Guest blogged by David Edwards
Tonight, on MSNBC’s countdown, Kieth Olbermann nailed the Bush Administration and other officials for their handling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans:
…
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn’t even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans � even though the government had heard all the “chatter” from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn’t quite discern… a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection � or at least amelioration � against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
…
Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, “we are not satisfied,” with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which “we” he thinks he’s speaking for on this point. Perhaps it’s the administration, although we still don’t know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, ‘I’ll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die’?
You can find the rest of the remarks in Keith Olbermann’s Blog. A video clip of the statement is here (Windows Media).
I second that, as well as seconding the open letter in the Times-Picayune calling for the firing of all F.E.M.A. officials and the impeachment of Bush.
Impeach. Impeach.
They do not know how to protect our country or they don’t care.
Remember: "we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Has anyone seen the Vice President ? Is he still on vacation? I thought the purpose of a vice president was to fill in when the president was on vacation. Whats he up to? A couple of weeks ago I read on Bradblog and connecting blogs that he seems to be waiting for a terrorist attack, because he wants an excuse to start war with Iran? Is this true? Does anyone know where he is and what he has been up to?
Cheney is house hunting…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w...090401391.html
Olbermann hits the nail on the head and keeps hitting.
A Classic Churchill quote.
Indictment of Bush Admin.
For him(bush), it is a shame � in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I’m not satisfied with my government’s response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill’s quote from the 1930’s. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
And things like this piss me off.
"John Breaux, the former Democratic Louisiana senator and close Bush ally, rejected the president’s claim that nobody anticipated the failure of the city’s levees, saying he talked to Bush about it last year."
Any literate American knew full well that New Orleans was overdue for exactly this type of flood. You can’t protect people from their own stupidity. You can’t expect the president or any other government agency to protect you from your own stupidity.
I predict a repeat of this fiasco within 5 years, with the same people being caught totally off guard again.
Bush will not be in in 5 years.LOL
Hopefully not…unless they repeal the 22nd Ammendment…
Olbermans voice should be added too by many and become a roar of anger and indignation. Of course BUSH avoids it all, and the main stream media will whitewash the criminal cuplability and dereliction of duty of the President. They have already started by spoiling any meaningful discussion by defining it as "The blame Game". They have downgraded any possisbilty of a meaningful accounting with this simple term, a term which defines any attempt to address the issue of culpabilty as a "game". It is not a game.
The mainstream media are happy to spread culpabilty among the many, and let the President step through unblemished, unaffected, by the central charge of dereliction of duty. He failed to lead, failed to respond, and he failed the American people. He should be held to account for that without hiding behind 9/11, or a war in Iraq, or the shortcomings of the responces of others.
As Olbermann points out, it’s utterly fascinating and amazing that these people whose main reelection theme was that they would keep us safe have manifestly failed to do that.
I’d compare it to Clinton running for another term on the promise that he will safeguard the sexual purity of White House interns!
Any more catastrophic success from this White House and we will all have been protected into the grave.
Whether they be literate or illiterate, people ought to be able to rely on their governments to forsee and forestall preventable disasters. That’s the absolute minumum that they ought to be able to expect from government. Government, of course, cannot forsee every contingency and cannot take responsibility for those contingencies that are in the private domaine, necessarily. But the levee system and general measures to prevent flooding are without any doubt whatsoever in government’s domaine.
So are evacuation plans. And evacuation plan that does not have effective ways to inform, enable and enforce amount to little more than a quick shout of "each man for himself" as the captain of the ship disappears over the side into a lifeboat.
Blaming the victim is a low and sordid act. Horribly, we have seen many in our nation stoop to just such an act, repeatedly, over the past week and we have seen no reluctance to combine it with the evils of racism and classism. These times have revealed some of the heart of darkness in this country, it seems.
watched it.
applauded the television vigorously!
Not only using the word "game" to deflect, but they are focusing only on the "hero’s".
Maybe Dick is distancing himself from an impeachment, cause the prick will takethe shrubs place. Then let’s impeach that freak of nature.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.co...atnotes06.html
Read this article and tell me that some well-known chickenhawk isn’t afraid of getting punched by the Governor of LA.
LOL
IMPEACH – IMPEACH!!!! Not only for the incompetence for the thousands people who probably died on his watch here, but Iraq. This guy is such a loser! He can only win by cheating and stealing! I read Gallup won’t even run a poll of impeachment. Why??? My guess is they are afraid of the results!!!
The more I listen to the mainstream US media, and the nutcases that suppport GW without question, the more I am convinced that he will self righteously lead this great country to oblivion and into the gates of hell – and never take the credit .
I watched Olbermann last night and cheered!
MSM has finally been questioning and criticizing the Bush regime and it is a long time coming.
However, I, as some others here and elsewhere are wondering: Where is Cheney?
I hope my best hopes are true…..
Many are condemning the federal government which bu$hit does not seem to realize he is a part of. He is going to head up a commission to investigate what went "right" and what went "wrong". Gag me.
Conservatives are condemning it too … but they also were part of it.
And the truth is coming out. The bu$hit administration WORKED HARD … against money to fix and improve the levees … and "fired" a conservative republican senator who advocated such improvements on behalf of the Corps of Engineers:
"Just as serious, the President’s priorities, his indifference to questions of infrastructure and the environment, magnified an already complicated disaster. In an era of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush consistently slashed the Army Corps of Engineers’ funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain. This year, he asked for $3.9 million, $23 million less than the Corps requested. In the end, Bush reluctantly agreed to $5.7 million, delaying seven contracts, including one to enlarge the New Orleans levees. Former Republican congressman Michael Parker was forced out as the head of the Corps by Bush in 2002 when he dared to protest the lack of proper funding.
(link here, emphasis added).
I noticed that Olbermann used "seeming" a few times at the beginning of the article quoted.
However, despite his good intent, he missed a crucial "seeming" when he said:
"But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe."
Shouldn’t he have said:
"But, nationally, these are leaders (leaders???) who are only SEEMING to have won re-election last year (and did so) largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe." (Or, on the smaller side, did so by rigging the elections.)
You decide, as some around here like to say.
Maybe Olberman threw something into the strike zone, but it looks like a curve ball to me.
Our MSCM.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/...0050827-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 27, 2005
Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana
The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.
I LOVE it when the LEFT Gets caught in a LIE!
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!!!!
#21 – "I didn’t know about people in the Convention Center". Michael Brown, after this news was on television two days.
Read Louisiana’s website asking for help 8/28/05 -in a letter.
Or the best one – Michael Brown," the people in the convention center (the ones he didn’t know about) have been getting 1-2 hot meals a day."
Yeah, gotta catch those lying lefts.
Just for once, admit it, when you give incompetents a job for favors done, and take the funding away from the Army Corp of Engineers, when you have a planning session A YEAR AGO, on disaster hitting New Orleans and still can’t get it right. You screwed up.
People can forgive screw ups but not switching blame when the facts are right in front of your face.
This time, too many outright lies caught on tape.
Someone should buy little Smirky and Chertoff a subscription to National Geographic. This article was in the October 2004 issue, but it could have been written last week:
It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
cont
http://www3.nationalgeographic....re5/index.html
And to Jimmo,
It doesn’t mater how many cover their ass memos the Bushitas wrote, the facts are the facts. Smirky stayed on vacation while people died and we’re just starting to learn how FEMA was PREVENTED from going in and saving people in NO and Mississippi.
But look at it this way. With all those pesky po’ folks out of the way, it will be easy for Booshco and friends to gobble up all the land for development. Hey, maybe if they’re lucky some of those po’ folks may actually get a minimum wage job out of the deal.
Terrie,
Reading this blog, you wonder how these people could not be aware that New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen.
I did not read the National Geographic you reference, but have certainly seen PBS specials, read many newspaper articles and news releases on the inability of New Orleans to survive a major hurricane.
This is nothing new – to literate Americans. The governor of Louisiana absolutely fell apart and had a meltdown when crisis arrived. The mayor of New Orleans had NO PLAN, even allowing 255 schoolbuses to slowly sink beneath the rising floodwaters, when they could have easily been used to transport the thousands of rampaging inner city welfare blacks to safety.
They curse and revile Bush because he did not save them. Yet, what did they do? NOTHING.
When will people wake up and take some responsibility for their own stupidity?
Look, just read below, it is NOT Bush, the Fed Government isn’t THERE to be responsible for you.
Government works from the Mayor to the Governor, to the Federal level, not the other way around.
Bush declared Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas Disaster Areas BEFORE Katrina even HIT, sothe MONEY WAS ALREADY THERE.
They were told to get out, they were begged to get out, they did not, It was a HURRICANE, Bush didn’t bomb them….
And by the way they weren’t there for SIX DAYS either which is what the news keeps saying.
They murdered and raped each other in the Superdome, now they’ve been sent to other cities and states to wreak havoc on them.
It’s Sodom or Gomorrah or both. New Orleans has to rebuild so they can get OUT of the rest of the cities – They didn’t take care of each other, why should we, which is by the way THE GOVERMENT – it’s US, you and me and our tax dollars.
Put blame where it belongs if you want. If I’m standing in water, I’m going to swim out somehow, if I’m told to evacuate the city, I’m leaving. Walking if I have to. Come on people, grow a responsibility stem.
EVERY PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL GROUP SHOULD BE PUTTING A HUGE PART OF THEIR EFFORTS TOWARD A CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF ALL BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS.
AND IF THEY DON’T RESIGN, THEY SHOULD BE IMPEACHED, TRIED, and SENTENCED FOR THEIR CRIMES AGAINST THIS AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
please see the "Declaration of New Orleans" below:
Declaration of New Orleans
by Charles Montesquieu Saturday, Sep. 03, 2005 at 3:24 AM
charliemontesquieu@yahoo.com
A Declaration of The People of the United States of America Concerning the Present Crisis in the City of New Orleans.
In the name of the People of the United States of America, we declare:
That for the last four and a half years the President and his administration have served the interests of a few wealthy citizens and not the interests of the American People.
That he has acted with contempt for the People and for the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
That an edict of the Supreme Court made him President in 2000 and fraud made him President again in 2004.
That the President has pursued an unprecedented expansion of Executive powers that are a grave threat to the rights and liberties of the American People.
That he has made war on sovereign nations that are no threat to the American People.
That his "War on Terror" has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives without bringing those responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to justice.
That the failure of his leadership in the present crisis in the City of New Orleans has resulted in the deaths of thousands more.
That he is derelict in every duty of his office.
Therefore, we resolve:
That President George W. Bush and his administration are illegitimate.
That he should resign from office and new elections should be held immediately.
That if he does not resign, the Congress of the United States should act to remove him from office.
That if the Congress should fail to act, the People will exercise their right to abolish this state and will establish a new government that will better secure their rights and liberties.
COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
Kimberly Hughes SOCIAL ACTION BROOKLYN HEIGHTS NEW YORK CITY
——————————————————————————–
Donelle,
Thank you for the sane comments. To listen to the left wing loons on this blog, you’d think Bush was personally responsible for holding every American’s hand and leading them to high ground.
The intelligent people all left before the storm hit, leaving the low IQ welfare class behind. You simply cannot expect people with an average IQ of 80 and an average weight (for women) of 275 pounds to have enough foresight to get the hellout of the way of a Cat 5 hurricane, even when they live BELOW SEA LEVEL.
Every literate person in America knew this was overdue. Those left in New Orleans seem to be the only ones who were unawares.
Meanwhile, the black Democrat mayor of New Orleans did NOTHING, leaving 255 schoolbuses to be flooded behind locked gates.
No one on bradblog wants to address that. Why?
Ken #7, it has become an urgent matter to protect American citizens and the world at large from GEORGE BUSH’S STUPIDITY, and the STUPIDITY of his administration and, ahem, the STUPIDITY of Bush’s supporters. IMO. IMPEACH BUSH…IMPEACH BUSH…IMPEACH BUSH!
For those Bush supporters who are having great difficulty understanding who did what:
THE LEVEES BROKE, and NO is underwater and it will take many years and many billions of dollars to "CLEAN IT UP".
Even if there were NO DEATHS, the fact that the levees BROKE is ENTIRELY GEORGE BUSH’S FAULT, because he DELIBERATELY WITHDREW FUNDS for reinforcing, repairing the levees so that his buddies could have their expensive tax breaks and he could play "commander in thief" in Iraq.
The dead people of NO had NO SAY in the repairing of the levees. It was taken out of their hands by GEORGE BUSH and his administration and HIS SUPPORTERS who got the money instead of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers!
There seem to be several idiots here on bradblog who think George Bush should/could have reinforced the levees surrounding New Orleans.
You are all ignorant beyond belief. It would take decades and at least a hundred billion dollars to protect New Orleans from a Cat 5 hurricane.
Even if it had begun before Clinton took office, and had continued to this day, it still would not be completed, and the country would be bankrupt from trying.
Meanwhile, when disaster DID strike, the democrat mayor did NOTHING, had NO PLAN, and did not even use the school buses that were all lined up, ready to go.
Instead, he let them be slowly flooded, in the days after the hurricane. Meanwhile, the Superdome was a man made hell – no backup generators, no lights, and NO PLAN.
Let’s blame the president!
Idiots. It’s embarrassing to think that bradbloggers are adults. I can see junior high students being this ignorant and emotional, but adults?
C’mon. Grow up.
Here I am one of the idiots. And I am all grown up but wether you like it or not, no matter what way you cut it, the president failed to lead. He failed to respond to the demands of the office. He could have made a difference so much earlier and he chose not to do so.
Wether I am a class "A" idiot or not – you cannot get away from the fact that the President did not alter his schedule for two days, did a fly by that was meaningless- and waited until Friday to go there and crack inane jokes, and commend incompetents and horribly patronise the victims. He failed to lead – I guess iM stupid for thinking that as leader of the Nation that he ought to demonstrate leadership in time of crisis.
However his belated presence on Friday did make a difference and cause folk to get their act together and get the troops in. Which simply empahsises that he should have been there sooner.
Idiot that I am – I am just a simple man. I’m sorry, is George?
The mayor, a democrat, failed to even utilize the 250 schoolbuses he had available. He let them sink beneath the rising water, while crying that the president should act.
The governor, a democrat, sobbed and cried, and did nothing.
No plan was in effect for the city.
It is not the president’s job to hold the mayor’s and governor’s hand. The constitution CLEARLY lays out the limits to federal power. Evacuation is a state responsibility.
No one has even attempted to answer why the mayor did not utilize the buses at hand. The mayor refuses to answer the question, as well.
Instead, like children, the bradbloggers expose their ignorance of the constitution again and again.
Don’t worry about Florida while Jebs there.
FEMA’s preparation, performance and questionable largesse during the four 2004 Florida hurricanes stands in stark contrast with its abysmal failure in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. While severe, the four Florida hurricanes (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne) caused under 100 deaths and $22 billion in damage, a fraction of Katrina’s destructive force. Yet FEMA’s proactive role and President Bush’s timely and personal involvement in Florida bear no relation to 2005:
Leaders lead. You dont have to be an idiot or a Constitiutional scholar to figure that out. Does anyone anywhere think the President demonstatrated leadership prior to Friday. In the eyes of the world, during the crucial part of this crisis, he was not a leader. Neither Ken nor the GOP and its supporters can talk their way out of this very simple, indisputable, fact. "The president of the United Sates did not lead".
#35 that is my point. Florida was certainly treated differently wasn’t it. Charley took some strange twists and turns as well as Katrina but FEMA was ready and took over. Why was the relief halted and delayed for NO…follow the money and who benefits. The strength of the weapon is as powerful as the operator/operation wishes it to be. Rumsfeld was obviously having a ‘Shock and Awe’ moment.
So, if you live in an area subject to damage from a natural disaster you should move. Guess that means we all better get off the planet since everything is going haywire everywhere…duh.
I think Florida should be first to evacute. The Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, tsumanis, incredible storms, jet stream screwed up, weird weather everywhere….we better get us a brand new planet to destroy. Where should we go Ken?
To Cheney’s secret bunker for a few thousand years? Maybe that is where Cheney is, setting up camp on some planet in a galaxy far far away for him and his Neocon friends whose agenda seems to be total world/planet annihilation.
I myself believe there is much more going on here.
Do I dare say we have polluted the planet to such an extreme that Mother Nature has had it with the lot of us and she doesn’t really care where we live.
I also believe she is getting more than enough help from a few maniacs playing with their Scalar weapons. I won’t even go into Bushco’s enviromental policies.
Scalar Wars, new science for the 21st Century.
Some people just can’t think out of the box, let alone get out of it.
Regarding Olbermann, wonder when ‘he will quit, to spend more time with his family’.
First – those of you so tired of the "morons" on this blog…are free to leave…please do.
Second – Ken read Bradsblog Citizen 663 that will explain your school bus theory.
Question – Why wasn’t the ship right off shore allowed to help, had water, 600 beds with a medical staff, why did FEMA turn all help away, buses that WERE 15 miles from stranded people on I-10 ?
Mayor Nagin had food for people for 36 hours, he had been told by FEMA help was coming..the water was rising too fast to evacuate that many people, by the road .
HOWEVER, helicopters could have. Where were they?
THE SHIP’S CAPTAIN SAID HE WAS WAITING FOR THE ORDERS, MILITARY HAS TO BE GIVEN THE ORDER, AND IF THE PRESIDENT HAD MADE ONE PHONE CALL, I WONDER HOW MANY LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED.
So since you will have so much time, not reading and writting nonsense on this blog, do a little research and educate yourself.