Posted on 09/09/2005 4:41:12 AM PDT by cgbg
This is an email I sent to our local rag on their biased Katrina headline story. The story was written by "Combined Wire Services". These guys really tick me off...
The dirty little secret of Pelosi and Reid and their media sychophants is that thousands of people died in New Orleans because of a mayor who failed to follow his cities own evacuation plan and left a thousand school and transit buses in city parking lots instead of evacuating citizens, and a governor who failed to follow her emergency plan and instead focused on crying and finger-pointing. Then there were the city hospitals that kept their generators in the basement. Clever-eh?
Governor Rell is correct to look hard at our emergency evacuation plans. They lack detail and are unusable without major improvements. At least she is stepping up, taking responsibility, and trying to work the problem. The Louisiana officials were criminally negligent in their pre-hurricane planning and evacuation and post-hurricane response.
Your reporters should be trying to create a timeline of what happened to the Louisiana National Guard units until Governor Blanco. They were six thousand strong on the ground. But before the storm the struck the governor pulled them out of New Orleans (after many were there helping people to get _into_ the Superdome.) Then she couldn't or woudn't bring them back into New Orleans. Which was it? I don't know--because your reporters are writing Democratic talking points instead of investigating. Mother nature, Nagin, and Blanco created the mess. Now the Feds have to clean up after them.
The American people are not pleased with the Federal response--but the _big_ story is the locals got their people killed. If you want to save future lives in CT you need to focus on the real issue and stop acting as shills for the Democratic politicians who are trying to hide the truth about Katrina from the American people. ------ Edward Zehr--RIP--1936-2001--
"In the mind's eye of the surfer, his daily newspaper must look very similar to those French newspapers published during the German occupation , with large blank spaces where the censor had excised articles considered a bit too sensitive for public consumption."
This sentence nicely sums up the man-made calamity. And good details, too.
"The Louisiana officials were criminally negligent in their pre-hurricane planning and evacuation and post-hurricane response."
Hit the nail right on the head! When is the ACLU going to file suit over this?
Here's mine, anyone is free to copy. Used stuff from Rush and inspiration from FReepers-thank you. I'm limited to 300 words, there are 299.
The feds are forbidden by law to come into an area unless REQUESTED by the Governor. FEMA is NOT a first responder. Mr. Bush called the Democratic Governor and the Mayor and begged them to evacuate on the FRIDAY BEFORE THE STORM HIT. The National Guard is controlled by the Governor. The NO disaster plan was NOT implemented. Pictures of buses which could have evacuated LA citizens are all over the internet. Red Cross and Salvation Army were denied entry into NO. Florida, Mississippi and Alabama Republican leaders asked for aid.
To avoid the debate Democrats throw racial accusations. Not one Republican Senator was the Grand PooBah of the KKK as was Byrd, the Democratic 1952 vice presidential nominee was a segregationist, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate for ten years was a Klansman.. and Leahy has said that President Bush is purposely killing blacks.
The Republican Party was on the right side of the Civil War, passed the Voter Rights Act, voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Eisenhower sent troops to protect nine students and federalized the Arkansas National Guard when a governor refused to ensure integration, Reagan got the MLK holiday and extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years, and Bush appointed more blacks to high-level positions in his cabinet than any previous president, including the first black woman as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
Still, somehow, Republicans and Bush are racist. Anyone who remembers relief efforts during Floyd in Grifton knows better. I, for one, will not be lectured to by liars, a former klansman on race, a party that had a segregationist as it's vice presidential nominee in 1952, a party that refused to protect nine children, or by those who gave me what I just saw on TV last week.
Mother nature, Nagin, and Blanco created the mess. Now the Feds have to clean up after them.
It's an excellent analysis and that sentence jumped out at me as well. I would only add that many people decided to roll the dice on how they responded to this disaster....
I just watched a segment of c-spann featuring Douglas Brinkley, NO resident & purported "historian". Mr. Brinkley admitted that his family of two small children, under two years of age, did NOT evacuate NO until after the hurricane passed. Now here we have one of the best and brightest citizens of NO, who was told that a cat 5 hurricane was aimed directly at his city and he decided to ride it out. This brilliant man knew that a mandatory evacuation order had been issued, and for all his education & intelligence, he choose to bet his family's safety and remain in his home.
Of course Mr. Brinkley was on c-spann for one reason only, to bash President Bush and his response to the disaster. Not once did he admit that his family was spared only because the hurricane turned and missed a dead on hit to NO. I'm thankful for the good luck that he had in surviving, at the same time that I am appalled that he has the nerve to criticize others.
Maybe he'll take off his blinders someday.
I have more respect for what my dog deposits in the back yard than I have for Douglas Brinkley. He gives historians everywhere a bad name. I'll always remember how Brinkley jumped into the John F. Kerry choir and started singing his praises as soon as Effin John announced his candidacy. Brinkley is not an objective historian, he's a partisan hack.
Thanks for the reminder about the identity of the entity named Douglas Brinkley. I could remember his face, but I had forgotten he was the "Kerry guy,"
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