Don't Blame Bush for Katrina

Newsmax ^ | 9/5/2005 | Christopher Ruddy

[JLAGRAYFOX]

No one with half a brain is listening to anything the MSM says. You might also take note that very few nationally known Democrats are bad motuhing the Prez. They know that is a course laden with danger. They also know that when the truth be known the Democrat politicians in Louisiana are not going to look good. AS for the MSM, they are so stupid it is really laughable. Even an idiot knows you don't pull the trigger unless you will kill your enemy. But, I must admit, these fools never learn. Moral of the story: At the end of the day, GW Bush will come out of this looking pretty darn good. The MSM looks bad once again.

[TennTuxedo]

Here is an email from a hurricane chopper relief pilot sent to me from this pilot's good friend and a resident of New Orleans who did evacuate the city ahead of the hurricane hitting land.

" A note from a friend running choppers in Louisiana.... No words to describe what I have seen. Much like Vietnam, but I wish to tell you all..the negative media can kiss my ass. I have seen miraculous and heroic action like you have never seen.

DO NOT listen to the negative media. They look to sensationalize and place blame. The sequence of events could not have been forseen and it was a minute by minute crisis like this country has never seen.

God bless the people who have served and God Bless the best damn military in the world and God Bless our President. He has shown strong leadership and screw the naysayers who try to politicize this issue..they have no damn clue..none.

I can tell you I have seen things I have never seen or thought possible and the good that is being done far, far outweighs the negative crap you see from media. Those magnificent ####s are getting it done and they are doing it without a road map. You adapt and you roll.

Put the damn petty politics aside and pitch in and support these wonderful men and women. There will be many books written and history will tell the real story. The cream has risen to the top and I have seen it firsthand and these people of New Orleans have cried in my arms thanking us and I can assure you that there will be a changing of their hearts of many when all this is said and done and they reflect back on the events.

A special thanks to the people of Lafayette and Baton Rouge. My crews say they have never seen such wonderful people in their lives. LSU coeds greeted us when we landed at Ryan field and Bernie Moore with food and water and tearful hugs and it meant so much to our haggared crews and pilots. We have been pushed to our limits but our crews never stopped and often we threw the rule book out the window. We just get it done. I have never done such flying in my life and I am so grateful I knew the lay of the land and was able to help our crews and the dozens of other crews. I have witnessed so much heroism and sacrifice. So many stories..real stories and the media needs to tell it to the American people.

Do not dispair...America and their people are strong and no other country in the world could have done what I have witnessed. This country will be so much stronger and do not let the few bring it down.

God Bless President Bush. I do not care what your politics are...but this man has and is showing leadership and I have witnessed it firsthand and I don't give a damn if John Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln or FDR was President...no one could have foretold the scope of this event and what it would entail...but by the grace of God it is getting done.

As I walked thropugh triage and smelled the death and saw the magnificent work being done under horrible conditions that are beyond description..I stopped to check on an elderly 80 year old lady sitting alone in a corner..she looked at me and smiled. She looked near death and I walked to her and asked if she was OK. She said she was dying, but that was OK..she welcomed the peace and seeing her God. She took my hand and said, "God Bless you and save all you can. God protects the saviors."

I tried to say something, but the words would not come out as my throat tightned and tears came into my eyes. I have not cried in 40 years, but I could not stop the tears from my eyes. I gathered my crew and went back to my mission. I told my crew we had to put on our game face and when we lost people..we just lost them. We had to keep on going. I am glad they did not see my tears.

Keep the faith and we as a people will be stronger. This country and it's people are magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.

Got to get some sleep. Later"

[FlingWingFlyer]

Dang! You got me!! I forgot about the French not repairing the levees prior to selling that place to us. Crap! We got rooked! We need to get our money back!! There had to have been some kind of warranty.

[Antioch]

The NO police force operates in a parallel universe! This just in from the NY Times:

P. Edwin Compass III, the New Orleans police superintendent, said on Saturday that 200 of the 1,500 members of his force had walked off the job and that two others had committed suicide. He said on Sunday that the city had offered to send all members of the police and fire departments and their families on vacations to Las Vegas.

The notion of a vacation in the midst of disaster struck some as unusual. But officials likened it to an R&R break for combat troops. Military reinforcements, who arrived in the thousands over the weekend, will take over the search and rescue work temporarily, though New Orleans officials said they would remain in charge. "We haven't turned over control of the city," said Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans. "We're going to leave a skeleton force - - about 20 percent of the department - for leadership and liaison with the troops while we get some rest."

[jdub]

Do we need to issue an amber alert for the LA Governor? I can't remember the last time she appeared on tv. Correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think she has faced reporters since very early in the crisis. It seems her plan is to lay low and let the attention focus of the Feds.

[eyespysomething]

Gosh, if you want to make it for any amount of time, you would have picked a different screen name.

[eyespysomething]

The buses he neither used to evacuate people, nor moved to higher ground to use to evacuate people after the hurricane.

Not issuing mandatory evac orders until less than 24 hrs before landfall, even though THEIR EMERGENCY PLAN CALLED FOR A 72 HOUR EVAC PLAN.

Um, not following their emergency plans at all?

Anything else?

[GunnyBob]

Bloated blowhard Michael Moore says George Bush is a racist and intentionally delayed Hurricane Katrina relief because he hates blacks. The remarkably wealthy and obese Moore, who makes more money during lunch than most Americans make in a month, refuses to take some of his scores of millions and mount a rescue and relief effort for the very blacks he claims to love and care for.

Self-proclaimed scientist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says Bush created Hurricane Katrina because he wouldn’t sign off on the Kyoto Accords. He fails to mention that the Accords came about during the Clinton years and that the Clinton administration didn’t sign them either, first and foremost because the Senate never got the deal to Clinton’s desk. He also fails to mention that thousands of scientists say global warming is a natural phenomenon anyway. How many millions of dollars from the staggering wealthy Kennedy clan were immediately sent into the fray to help? You guessed it. Oh, and Kennedy the environmentalist doesn’t want sea-based electricity-generating windmills off his family’s Hyannisport compound because they would obstruct the view and cause him to have to turn his yacht more often.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md), in a news conference with the Congressional Black Caucus, spoke for God himself against the rescue and relief efforts to date. A congressman spoke for God. He also said, "They are not refugees. I hate that word." They are refugees, bub, and I would like to know why you are so concerned with semantics.

Professional shakedown artist and multi-millionaire Jesse Jackson suggested evil whites in the federal government were the reason why hundreds of thousands of refugees in a 90,000-square-mile disaster area were not rescued within a few hours by federal troops who were just goofing off in the first place. I just watched him insinuate that his plan for relocation of the refugees is far superior than any of the morons in FEMA. Of course, he has no training or experience in such matters and has no idea whatsoever of the intricacies and details of such plans, but he’s Jesse Jackson and he’s a millionaire many times over, so he must know better.

Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, the world’s most righteous, capable, and brilliant man according to Bill O’Reilly, made the stunning assessment that we need to get the National Guard into the disaster. Boy, he sure knows how to cut to the chase. He continues to point fingers at the feds and implies he could have done better. Have at it, Bill. Get down there and take charge. By the way, stop claiming you broke stories that others broke days or weeks before you picked them up and claimed them as an "exclusive."

Geraldo Rivera, an actor masquerading as a journalist, grabbed some lady’s baby, began shouting with tears in his eyes how folks need help down there, and then quickly handed that kid back to mom after the camera was turned off. If he cared so much for that child, why didn’t Geraldo pull out some cash (he’s got millions) and hand it to the mother, who has nothing?

Over on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough called for an investigation.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, prepping the zone for her presidential run in 2008, called for an investigatory commission.

Why did the media so readily assist the city and state officials who failed to properly plan for and effectively react to this disaster, who instead of doing their jobs, immediately began pointing fingers at anyone except themselves? And how is it that nearly every jaw-jacker in the area implied, said or insinuated they were the true experts at disaster response? Do they really think that rapier assessments like, "We need fresh water in here," "We need more boats," and "We need the police and National Guard to get control of the looters" were of any assistance? Such moronic statements are like a drowning man saying to his rescuer that he needs a life preserver.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans went on the tube and started screaming and cursing that the government wasn’t doing anything to help anyone in his city. He bellowed that he didn’t want to see anyone talking in a news conference anymore. He said this to the news media, of course. When it comes to all the people trying to help, Nagin said, "There’s one guy here that I trust," (a certain general). So the mayor believes everyone else risking their lives to save the city he failed is untrustworthy. Mayor Nagin, you are all done, mister. You failed to prepare your city for the long-awaited monster storm everyone knew would one day arrive. Your city is one of the most murderous in the country. You can’t get nearly enough cops to work in your city because of low pay and extreme danger. You had no enforceable mandatory evacuation plan whatsoever. And now you are telling the world that it’s everyone’s fault but your own. You didn’t even have a plan to evacuate the hospitals. You demonstrated just how much of a screwball you are when you told an Associated Press reporter: "If the CIA slips me something next week and you don’t see me, you’ll all know what happened." You followed up this bizarre statement with another to CNN, saying live on national television that you are petrified the "CIA make take me out." Buddy, you are a paranoid freak who belongs somewhere other than in office. The CIA has far more important people to deal with than you, lad. How a clueless buffoon such as yourself ever became mayor of a major American city ranks among mysteries right up there with Marion Barry.



Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana also had no plan for this near-worst-case scenario. She, like Mayor Nagin, decided the best plan was to hope this never happened and figured if it did happen, those slackers in the National Guard, Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, who are just sitting on their butts anyway doing largely nothing of consequence, would just trot on down as soon as the storm passed and fix everything within minutes. The governor had no plan to help evacuate those who didn’t have the ability to flee on their own.

Transplanted French Canadian Celine Dion, who came to America to make a monstrous fortune estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, was just wailing on television about how evil the United States military is because, according to her, it easily kills loads of innocent people and destroys the lives of countless other innocent people, but doesn’t want to help out with the hurricane: " . . . it's so easy to send planes in another country, to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives." It is ironic that this woman depends on the military to keep her filthy rich yet attacks them and impugns their honor with utter abandon. Hey, lady. Why have I not heard about you writing a check well into the millions of dollars to help the needy? Or a check to any of the military relief societies that lend a hand to needy military families that are on food stamps because military pay is so low? Instead, your company, "A New Day," which runs your Las Vegas operation, pledged a paltry $1 million to relief. That’s chump change and you took yourself off the hook by not personally donating your own money instead of your partnership’s money. Writer John Grisham and his wife personally donated (not pledged, donated) $5 million of their money. Take your butt back to Quebec if you hate the American military so much. No one that I know of asked you to come here and you only did so to get rich. Get your stinkin’ butt out of my country, you vile hypocrite.

And what of the hundreds of thousands of people who knowingly and willingly chose (elected, decided) to ride out this beast? Why didn’t they prepare for the hurricane? Why did they stupidly choose to stay in the first place when they were told how bad this one was going to be? Where did they read that the federal government is first and foremost responsible for getting them out of a jam? I can’t find that written anywhere. If your survival plan is to just wait for the Marines, it might be a while because, just in case you have not heard, the Marines are fighting two wars at the moment.

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said the officials who failed to prepare for this disaster "committed murder" and "need to be fired right away." No one committed murder, Broussard, but you are right that anyone guilty of negligence leading to death should be fired, including you. You totally failed in your duty as parish president to make sure your parish had a workable evacuation plan, and an emergency rescue and relief plan. By your own admission, you murdered people. Please turn yourself in to Chief Ed Compass for arrest, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment.

The bottom line is that rescue and relief efforts on this scale from the federal government take a few days to get rolling, which is one of the reasons why it is the primary responsibility of mayors and governors to have plans in place to fill in the gaps while federal assets mobilize. And it is every American’s personal responsibility to evacuate when told to do so if they can, and the vast majority of those who stayed did so of their own free will and refused to prepare for the consequences of that decision.

Responsibility starts with the individual and works its way up. It does not start with the president and work its way down. There’s nothing in the Constitution or in federal laws that says the guy in the White House has to do everything for you in an emergency.

[TheShaz]

This is very simple.

It comes down to...

***LEADERSHIP***

On 9/11/01 we had Rudy all over the TV & Radio telling people what was going on, making decisions. People knew somebody was in charge.

Last year, Florida my home was nailed 4 times by hurricanes, Jeb Bush was all over the place doing the same thing. Taking CONTROL of the situation.

Until toay I did not know what the Govornor of Lousiana looked like - and all I saw of the Mayor of New Orleans was when he was whining.

What shocked me was he ran away to Baton Rouge. I would have parked a Command Trailer on the 50 yard line in the SuperDome - armed with Sat Phones and directed the relief effort from there - from that vantage point it would have been obvious to a blind man that a massive evac would have been needed as soon as the storm passed. As mayor that request goes to the State Gov and then from there the request goes to FEMA and things get done.

[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.