[laz]

This is what I believe, folks. Somebody tell me where I might be wrong.

[Jim Robinson]

No trap. Just total incompetence. Blanco and Nagin are waaaay too stupid and inept to be setting traps.

[konaice]

Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to Malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[mercy]

Well it's a good theory but no way will it ever be proven short of The Sinkmeister himself confessing and in bringing forth tapes of the plotters setting it up.

[Echo Talon]

Bush calling "ahead full" on the rescue ship and the Dems throwing out the anchor. Blanco and Nagin are totally incompetent, I don't know if it started out as a plan, but as they see their failures has gone unnoticed by the MSM and the blame fell on Bush I think they started to drag their feet even more. Maybe if the media would have given them some criticism they would have dome something?

[Blood of Tyrants]

You forget that the fact that the Dems in LA have been taking kickbacks from crooked contractors who used substandard materials and methods when they should have been shoring up the levees. These will show up when they start investigations. You can start by searching all of Nagin's personal papers and computers and I'll bet that you will find millions of dollars of money in offshore bank accounts.

[msnimje]

In order to believe this you would have to believe that the Governor and the Mayor are willing to commit political suicide for the DNC. I don't think so, politicians are a very selfish and self serving bunch.

[Prince Caspian]

Well, you know the saying (adapted): Just because you think it's a trap doesn't mean they aren't out to lay one. I don't know if it was all as preconceived as you suggest. Maybe started out as incompetence, then suspecting Bush of trying to play politics because that's what the left would do, then politicizing it in reaction to their suspicion. One thing I know for sure, and that is the Dem leadership is corrupted and can and does stoop to almost any level to further their agenda.

[MarkL]

I hate it when I see the Left described as stupid. Does anyone really think they could be stupid and get to where they have gotten? If they were stupid, they would not have grown into the threat they have become, and gotten to control the media, academia, and so on. They are very, very smart, and the results of their actions and policies are not unintential screw-ups by well-intentioned but misguided fools, but deliberate damage by fanatics playing by Marx's book for over four decades. Step by step, meticulously, they have gotten to where they are, and they MUST be stopped... or our nation will not survive.

I think that you're right. I agreed with Wayne LaPierre when he said that the dems were willing to accept a certain level of death and violence in order to help push their political agenda, and I agree with you here. Certainly, not the "rank and file" dems, but the leadership? Absolutely.

There's a ring of truth to the saying that there are two parties: The evil party (the dems) and the stupid party (the pubbies).

Mark

[Lancey Howard]

I hate it when I see the Left described as stupid. Does anyone really think they could be stupid and get to where they have gotten?

"Where they have gotten" is minority status in the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most state legislatures. Plus, they have lost the last two Presidential elections. The scumbags of the left are getting loonier by the hour and as far as a massive Democrat conspiracy (and I LOVE conspiracies!) to try to make Bush look bad by sabotaging New Orleans, I can't buy it. It appears that a lot of Democrats have died in New Orleans, and even the Democrats aren't stupid enough to kill that many of their own votes on purpose.

[Species8472]

9-11 and the Presidents response to it are responsible for the downfall of the democratic party in the elections since. The left is desperate not to let Bush have another 9-11. Very believable theory

[zot]

I believe you have it exactly right. Incompetence cannot explain the pattern of behavior we have seen, except for Mayor Nagin.

It was a trap. And the full-court leftist attack was orchestrated.

But President Bush pre-empted one jaw of the trap by taking the initiative before the hurricane made landfall, and he avoided the other jaw of the trap by staying within his legal authority.

[dancusa]

I just think it was incompetence of the state and local leaders.

The dems don't have a Karl Rove to create this situation.(sarcasm)

[Tempest]

It is not a trap. It is just the nature of the devil to always ask for more...

[TheSpaceCoyote]

Here's how I saw it: Blanco is one greedy little witch. She saw the hurricane coming and conspired with the rest of the corrupt LA officials to squander money from the feds. She said she needed money for evacuations and debris removal. She didn't do much evacuating at state expenses it seems, and 'debris removal' sounds kinda hard to audit. She and her cronies, including some prominent cops, saw a way to get filthy rich rebuilding the city. "Mr Pres, I need money, not people yet," is what she basically said in the letter to the Pres before the storm hit.

Nagin is their goat. They all turned their backs on the guy that wanted to clean up corruption. They really wanted to get back at him for straightening out the school system (or trying to straighten it) and since he's not the in-crowd (not a career politician) they conspired to put it all on him.

The storm hits and 1/3 or 2/3 the cops are MIA. They're gathering all the incriminating evidence under cover of the storm. Where to put it all?? Las Vegas. That's where they can assume their 'operations'.

Blanco needs to keep the feds out until all evidence is clear, but there's some kind of problem and she needs to buy time. "I need to think about your offer, Mr Pres, for a full 24 hours." "The mayor ordered mandatory evacuations, but I'm not ready to grant that. Let's test the water first." (not real quotes from her, obviously)

The opportunistic jackals came full swing on their own power, seizing the opportunity to bash Bush despite all their Constitutional knowledge of state sovereignty. They never disappoint.

Enter the Rev Jackson. "I need a distraction from shady dealings with Citgo & Chavez & Blanco and how I've conspired to keep my own race poor so that I can be rich. And Blanco's gonna blow the whole thing. So .... I see racism!" Yep. For Blanco & Jackson, it's all about oil & money.

Nagin: "The CIA's gonna kill me." He foretells his own death but mentions the CIA coz he knows that if he mentions the real killers then he WILL be dead. The conspirators want him out because when the investigation comes they'll find that Nagin is clean, and they'll find that Nagin did everything he could but was obstructed by Blanco, the cops, and the schools.

How deep does this go? Soros maybe? Lefty loonies everywhere doing business with Castro and Chavez are threatened to be exposed if the infrastructure of New Orleans corruption is ever tampered with by the Feds.

Or not.

[advance_copy]

Here are my top ten great mysteries of New Orleans 2005:

1. The school/city buses stuck in the water
2. No evacuation of low areas all day Tuesday after the levee broke on Monday night
3. Empty contraflow lanes next to packed outbound lanes
4. Red Cross not allowed in to New Orleans
5. Failure to call evacuation 72 hours before the storm (standard)
6. Delays in asking for U.S. troops
7. 1/3 of a major city police force abandoning their post
8. Convention Center never announced as an evacuation point
9. Two police suicides
10. All police radios down

Individually, all of these can be attributed to neglect/incompetence/panic. But taken together...? And one thing that has bugged me from the day violence started in New Orleans.

I have heard repeated reports about thugs using AK-47s to terrorize the victims and first responders. Fox News reported on Wednesday night that shooters were firing on a New Orleans police station with AK-47s.

But drug gangs don't often use AK-47s, it is a hard weapon to get your hands on. It is certainly not a gun that you could steal from Wal Mart.

Nobody has ever answered the questions: Why would people stuck in the New Orleans flood fire guns at police and first responders trying to help them? Where did they get AK-47s?

[Congressman Billybob]

Evening, my friends.

A basic rule I have (not mine, but borrowed) is, "Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity." This rule applies to bureaucrats, politicians, engineers, lawyers (well, maybe not lawyers), etc.

There are two reasons which back up the rule. One is Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation which accounts for the facts is probably true. The other is the supply of stupidity. Among humans, stupidity is far more common than malice.

Lastly, the idea that this was a plot requires an "anti-Rove" somewhere who worked out this Machiavellian plan, and then signed up assorted Democrat politicians to carry it out. Has anything in the Democrat's unbroken record of greater and greater defeats in all parts of government at all levels for 20 years (excepting only the Clintons personally) suggested that there is an anti-Rove and any such coordination?

Nope, I'm with Jim on this. No plot. Just an excess of stupidity in local and state officials. Followed by the standard ploy after the fact -- twist the facts, lie about the facts, invent some way to blame the Republicans. That's the simple explanation, which I think is true.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The Constitution is Finished: Not the US One, the Atlanta One"

[Randy Papadoo]

The mayor was supposed to have a command center. It didn't work because it lost power, including generators. I think that happened pretty early, as I recall him having to be called AT HOME on the Saturday night before the levees gave way. That, basically, left him without any control at all. Nagin has to take the blame for the lack of comm, because it was his responsibility. By the time the news got to him, he tried to defend himself by blaming others (Gov and Bush).

The Gov, IMO, would not have had the negative impact on the rescue effort, regardless of her confused political machinations, had the levees not ruptured. Had they not ruptured, the damage from the passed hurricane could have been addressed without much controversy, even if the Gov was an idiot (which she was).

Since no one knew the levees would break, IMO that takes away from the idea that the Gov and the Dems had a plan to trap Bush.

I actually had the same thought of your impeachment theory yesterday, pondered it some, and came to the conclusion that those folks were so far off base in their refusnik decisions, that to try to conjure up an impeachment from that would make them laughingstocks to the entire country.
It's not even an issue, IMO.

Just about all my info about NOLA has come from my reading here at FR, so I am deeply FReeped on the subject. Seems to me that the Gov is, or will be, defenseless whenever the investigation is conducted, which means W will come out, once again, shining. 8-)

Being saturated with FReep gives one a rosy outlook.

[Ditto]

Does anyone really think they could be stupid and get to where they have gotten?

Yes. BTW. Where have they gotten? 40 years ago, the Democrat party had a virtual lock on government --- Federal, State and Local. Registered Dems far outnumbered Republicans across the country.

Over time, the the radical lefties took over the party and since then, it has been doing nothing but digging a deeper hole for itself to the point where Republicans have control over the Federal branches, the majority of state governments, and more local government than they could have dreamed of 40 years ago. It's precisely the stupidity of the leftists that have gotten them where they are.