Katrina Missteps Still Haunting Bush
October 24th, 2007 . by TexasFredWASHINGTON (AP) - Hurricane Katrina has many legacies for the Bush White House, none pleasant. One is the guarantee that as soon as disaster strikes in the United States, President Bush’s every move is closely scrutinized to gauge the speed and tone of his response to the suffering.
This became clear yet again on Tuesday, as the enormity of the wildfires sweeping across Southern California became apparent.
The White House reacted with what has become a familiar pattern: Bush dropped a few lines of sympathy and promised assistance into an already scheduled speech. Across the administration, aides volunteered as many facts and figures as possible about the federal contribution to the disaster response, a federal emergency to speed relief funding was declared in the middle of the night, and a presidential visit to the affected area was quickly arranged.
The White House’s handling of Katrina in the days before it hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August 2005 seemed set to follow this model. Bush and his aides issued repeated warnings to worried locals, conferred with officials in the region and promised Washington would do all it could to help.
But once the massive storm blew ashore, smashing Mississippi’s coastal communities to sticks and submerging New Orleans in water, the federal response turned dismal.
Missteps, that’s pretty much the defining descriptive of the entire Bush administration isn’t it, missteps, bungling, mismanagement, waste, ineffectual leadership and borderline treason, that little part about protecting the U.S. from ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic, yeah, that part, our BORDER security and the ILLEGALS…
Bush is ALL OVER the situation in California right now, the wildfires and so forth, and I somehow suspect that’s because So-Cal has a lot more money and well known people than New Orleans had, not to mention those pesky little electoral votes, oh yeah, it ALL comes down to money and politics…
And if the California response doesn’t go as planned, I wonder WHO will take the blame?? You just KNOW that it won’t be the President, you DO remember right after Katrina when Bush said, “You’re doing a heck of a job there Brownie…” and then ‘Brownie’ was fired for not managing things correctly?? Now it may or may NOT have been Browns fault, but you can bet the farm on this, Bush wasn’t about to take ANY blame, Bush will NOT accept responsibility for ANYTHING…
Locals were left wanting for urgently needed supplies. Bush seemed disengaged from the crisis and then stumbled through initial appearances in the disaster zone aimed at correcting the impression. And some locals feel the White House’s level of engagement in the Gulf Coast’s continuing misery hasn’t improved much in two years.
Bush stumbled through his initial appearances?? Bush has stumbled through his entire presidency, the man is a walking disaster all to himself, he has ignored the most desperate in our nation, he has ignored the most helpless in our nation and he GIVES our money away to other nations of the world, well here’s a little something Bush needs to remember, charity begins at home, and as long as we have people in THIS nation that are homeless, hungry, in need of healthcare, displaced or suffering, the money that’s going to Africa for an AIDS battle, to Iraq for a useless battle, the money Bush wants to send to Latin America so they can continue their nonexistent battle against drugs, to God only knows how many other nations for some project that only matters to a select few, until OUR people are totally secure, our money needs to be spent at home, on OUR people…
Read the full story, it covers a lot of ground on what the Bush administration has and has NOT done in response to the needs of this nation, it points out, in graphic detail, what happens when a buffoon is elected the the highest office in the land…
Full Story Here:
Katrina Missteps Still Haunting Bush
Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/668/trackback/
You are so right on in your comments. If Bush really wants to help California, he needs to stay away.
Our Governor did right thing when he asked the Pentagon for help. They have and are still sending the equipment needed to help our firefighters put these flames down.
Everything Bush gets involved with ends up being one big Cluster-F-K. We don’t need another one of his failures here.
Long before Bush took office we had people who were homeless, hungry, and in need of healthcare. They’ve always been here and they always will. If 20 million illegals can come to America, find jobs, feed themselves, and still send money back to Mexico, how come we have American Citizens who can’t? People have to want to work and be willing to take what’s available, work hard, better themselves, and look for a better job.
We can’t blame Bush for everything that went wrong with Katrina. Matter-of-fact, the DOD had people, equipment, and supplies in place to respond even before Katrina made landfall. We must remember that before Federal Troops can actually move in, they must be requested by the Governor of that state: Posse Comitatus Act.
Here’s something you never heard mention by the MSM concerning Katrina and the Federal Governments preparation.
http://scm.ncsu.edu/public/hot/hot050914.html
“Before the hurricane arrived in New Orleans, Adm. Keating approved the use of bases in Mississippi and Louisiana to position emergency meals and some medical equipment, and eventually six bases were prepared. Keating also sent military officers to Mississippi and Louisiana to set up traditional coordination with their counterparts from FEMA, and ordered the movement of ships into the Gulf. The Pentagon claims that it carried out these preparations without any formal Katrina-related request from FEMA or other authorities. These personnel were on alert a week before the hurricane. McHale claims that “The U.S. military has never deployed a larger, better-resourced civil support capability so rapidly in the history of our country.â€
Yeah, the military did kick in, but now who’s doing what to help rebuild NOLA??
Personally, I don’t think it’s worth rebuilding, not until it’s cleaned out, crooks, gangs, politicians and ALL the bad stuff, but that’s just me…
There’s still people in NOLA living in tents, now I have to admit, I would have long been gone and started over elsewhere but some folks just don’t have that drive, what do we do with them??
I’m not too keen on welfare handouts but IF we’re going to give away taxpayer dollars, I’d rather see something good happen with the money, like maybe a huge effort made in NOLA…
I agree Fred, it’s not worth rebuilding.
The problem I see with the rebuilding is that the people there want everybody else to rebuild it for them. I have friends here in Missouri that went there to help with the reconstruction but they also have lives and families here in Missouri and eventually came back home. A person can only put their life on hold for so long to go to New Orleans but they eventually need to go home. It’s going to take thousands of people to rebuild New Orleans and the surrounding area. These people have to come from someplace. They can’t make you and I go there and do construction work and cleanup. All they can do is offer us $$$$$$$$ but even then it’s not worth it to me.
It seems the reconstruction in Mississippi is going much better. I think it’s because the people there are pitching in and doing most of the work. I haven’t heard Mississippi crying about the Feds not doing enough.
I also wholeheartedly agree that if we, as a nation, are going to be handing out welfare, it needs to be done here at home first.
As far as Welfare here in the states………………….
STOP mailing those checks out and make those people come and get them, we might see a decline in Welfare.
God forbid, that they would have to get up off their ass’s.
No one needs to rebuild New Orleans accept the people of New Orleans. They want to live in a Shit-Hole, let them live in a Shit-Hole.
It reminds me of the little story that if someone throws your child in the lake. Are you going to do something about it or are you going to wait for the Federal Government to help you get your child?
IMO, people want the Fed’s/the POTUS to wave a magic wand and make all the bad stuff go away. It of course doesn’t work like that and then people become angry that their lives have been ripped apart.
CA has always been plagued by wildfires and after the wildfires come the mudslides and the floods. I don’t see that there is a way to fix this. If you want to live there you have to live with this sort of thing.
As for NOLA, all the money that has been poured into a sinking city is wasted. They is flooding there now and that’s just regular rain. When another major hurricane hits NOLA the party will be over, but that won’t stop the usual suspects from wanting to rebuild it in place.
Each area of the country has its own particular living hazards. Here where I live we have flooding, landslide issues, and problems left behind from strip mining/deep mining.
In 98 or so there were huge floods along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers that went on for weeks. The Fed’s and states cannot fix it all and in fact can only fix a small portion of any disaster. Citizens themselves have to fix, live with a problem or move. Of course moving only moves you to another area with a different set of problems.
People can say whatever they want about our Governor, but one thing is fact, he’ll kick the crap out of your Governer.
Every Governer in this country should come to California to see and learn how you deal with a Major Disaster.
Everyone is orderly, everyone that needs help is getting it, it’s amazing.
We here in San Diego are very proud in the extreme in the response by our local and state government officials. WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE for natural disasters. WE did not need the federal government to hold our hands. As it should be.
Poor, old, young…it has not mattered, everyone, EVERYONE has been helping each other. No one is standing about holding their hands out for the federal governemnt to come and babysit, AS IT SHOULD BE.
Hell even our pets are sound and in foster care or at the stadium where the “evil” Walmart has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars woth of food, cages, leashes, beds and water bowls.
Doctors, nurses, vet techs all came out to help. We have almost half a million evacuees…and yet we stay strong.
People are going to stores and buying their OWN water, parking lots in malls and Q, schools, gyms are all being used. Within hours people were situated and being helped.
No, try to spin it how you want, but Katrina was a product of Democrat waste and corruption. Kathleen Blanco and Ray “chocolate city” Nagin did nothing. The people themselves, did nothing. I’ll never forget watching the horror unfold and person after person sit there saying in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that they CHOSE to stay in their homes.
It’s all about personal responsibility. Period.
Thanks Duncan Hunter, Darryl Issa, Brian Bilray. Mayor Jerry Sanders, Supervisor Ron Roberts, you guys ROCK. Arnie as well, Arnie made some evacuee’s day by being among them, holding hands, helping pass out food. High fiving kids.
Yes. San Diego is proud today.
(My response to a libtard who brought up Katrina.)
Southern California Fires - Natural Disaster, Not Terrorism…
Let us first dispense with the thought that these fires were started through an act of Islamic terrorism. We may never know if the fires were started by arson. Nevertheless, the effect of the fires is devastating, and while the stark differences betw…