought Jesus would keep everybody safe and dry. Or that Charlton Heston would part the waters and all the poor of New Orleans could walk to freedom.
You asswipes who defend Bush from all criticism are hilarious. What will it take for you to realize he’s an incomptent boob? The nuking of Chicago?
The Comish (sic)
jg, thank you for providing a satire that brilliantly illustrates my point about “a lack of self awareness.” You rail against righties for responding to points that no one is making, and as an example of what the right is saying, you use a point that no one on the right is making. And then you close with the coup de grace: you make a baffling non sequitur about Paris Hilton inheriting tax free: another argument that no one is making.
Bravo, sir! So avante garde!
StupidityRules
The Comish (sic), you think Ken Mehlman is a nobody? Then why does the RNC still pay his salery?
jag
it’s fine making points about local accountability and for your garden variety disaster it makes a lot of sense.
however we are dealing with the nerve center of the fourth largest port in the world; a nexus of our energy industry and exit route for midwestern agriculture. with a cat. 5 on the horizon, SOMEONE upstairs had to have been at the main switch. THAT is why we have a FEDERAL govt.
couple other things. it was not a levee breach, but a flood wall undermined by storm surge overflow. and both disaster studies assumed 80% of the city underwater, neither worried a lot about how it got there.
rilkefan
John, you need to read this at Andrew Sullivan’s blog before you continue on with your strawman argument about the levees.
jg
A point no one on the right is making?
Is that not someone on the right saying the left thinks Bush could have stopped the hurricane? I don’t know what vapors your sniffing to make you completely miss my point but damn if it didn’t just sail right by.
Simply, just for you. The right makes up ‘points’ that are easily refutable (because they are absurd) and attributes them to the left. ‘The left thinks…’. And this is how they approach discussions. Read some of Darrels stuff. He is constantly coming at us with stuff the left supposedly thinks or said and people spend so much time trying to figure out then correct what he thinks the lefts’ point is that there is no time spent refuting the real issue.
The Comish (sic)
No, jg. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying the criticism of Bush being in Crawford is non-sensical. He’s saying that whether Bush was in Crawford or Washington would have changed nothing that’s occurred so far.
But again, you brilliantly illustrate my point about self awareness. You say:
“He is constantly coming at us with stuff the left supposedly thinks or said and people spend so much time trying to figure out then correct what he thinks the lefts’ point is that *there is no time spent refuting the real issue*.”
By focusing on a made up soundbites you allege summarize what the right is arguing, you’ve managed to avoid discussion of the real issue, the supposedly underfunded levees.
jg also says:
“The right makes up ‘points’ that are easily refutable (because they are absurd) and attributes them to the left. ‘The left thinks…’. And this is how they approach discussions.”
Well, thank goodness the left doesn’t do that. I mean, except for you:
“You can’t talk them out of this meme either since they don’t hear the left speak. They only engage the left so they can throw these twisted soundbites at them and watch them react. Meanwhile next week Congress will work hard to ensure Paris Hilton can inherit tax free.”
Was this something that someone on the right actually said? Or did you just make up easily refutable soundbites?
Andrei
Wow… that’s all you could come up with? Color me unimpressed.
Again… I think a lot of people on the left would be perfectly fine if Bush would channel Giuliani in times of crisis. But go ahead… you let the Dubya lead you right over a cliff. I’m not riding on that bus.
jg
You’re accusing me of diverting the dialogue? Of ducking the issue? You’re trying to tell me that I’m one of the people I’m talking about? Sorry but I’d have to have been active in the discussion I think. I was just reading comments and made an observation. You act like I’m trying to sabotage the thread or something.
Matt
&Is that not someone on the right saying the left thinks Bush could have stopped the hurricane? I don’t know what vapors your sniffing to make you completely miss my point but damn if it didn’t just sail right by*
Omg I literally had to read your post twice because at first, I thought you were being sarcastic and you were agreeing with me. Then I realize you are apparently on leave from a mental institution and somebody gave you a keyboard to type your unbelivable idiocy.
Allow me to reiterate (which, I suspect, you will be unable to comprehend but damn if I’m not going to try). Bush is not superman. I realize you think the federal government is the solution to all problems but I have breaking news for you – EVERY SINGLE POLITIICIAN IS HUMAN. Hard to believe, I Know but even Bush 43 is human and MAY make mistakes. However, his heart is in the right place and when he’s making a speech with Bush 41 and WJ clinton, assume the suffering of fucking assholes looting sporting good stores- even that affects him.
Lets be clear. The poor, who the left is always coddeling, sucking up to, trying to gank votes from – THEY are the ones who are shooting people, they are the ones who are looting sporting good stores, those are the ones who are stealing the VCR’s from the flooded Circuit Cities. You want to know why ? Because you and your fucking asshole commentators (hi rhandi rhodes) are encouraging them to loot shit from those whores, you know corporations. Seriously, you want to know why martial law (in the loosest sense of the word) didnt work – because the police are afraid to shooot looters- WHY ?? because the left will condemn them for “shooting the poor”
You fucking morons. IN times of chaos and tragedy, if the poor choose to cross the line and murder, kill and rape, THEY ARE THE ENEMY, whether you like it or not. I wish I could take poll of looters- I bet you 100 bucks that the vast majority of lawbreaksers and looters voted for John “I served in Vietnam” Kerry.
When I made my 500 dollar donation to the red cross, I had to force myself to do it- you know why ? Because the people who have decided to turn NO lawless are also the ones that keeep aid from getting to the people who need it.
No you havent offended me. You’re too unbelievably stupid to even appeal to me on an intellectual level -you’ve failed to think this out, to understand who failed to do what and because of your inherent stupidity, you blame the biggest target you can find, Bush, though deep in your heart, past your inherent inability to comprehend, oh you know, pretty much anything, you know Bush is responding to a tragedy as fast as he possibly can, because despite the mountain of delllusions you are trying to climb, you MUST understand that neither Bush nor Karl ROve has control of the weather and that the lack of sufficient power to sustain a Cat 4 hurricane was the choice of the City of New Orleans and not the federal government. The Local Governments job is to hold the fort until the Feds get there- the government of the parish of NO FAILED MISERABLY in holding the fort. I don’t hold that against them because democrats, republican, who cares, its a tragedy of such magnitude that nobody could predict (ohhhhh other htahn the times Picatyunnne in 2002 – SP i acknowmlege it).
Get off your high horse. UNless you are 100% god damn crazy, you cannot possibly believe Bush is responsible. And not only that, you fucking idiots who are trying to make political hay are FORCING political insiders (like me- and no im not going to tell you who and what I work for and represent) to spend more time addressing your moronic accusations then addressing the real problems facing this country.
But none of you libs care. Black folk can die in the quarter, creole folks, white folk, asian folks, if you’re liberal who gives a damn – the only thing that matters is getting George Bush out of office. Guess what ? He’s not going anywhere and libs will continue to lose electiosn until they realizs that people want problems solved, not finger pointing.
Honestly, its sad but I see more well reasoned opinions on Daily Kos then I do here- why dont you stupid fuckers go elsewhere and spew your crap ?
Oh and you KOS morons- DU underground morons- how much money have you raised for disaster relief ? Did you exceed hanity’s totals ? I bet you didn’t. You’d have to leave the comfort of your starbucks to earn enough money to make an impact.
You moronic and dellusion individuals, I bet you, KEEP showing up on network TV – Please, i beg you. I’m tivoing the sound bites and can’t wait for you to run for election in 2006.
Matt
*Obviously Bush thought Jesus would keep everybody safe and dry. Or that Charlton Heston would part the waters and all the poor of New Orleans could walk to freedom.*
Yes, cause he said that. Really.
Honestly, I wish God worked like that- Smithing the heathens and whatnot- because I suspect you’d be the first to experience God’s holy wrath against inherent blinding stupdity.
Liberals- STFU and donate money. I worked an extra 5 hours today so I’d have some cash to donate to the relief effort- even we evil conservatives believe that people still left in NO should be given a chance to live and thrive.
Shocker, right? Dumbasses.
RobW
OK, so when Bush said no-one could have expected the levees breaking, what he meant to say was that no-one could have expected Katrina largely bypassing New Orleans and then the levees breaking hours later. Sooo… given that the expectation was that a Category 5 hurricane was going to hit NO dead on and breach the levees almost immediately, what preparations were made for that eventuality – you know, the one that was expected? I guess it might be hard to list them all given the various agencies and levels of government involved – and you Americans have so many of those – but I wonder why the preparations in place for the expected disaster proved so ineffective at dealing with the disaster as it actually happened.
Ducktape
“I have no idea why the levees were only designed for cat 3, it makes no sense to me whatsoever why the money was not spent YEARS ago to upgrade to the best possible protection possible, as well as numerous other steps regarding thecoastal development and erosion.”
John, I am really disappointed in you. The reason the money was not spent YEARS ago is that the budget to complete the project has been repeatedly cut since 2001. This has been covered copiously, and over several years, in the New Orleans Picayune, the Houston Chronicle, and other papers in the region. There were long write-ups about it last year in the “whew! dodged the bullet” recaps, and this year again when it was cut from the budget yet again. If you WANTED to know why, it has been there for the Googling all along.
It was predicted on Sunday that the levees would break. It has always been predicted that a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane would break the levees. The entire Hurricane Pam exercise last year was about that. One thing that wasn’t predicted was that there would be a total failure of the communications system in NOLA, but the levees — I’m sorry, but “no one could have predicted…” sounds to me like an excuse which has been trotted out once too often.
It’s easy to say “if only…” You posted the picture of the school busses, and I don’t yet know the whole story on that, but I will point out that you’ve got to take people SOMEWHERE and Mayor Nagin’s authority ended at the city line. I suppose that, in retrospect, it would have been better just to load those busses and drive north until they ran out of gas, but that’s an option that passed very quickly last Sunday.
What is REALLY shocking and disturbing is the failure of the FEDERAL system of communications and relief, and the people in charge standing in front of microphones and making statements that we could see with our own eyes on split screens were simply untrue, even as they were making them.
You deal with the reality you have, not what could have been. There will be plenty of blame to go around in the recap. But that reality continued on for days and days with nothing being done. The Red Cross and Salvation Army are not in NOLA, and say they have been barred from coming in because if “people are given food and water, then they won’t want to evacuate.” And so they starve, and they die, and it goes on.
What was shocking, and profoundly disturbing, was that we didn’t even hear an acknowledgement of the disaster from Bush until Tuesday afternoon — 2 paragraphs in a long speech about VJ day. It seemed that everyone in the US knew about this but him, and he was just continuing on his merry pre-planned way with birthday cake and guitar-playing photo-ops. And then virtually the first damage control was “no one could have imagined…”
For forty years, I have been a Republican, although I tended to vote for the person and not the party. But I live in reality, not a perfect world, and when you choose your direction and then “stay the course” based on the perfect world you imagine, reality has this really nasty habit of biting you on the ass.
This past week, the cognitive dissonance hit the tipping point for me. After spending last weekend connecting up people in my online community who were in Katrina’s path with people inland who would offer a place to stay, and then fundraising with my community for the Red Cross most of the week, I get a mailing from the RNC telling me that the most important thing is to contact my senator to tell him to vote to eliminate the estate tax, and two mailings from influential “pro-life” groups telling me that Katrina hitting New Orleans was “God’s will” to wipe out a sinful city.
Fuck them. Their values are not mine, and it is now supremely evident to me that I have been fooling myself for too long that the radical right wasn’t really representative of MY party.
John Cole
You don’t know what you are talking about. The money had no impact on the levee breaking, because the 40 year old project we are talking about only upgraded to CAT 3 protection.
I don;t know why the project did not upgrade to CAT 5, which would have done something.
Hubris
That hasn’t seemed to stop very many people this week.