It wasn't great for the Indonesian Tsunami, and it's worse for an event within our borders for which we had warning, and which had already been declared a national emergency.

yes, it is horrible. Although the feds were a little fuddled once they got the ball they COULD NOT respond till the gov of LA gave them a yes. SHE felt that it would be better to wait awhile and see just how bad it was. BUsh's failing(notice the finger pointing) was in putting in a head of FEMA who didn't think to make plans just incase. That aside, having been around for those big movements it seems to atleast 2 days to get everything together and onsite.

As for blaming the victims. No, I would not blame the victims. But the victims should blame their own local reps first and then move up the line. If it reaches the presidents office fine.

As for Bush walking on this one, fuck people you make it sound like his personal fault that the levees were not reinforced and maintained and that the local organization was terrible or that he couldn't wave his dick and make 40,000 troops appear in a place were frankly they couldnt do anything in the first two days anyway. Why didn't the Govenor have the State national Gaurd on site before hand? Yes a portion of them are over seas but there are more than enough left with proper leadership. The state didn't have it.

The States are responsible for first response. I realize this is confusing to the liberal mind amoung us as this concept involves personal responsibility as well and self sufficiance. Two thing liberals seem to be against. Lets remember that Clinton fail us just as often as Bush. Atleast Bush is amusing to listen to.

When all is said and done it will be what wasn't done before the storm rather than what came after that is really the issue. In the mean time I send what I can spare to those in need and prepare myself for the storm that seems to be heading toward the SC coast.

The left won't admit it, but they have no interest in Bush "taking personal responsibility" for anything. They want his head on a charger, and will go to any lengths to achieve this, including political haymaking during a national tragedy. The hurricane was worse because he didn't sign the Kyoto Treaty. The cleanup was horribly late in starting because he was on vacation. FEMA was a "boondoggle" when applying for funding, but it's suddenly vital now that it can bolster the kill-George argument.

Some problems are much bigger, and much messier, than witch-hunting one man can solve. New Orleans illustrates a far more insidious wrong -- a failed social institution that started with FDR and sucked the life out of two generations of people. It left them with nothing but utter dependence on government for their livelihood; if the system glitches, they have fuck-all to pull them out of their mess. Just watch: thousands upon thousands of people will use this flood to forever leave the hellhole of New Orleans behind. Without a teat to hang on, they will look for work, get out of the ghetto, and raise children who don't shoot at rescue helicopters. No amount of leftwing handwringing will stop it, and it's loooong overdue.

That's not true. The request for assistance went through the Saturday before the storm. After that, the feds could go in whenever they wanted.

Sure. With what quality of education, and what skills? You said that some problems are much bigger and much messier--you have no idea how right you are.

Please. We don't know if it was welfare kids who were doing the shooting.

Hey, you're the one who posted that nasty "blame the victim article," so I don't think you should be getting up on your high horse there about "retarded partisanship," pal. And what's this about "local government's unwillingness to choose prosperity and responsibility over entitlement and welfare. " Welfare is a mostly federally funded program, administered by the states. TANF and WIC are FEDERAL programs, so are SSI and SSDI for the disabled.

Please explain and give concrete examples of the state of Louisiana's and the city of New Orleans' unwillingness to choose prosperity while making entitlement a priority. I want to see facts and numbers, please, not polemics.

So what? Are we lowering the bar for the US to that of the third world? See, it took them a month to go help people in Sri Lanka, since the US tops the rest of the world in EVERYTHING, let's just take two months and show THEM! A lot of people died in those three days in Indonesia, what was so great about that? Hello? :eyebrow:

The side arguing things like this is hardly in a position to demand statistics. However, I will look some definite statistics up and get back to you. Hold me to it -- pm me if I forget (i have a bad cold and a crappy week at work).

New Orleans is closer and there was plenty of warning for Katrina.

It was still up to the Governor of the State of Louisiana to ask for the help from FEMA. They can't just go in, disaster declaration or not.

The declaration frees the resources ... when they are requested. Although we function as one country, each US state is actually it's own little independent entity. We often forget that.

She did ask, on August 27, in a very detailed letter. A small snipet from her letter on nola.com:

Gov. Blanco's request is also documented on whitehouse.gov.

Rod Dreher of the Nat'l Review turns on Bush:

Select bits from that WaPo story:

It's nice that people are noticing this now, and it would be even nicer to see this spur some investigation into how many other important posts have been used as patronage prizes. I mean, it's not as if Bush even tried very hard to disguize that this is what he was doing.


Sure, everyone appoints their best buddy Ambassador to Elbonia, but some posts actually need skill. This is a symptom of the idea that government can't do anything well, so it doesn't matter who's in any position. If you truly believe that all civil servants do is waste tax dollars and sit on their asses, then of course you're going to use the posts as patronage.

I've been saying the same thing for the past week, although I used "Luxembourg" as my example.

Just be glad Karl Rove isn't Secretary of Defense.