White House shifts blame for Katrina response

Washington Post MSNBC ^ | Sept. 4, 2005 | Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu

[Becki]

I am very, very wary of what I read and hear.

LOL

This reminds me of my father. He was telling my brothers and me 40 years ago to doubt half of what we see and hear on TV, and disbelieve the rest.

He was a wise man.

Becki

[Republic]

YOu can BET I will pass this along~

This blaming of our President is possibly the sickest, cruelest form of political manipulation I have ever witnessed.

I have never been so ashamed of our press corp FAILING to ask the questions about WHY the governor and mayor in that state REFUSED to take action to prevent what happened.

The filth that the dem party has become is amazing.

I am ashamed for them because they know no shame.

[TexKat]

In reponse to MSNBC anchor this morning Nagin stated that he is absolutely blown away at Chertnoff's comments that he (Chertnoff) was not aware of the people in need of evacuation at the convention center. Nagin says that he does not know if Chertnoff said that but if he did that was a doggone shame. Nagin stated that FEMA was there on the ground.

[TexKat]

An open letter to the President

Excerpts from an editorial in Sunday's New Orleans Times-Picayune:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you.

But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible.

The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection.

On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets.

Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent.

Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry.

Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not.

That's to the government's shame.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard.

We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia.

Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared.

No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

The Times-Picayune, based in New Orleans, never stopped publishing during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The company fled its downtown office Tuesday and printed online editions of the paper until Friday when it resumed printing. The 16-page Friday paper was finished at the printing facilities of The Houma Courier, about 60 miles from New Orleans.

[isrul]

Nagin was definitely hired for his remarkable leadership abilities. Haven't you ever heard him speak? Eloquent, intelligent, a class act all the way. A role model for the mayor of any city. /sarc

[sonofatpatcher2]

I had to take a break... To go to a garage sale to buy another tv set so I could smash it for CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, the other MSM's horribly biased coverage!

[Darnright]

bump

[ckilmer]

The Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan specifically stated that people without private transportation were to be transported on public buses. Here is the original post of the plan

There were not just "200 buses". There were 200 buses in just one photo and Freepers studying the post-Katrina satellite images have counted over 400 buses altogether at other city parking.

At 70 people per bus that is 28,000 people per round trip that could have been taken out of the storm surge area in the 48 hours prior the Katrina striking.

After the storm hit, what makes you think that buses sent from outside of New Orleans could drive through the flooded mess any better than the 145 New Orleans city buses that were parked 1.2 miles away from the Superdome?

Was Scotty supposed to beam the outside buses to the Superdome and them beam them back out so that they would not have to drive through impassable roads?

The time to evacuate those 200,000 low-income people on public buses OUT OF THE STORM SURGE ZONE was BEFORE the Category 4 storm struck.

That was what the Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan for New Orleans specifically called for.

The Democrat Governor and the Democrat Mayor did NOTHING to carry out that portion of the plan. They left 200,000 low-income resident abandoned and they now blame the Federal Government for not having Scotty beam down a massive logistics effort after a human disaster of their own making.

[potlatch]

Good one!!

[cwb]

"Both the Washington Post and Newsweek have had to correct stories, sourced to senior White House staffers, claiming that Blanco had failed to declare a state of emergency, etc, etc. (The corrections were issued when the declaration documents were found both in hard copy and on the state's official website."

---

People are probably confused because of Blanco's own statements on Sunday, Aug. 28 during her press conference. I watched her claim that Bush was the one who called her on Saturday to inform her that he had issued her state a "state of emergency." The impression I got was she hadn't done this until after she got that call. While there is no doubt she issued the disaster order...the question really is, when? After the president's declaration?

Blanco also noted that it was the president who wanted Mandatory evacs ordered on that Saturday, which Nagin didn't even do until that Sunday morning. The reason these people waited was because they didn't want to be responsible for another false alarm should Katrina not hit the city. They were raked across the coals last year for their failure during Ivan...and that did't even hit the city.

For this reason, each public official looked to the other to make the life-saving calls, just in case the same thing happened this year. It is obvious that there was no leadership from either of these two because they were playing politics, waiting for others to make those decisions for them. Thankfully, Bush made these phone calls on Saturday because who knows how late they would've waited. It also gave them their scape-goat should Katrina not hit their city.

[onyx eyes]

Hey -- ol' clumsy-fingers-'puter-dummy, here, actually got the message sent to Tim Russert!
That was fun. Let's do it again. We could jam their digitaliasss...

[onyx eyes]

I suspect a big big big big game of Gotcha....

[onyx eyes]

to ckilmer
....a good point and picture!
now can we all email or get it to our "beloved" MSM ? (not that it would do any good...)

[ckilmer]

well if you're interested--the link to the post is here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1477975/posts

I think its a great.

There's a lot of detail.

You pretty well understand where the kid went to when he took the school bus to drive to houston last week.

Ya gotta wonder why didn't more people do that. Why didn't the mayor command them to do that.

Its very wierd seeing the picture and realizing the mayor is on national television at the same time whining about no one coming to help him when all he needed to do was get his people on the damned buses ready and waiting for them.