wow..my dog could run the state better, i’m trying to get some moonbats to understand all this but i get stuff like “blanco is not to blame, i read that on wikipidia”..real quote from one nut.

yeah, but, but.....but.....

BUSH IS HITLER!!!!

It’s gotta be his fault because that’s the scenerio that dovetails with my liberal, oops, I mean “progressive” ideology!

Jim, I don’t care what information you dig up, the only person I’ll ever blame is Bush.

<channeling moonbat/off>

There’s was a pretty damn hilarious defense to this argument over on kos’s site.  The theory was, “well, I live in California and I can’t vote for the governor of Louisiana, so I’m not concerned about that.”

Now we have both major aid groups going on the record to state that the feds had them both ready to render aid before the flooding occurred—and that the state officials would not allow them access to the victims. The combined assets of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army could have assisted the Superdome and the Convention Center easily, as well as most if not all of other shelters within the city.

That was from the Captain’s Quarters link. How can someone, anyone, who has any basic grasp of reason and reality think that the President is the cause of poor response?

Does he bear blame? Well, he’s the man in charge, so when it comes to any dabaucles by FEMA or any other federal agency, yes, he bears blame.

But did any inaction on his part cause poor response, or lives to be lost? NO! NO! A THOUSAND TIMES NO!

Well they can’t spin this one, so they won’t. They will just ignore it instead. Can you imagine what the press in the country would do if a white Republican governor had stopped relieve supplies from getting to all those poor black folks in NO?

The mind boggles.

relief-relieve, same difference

From Michael Moore’s site:

The response to today’s letter has been overwhelmingly generous. Thank you, all of you, who have contributed to Camp Casey-Covington in Covington, Louisiana. Over 200,000 dollars was donated in the first few hours

While i think it’s great the this much has been raised to help the victims, i cant help but to think the 200,000 number only consists of a few large donations (probably from mike, which is encouraging that he’s giving money, but , if true, may be misleading as to the amount of poeple who are willing to give their money to these people)

I have closed my New York production office and flown my crew down to Louisiana

Looks like that Katrina documentary is on!

And I will personally see that every single cent you have donated goes to those afflicted

This scares me.  With Moores logic, we all know that the word ‘afflicted’ could pertain to you or I… (and especially Moore)

Today’s news that “debit cards worth 2,000 dollars” were being handed to each homeless hurricane evacuee. A friend of mine, who’s in-laws live in Jefferson Parish, told me that they went to the FEMA center today to get their debit cards and they said that not only weren’t there any debit cards, the FEMA people there didn’t know anything about it.

Anyone catch that Moore never dvulges where these people live.  He only lets us know where their ‘in-laws’ live. For all we know, this person could live in an unaffected area, but just have family connections in the disaster path. 

Also, FEMA’s website says that it only gives out cards to those who were forced to evacuate.

I heard $2000 as an initial estimate, but later they revised it to $600-$1000, depending on need, family size, etc,.. can anyone coroborate that?.

Also, ive heard people criticzing FEMA because they tell poeple to call or visit thier website for an application to get a card.  (this is obviously for those who have moved out of the area and may have access to a phone or internet.) On the news, however, they showed lines of poeple filling out applications at a make-shift booth set upby FEMA, allowing those without phones or internet to still get cards.

Everyone wants to investigate how President Bush handled the situation.  They want to know why FEMA didn’t act quicker.  They want to know why it took so long to get the help.  All of those are legitimate questions.  But why is it that almost no one wants to investigate the actions of the state government of Lousiana?  I don’t know to me it seems cause of a democratic govenor and democratic mayor.  That may sound a little crazy but ask yourselves this quesetion. If it were a republican mayor and republican governor do you really think the media would let them off the hook as there doing now?

Everyone wants to investigate how President Bush handled the situation.

I think an investigation about why people who sought refuge in the “refuge of last resort” showed up without their own food, water, and medicine, despite being told several times that there were to be NO SERVICES AVAILABLE there.

I saw Geraldo Rivera reporting from the Convention Center as they rolled out a dead person covered in a sheet. The man wheeling him out told Geraldo that the man died of diabetic stroke. This was two days after the storm hit. Where was this man’s medicine? WHO in thier right mind would think that “emergency” medicine would be available within the first couple of days?

Seriously, I don’t unerstand this. Is this one of the people that Kanye West says that Bush doesn’t care about? This is making me nuts to hear people talk about blaming Bush for this. Really, really nuts.

I think the Dems are in really big trouble. They have a black Democratic mayor in New Orleans and a female Democratic governor. By definition, both walk on water, therefore neither can possibly be responsible for any of the problems. Therefore, the Dems are doing their best to roll a huge boulder of guilt and responsibility uphill to dump it on the handiest Republican (preferably Bush), but the boulder insists on going downhill.

Sounds like the tale of sysiphus, except with democrats

I’m a type II diabetic and if I was evacuating I would take my medication with me.  It would fit in my pocket or at worse in a small hand bag.  Type I diabetics are acutely aware of the need of their medication.  You can be sure they wouldn’t evacuate and forget to bring their medication with them. (type I would die without their medication, type II compromise their health and could go a few days without medication in most cases)

Seriously, I don’t unerstand this. Is this one of the people that Kanye West says that Bush doesn’t care about? This is making me nuts to hear people talk about blaming Bush for this. Really, really nuts.

I’ll second that, Para!

The news is getting out to local stations about what Gov. Blanco did and didn’t do.  And also the Mayor of NO.  They had a plan, but never followed it to evacuate those who would be affected most, and that’s the poor and helpless ie those without cars or had health issues.  The Mayor was waiting for Greyhound to provide the cushy buses to get people out.  Hell, all he needed was some of those buses we have seen under water!

Like I said, I don’t place all of the blame on bush. A great deal of blame goes to both the mayor and governor.....

This is an honest question however. Do you think that kind of a double standard is being set when the director of FEMA has been recalled to the white house, yet the president is still pleased with his job?
This has as much to do with the stress that the press puts on a president than the president himself. Has the press managed to muscle the white house into making a decision that may not have been appropriate? I mean, if the guy’s doing a good job-why recall him? If you the guy isn’t doing a good job-why say you’re pleased with the response? Do you think that the recall is fair? And if the recall is fair, should he carry on as the director of FEMA?  And this isn’t a question that is limited to just this event. Take for instance the Iraq war-maybe we had counted on the insurgence of terrosit groups from other lands. But, knowing that a sufficient number of troops to deal with the problem would never have been approved by the press/public. Do you reduce the troops in order to appease the media and public, or do you maintain a number that you think will suffice? keep in mind that the consequence of this is the understaffing of the most dangerous job on the planet. Who do you blame for this? The press or the president? These are honest questions. I know that one of the moments that Clinton could have gotten bin ladden was during the monica lewinsky scandal. People have told me that he had feared the public wouldn’t have gotten behind him on such a move because they would have seen him as “wagging the dog.” To tell you the truth, I don’t know that he made the right choice-could that wrong choice have allowed to september 11th, 2001? I’m not sure, even he has gone on record to say that he wished they’d spent more time on Bin Laden. And now we have a president who’s doing the same thing. I don’t think Chenny is an idiot. I foresaw the insurgency before the war even started. I mean, if you’re waring against a nation that supposedly supports terrorist groups around the world, what do you think is going to happen? Well, terrorists from around the world are going to fight against you. If you didn’t forsee this, you’re an idiot. So-the same things that piss me off about this administration are the same things that annoyed me about the clinton administration; making the wrong decision just to appease both the press, and political figures like Gingrech (yes, I’m a shitty speller), and rhodam clinton, who choose to care more about partisanship than the actual well being of the people.
Or is recalling brown the right decision...man,it’s kind of fuzzy.

So, all of a sudden the republicans are on the side of federal government. Even though the federal government admited that it screwed up. Do you think that Brown was called back to washington because he did a good job? Or do you think that he did a good job and was called back to appease the “liberal” media. Well, it’s kind of wierd; there are one of two possibilities: either brown screwed up, or, despite the good job he did, he’s getting called back because this administration hangs more on the “liberal” media’s opinion than it does the well being of the people. Wow all the pieces are falling in place for me now. Send in as little troops as possible-it don’t matter just so long as the people think things are going well. if a guy is doing a good job-don’t support him--just say something vauge about being happy with the response and not with the results.
That brings me to anohter point. Sometime around middle school, all that mattered were the results. I could take a sience project home, work on it all night, but get it wrong. And you know what? My grade would be unsatisfactory-no matter what my responce was.

Here I find myself on the white house’s side. Well, kind of. If I were to take a guy off of duty, I’ld want another reason to do so other than he was doing a good job.

Oreo, you are missing a very important piece here.  Bush may very well be incredibly upset with Brown.  He might be on the verge of not only firing, but possibly shooting “Brownie”.  But he is presenting a unified front for the public.  One lesson I learned in my time in the military is that you do not dress down a high-ranking individual in front of the troops.  It causes a breakdown in the chain of command.  The dressing down takes place behind closed doors.  I’ve seen it. 

In my first unit, we had a senior NCO who was an ass.  Everyone hated him, including the battalion commander and sergeant major.  This NCO would pull things like surprise inspections that would shut down out department for two days, schedule trainings to conflict with major events and generally disrupt the morale of the unit, but none of his actions were illegal, so the commander would smile and publicly support this NCO.  But inevitably, this NCO would get pulled into a meeting with the CO, XO, Sergeant Major and Legal Officer, after which he would come back and rescind whatever hair brained idea he had imposed on us.  After about 2.5 years of this shit, the CSM had had enough and told this NCO to “Get the fuck out of my unit!” This was amazing to me, as I had never heard the CSM swear at ANYONE before.  The command group forced this NCO to find himself another assignment in two days or risk them kicking him out of the Army with only 3 months until his retirement.

Honestly, I don’t think that Bush is happy with Brown.  Brown cracked under pressure and made a bad situation worse (politically).  I think that the president was simply propping Brown up to present a strong, unified front until he could find someone else to do the job.  I would be willing to bet that in six months, hidden away on the back page of the newspaper, you will find single paragraph that discusses the dismissal of Mike Brown. 

Sir Not Appearing In This Film

there are one of two possibilities: either brown screwed up, or, despite the good job he did, he’s getting called back because this administration hangs more on the “liberal” media’s opinion than it does the well being of the people.

Ok, first, life isn’t that simple.  There are a billion possibilities.  My opinion is that it was a combination of things.  Certainly it was helpful to the effort to get someone in the position who wasn’t distracted by liberals attacking him all the time.  We had a guy in there who had to wonder every day if he was going to be out of a job tomorrow.  Well, he doesn’t have to wonder any more.  I think it sucks for him, because he probably did his best, but it’s a quick-results-oriented world.  Also, whether you believe it or not, Bush is the president of the entire country, not just Republicans.  If he is capable of doing something that Democrats want without jeopardizing the effort, he has to consider it.  If the majority of Americans think that the federal government dropped the ball, no matter how small the ball was relative to the local and state screw-ups, Bush had to take some action that allowed FEMA to do their job without distraction.  I think Bush did the right thing for the country, although you may argue that it wasn’t the right thing for the party.  Weird huh?

interesting take, sir not.

I think that was a very good point to make concerning individuals in a chain of command.