Katrina Accountability-"Chain-Saw the Totem Pole"

I think "Sorta" is the best word possible. As much as his detractors might think...Bush still can't control the weather.

 

I wasn't referring to the weather. I suspect he will try to palm off much of the blame to the state and local level. But I'm glad he at least recognizes that the federal government should at least stand up for something.

 

This article is a bit dated, as it came out just before the firing of FEMA Director Brown, but it offers a good insight on how President Bush has handled this disaster as well as a glimpse at a side of him people rarely see.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9246528/site/newsweek/

I found the part about "photo ops" very interesting.

 

Thank you for the link, Hack. It's obvious that Katrina has damn near broken Bush's Compassionate Conservative heart. Frankly, this article is to journalism what cotton candy is to food. It's fluff, a puff job loaded with Disneyesque heart-wrenching images that are then scotch-taped to the President's perambulations. (And yes, I'm throwing stones at my own house here, since I took some flack in another Katrina thread for defending a "Nation" article that did something of the same thing from the other side of the spectrum.) The writing itself is embarrassingly mawkish; it might as well be a White House press release. And what's so special about the photo-op? I saw nothing insightful there; nothing that revealed a kinder, gentler Bush: just a politician trying to get his photo-ops of the moment to smile for the camera. Maybe I missed something. Frankly, my own take was that Bush went through the disaster areas like a man walking through a minefield, wishing he were anywhere but where he was. Bush's body English is more revealing than any article.

Katrina did reveal a side of the President that he would rather we didn't see, but not the side this article purports to reveal: callous, indifferent, and incompetent. How many of you saw the video of his "taking responsibility"? Quite a performance, really. Hesitant, reluctant, nervous; obviously hating every word that circumstance had forced him to say. I thought, watching it, how would Winston Churchill have delivered it?

[ September 16, 2005, 07:40: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

In other news: who do you think got the job of heading the reconstruction efforts ?!

from a New York Time article

I guess this makes clear how important this issue is for the administration .

 

Here's a follow-up on the original story posted by Spellbound.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9368952/

 

What does this mean, Hack? That she didn't drown? Since the dates were wrong, it's not a tragedy? That it's really all warm and fuzzy? Unless Broussard spent a lot of time at the Actor's Studio, he believed what he was saying at the time he said it, as should be obvious to anyone who viewed that interview. You're hunting for dropped excuses in the land of the dead.

[ September 18, 2005, 06:51: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

Well, I agree with Cernak. And I've watched that video again. There is no way on this planet that Broussard was faking that reaction. He may have gotten his timeline screwed up and even who said what.....but the fact is, the man was clearly at the end of his emotional rope. That was no acting job. And the woman is dead....needlessly.

 

Sheesh...I wasn't implying anything by the follow-up story. I just thought it was interesting to show that the owners of the nursing home were being indicted on 30 counts of wrongful death.

Also this story was being used to illustrate a failure of response on the part of the government to rescue the residents of the nursing home, which in fact was bunk as the deaths happened on the 29th of August.

I, nor the news story, implied that Broussard was acting or untruthful...only that in his highly distraught state he got some important facts wrong. This is a case of the nursing home owners failing to evacuate the residents, not rescue workers failing to come to their aide. The people were already dead by then.

 

Being confused is clearly understandable. The grief he displayed is also understandable -- given that HE was also responsible for the welfare of the citizens in Jefferson Parish. I would be be wracked with guilt if I was in charge and was so woefully unprepared for the tragedy. The city officials should hang their heads in shame after allowing the poor and inferm to be left behind.

 

From the David Letterman show: Top Ten Questions For The Fema Director Application.

The ones I like are

and

It would be funny, if one would not have a feeling that actually this describes pretty good what happened.

 

I get too depressed reading about many of the details -- they are horrific and depressing in the extreme. My take on the whole Katrina situation is this:

The United States is the wealthiest, most powerful and (at least according to its proponents) the free-est country in the world. If all that is true, why in the name of God Almight was a LOT more not done to aid the people in New Orleans. They can send a man to the moon (and plan on doing so again) yet when a clear and present danger hits a major metropolitan area, thousand die not from the sudden damage of nature but slowly, when the technology and manpower exists to save those people.

The hell with the blame game -- EVERYONE in authority dropped the ball on this one -- Federal, State and Civic authorities sat by and did next to nothing. Why not call out the Army? The Army has tons of big trucks to carry all sorts of goodies, why not empty the damn things and fill them with people? Why not get some of those big bloody cargo airplanes up in the air, filled with food and supplies, and then cart off people on the return flight?

I have ever been a supporter of the Republican way of doing things, and I still support a strong military presence in the Middle East, but I have lost all respect for Shrub and his handlers. I wouldn't vote for him (were I am American citizen, that is) if you gave me a million dollars. I hope he and his ilk, be they Republicans or Democrats or what have you, all suffer the full brunt of the consequences for their pathetic response to the disaster.

 

You are not the first person to ask this question. The answer, in response to both the trucks and cargo planes, is that over 90% of them are currently deployed overseas - mostly in Iraq but also Afghanistan. So while it's a great idea, unfortunately they weren't around when we needed them.

 

And yet again, who is to blame for these unfortunate circumstances, hmm? Just because our leaders couldn't possibly see it coming doesn't mean they won't (or shouldn't) take the blame for it. Leaders are responsible for everything that happens to those under their [command/rule/responsibility], whether it's preventable or not. So sayeth the wise Felinoid.

 

Aldeth, I don't often disagree with you but less than 25% of the Army is overseas (everywhere, not just Iraq and Afgan). This also means that only ~25% of the equipment is overseas. Although, mobilizing units is not an overnight endeavor -- it takes days to do (and weeks of preparations). It may sound easy to say 'call out the Guard or Army,' but is in reality a lot more complex. Money drives everything -- the military cannot move with the okay from congress to spend the money (the President orders the military, congress finances it -- checks and balances in action).

Also, only 20% of the LA Guard was deployed overseas. That still leaves over 8000 men and women the govonor could have called up -- but it would have taken a few days (the people in the Guard and reserves were also told to evacuate). I'm not at all surprised it took almost a week for the LA Guard to respond since they were scattered among the other refugees.

 

T2B,

I admit that you could be correct in your statement. The source for my statement was a LA official - someone working in the governor's office, who I saw on CNN. Now, while I generally regard CNN as a fairly reliable source, this was a live interview they had on last week. As this official obviously is a biased source (he would naturally try to divert blame from the state to the federal government if possible), it is possible that he pulled those numbers out of his ass.

That having been said, I don't think your numbers quite add up either. Our current active military is approximately 500,000 troops. Seeing as how 150,000 of them are in Iraq alone, that's already in excess of the 25% you mention. That says nothing about the thousands stationed in Afghanistan, Europe, and the elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East.

Now I realize that we also have NG troops, and reserves, and maybe that 25% figure you get encompasses them, but as far as active military go, far more than 25% of them are overseas

 

There are over 400,000 active duty members of the Army alone -- total military active duty is over 1.3 million. Those numbers do not include the reserves and national guard. The statistics are here:

2005 Active Military

According to the report only 169,200 troops are in Iraq (including guard and reserves) and 19,500 are in Afganistan (also including guard and reserve). I think those numbers along with the active duty stations at various locations overseas are approximately 25% (the at sea numbers of the Navy are misleading, at most 25% of Navy ships are deployed at any time).

 

Yes, but we're talking trucks and cargo planes - primarily army vehicles. (Yes, even cargo planes, which one would normally assume are part of the Air Force, are actually Army vehicles.)

 

The vehicles don't go without the troops. While the amoung of vehicles sent in theatre may be higher than the 25% of troups present, it would certainly not be very much higher. A good portion of those vehicles in theatre came from forward deployed assets (for example, from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean).

Hey, wait a second -- I'm usually the one defending the military here.