When it comes to Federal responsibility, okay, I'll admit, I'm gunning for my favorite TO right now, I believe this is a quintessential example of the care and thought that GWB put into his appointments:
Brown pushed from last job: Horse group: FEMA chief had to be `asked to resign'
I suppose that prior to that position, he had some other job that made him emminently qualified to run FEMA?!
I've heard it said the GWB administration would like to, and has been quietly working toward, the dismantlement of FEMA. It would seem this appointment, in the tradidtion started by Ronaldus Maximus of tearing down agencies by appointing like-minded administrative salvors to head them, is being carried on by GWB.
As Haggis said earlier, FEMA was at one time regarded as one of the premier disaster relief agencies in the world. It's a shame to see it falter, whether it's because of increased bureaucracy, as Haggis proffered, or a victim of targeting by GWB. In either case, the real shame of it is the people who have died as a result.
I still hold the Feds, and GWB in particular, primarily responsible tfor the morass in leadership in this disaster. When Congress could convene on Palm Sunday to enact legislation to attempt to keep Terri Schiavo's body alive, GWB chose to go golfing while he knew a terrible hurricane was about to strike the Gulf Coast. IMO, his time could have been much better spent gathering information about the progress of the hurricane as it was happening, in order to make the best informed decisions when it came to crunch time. Instead, we saw a procession of GWB administration officials stumbling around Propoganda Minister Rove's talking points for the ensuing week. I heard three seperate quotes of some GWB official quoting a headline, "New Orleans Dodged a Bullet" with regards to levee failure, meaning NO was spared the compound disaster of levee breaches. That headline didn't exsist on any newspaper anywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, prior to Churtow's(sp?) interview where he quoted that "headline", the Times-Picayune headline for that morning(Tuesday) was about the levee breaches that had occurred on Monday.
This is the same bunch that had all of this intelligence and inside information that got us into Iraq, and now they're so misinformed they weren't aware of the levee breaches days after the fact?!!
What about all of the rescue efforts that were blatantly blocked by FEMA officials? What about the convoy of Wal-Mart trucks carrying bottled water that was turned around by FEMA officials? When has anything like that ever happened before in a disaster in this country?
I listened to Sean Hannity talk with his men on the ground in NO, Sam Sheppard(I think that was the first name), and none other than Geraldo Rivera, both of who were supposed to be on a mission to find good news on the rescue efforts on NO. Both had nothing good to report, and were near panic over the bungling they were witnessing. Geraldo broke down into sobs on the air over the fact FEMA officials wouldn't let people walk out of the convention center down a highway that was passable, high and dry, all the way out of town. He interviewed two different mothers, one who had a 10 month-old, and the other a 15 month-old, both of whom were frustrated because they weren't allowed to leave town, and had no formula for their babies.
Geraldo kept saying, "This isn't about Republicans or Democrats. Just let them walk out of this Goddamned place!"
Perhaps I give them too much credit, but the people in power in this country right now knew damn good and well what was happening in there, and chose to respond as they did. For what reason, only lunatics can speculate
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