Incompetence or Unwillingness?

Death, destruction, and new shoes for Condi.

"Finally today, convoys of troops and aid started to arrive along the Gulf Coast. Five days after the hurricane hit. Kind of makes you miss the innocent days when Bush only sat on his ass for 7 minutes."
Bill Maher

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And of the people in the area here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Barbara Bush


November 15, 2002 - A few things to ponder long after the waters from Katrina & Rita have cleared. It's not just that President Bush doesn't care about Blacks, it's that Katrina proved he's really trying to convince us he doesn't care about Blacks, beyond any shadow of a doubt. He could try harder I suppose, but unlike many, I don't need that much convincing. If the Governor of Louisiana declares a State of Emergency on 8/26, and Katrina is upgraded from a Category 3 hurricane, to a Category 5 over the next two days, and Bush, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, were given prior warning of levee failure by the National Hurricane Center on the 28th, and our hero is eating birthday cake with Senator John McCain on the 29th, I get the message.

If the situation degrades into the levees breaching (water was already flowing over them since the 28th), and looting on the 29th, and Bush is playing guitar with a Country and Western singer (Mark Willis) on the 30th, and then he flies home to Crawford (passing over N.O. descending as close as 2500 ft.) because it's the final night of his vacation, then you've got me sold. If W gives his first ever statements on Katrina on the 31st at 5pm, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice takes in a Monty Python Broadway musical at the Shubert at 8pm (where she was booed by some in the audience, which indicates how glaring her detachment from the Gulf Coast was) no more proof is necessary. If the situation in New Orleans (67% Black before the storm, and reportedly the lowest car ownership rate in the US) sinks to anarchy starting with some of the trapped 3,000 in the Superdome, with only reportedly 36 hours of food on the 29th, and th number grows to tens of thousands trapped by 9/1, and Rice ia visiting the US Open and hitting a few with former player Monica Seles, only to then spend thousands on shoe shopping, while N.O.'s Mayor Ray Nagin is now tearfully pleading for help from the state and federal government, then count me as one of those who don't need a building to fall on top of him.

As it is, all this administration has proved to me, is that they have White leaders who flat-out knew this would happen one day, and simply could care less, and a Black female leader who can shop at stores that even Oprah probably can't. It's not that Katrina did that much damage to the city. The Mississippi coast took the worst of the actual storm. According to a report by Alicia Jrapko: "What differentiates the rest of the Gulf Coast from New Orleans is that the many thousands of deaths in New Orleans were absolutely preventable and occurred after the hurricane. On everyone's lips is the cutting in federal funds to strengthen the Levees of Lake Pontchartrain." To say this implies a conspiracy is an understatement. I wrote years ago that timing is everything with Bush. The levees were said to have broke on 8/30 at 4am, the storm had already been blown over into Lake Pontchartrain the previous day 8/29 according to one website. That means the levees collapsed 21 hours later due to heavy flood waters (Some say explosion).

Few know about an immediate option President Bush could have used, stationed off the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina hit land, was the USS Bataan; an 844 ft amphibious Marine assault ship equipped with "helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water, up to 100,000 gallons a day." According to the Katrina Timeline on the www.thinkprogress.org website, the Bataan didn't just sit idle during the storm. "The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore awaiting relief orders. Helicopters pilots flying from it's deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients are empty." Hmmm. The number of countries offering to assist the US with the Katrina victims grew from 20 on 9/2 to 65 on 9/5. Many of them were markedly poorer than the US, but Bush so far is brushing them off. These include close neighbors Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and even nations carrying the US "evil" label, Cuba and Venezuela (Hugo Chavez reportedly offered cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers, Cuba's Fidel Castro offered to send around 1500 doctors, and 26 tons of medical supplies and equipment according to CNN, other sources give Castro's experienced rescue team high marks).

Bush defenders are running out of excuses for this guy, but I give them points for persistence and creativity. For the 2nd time in 4 years, the president ended his vacation at the throws of a national calamity, for the 2nd time in 4 years he had prior advance knowledge of the upcoming situations, for the 2nd time in 4 years he was slow to react. The recent news of his now accepting responsibility is too-little-too-late. Beneath all the focus on looters and finders, refugees and broken levees is the simple fact that all of this could have been avoided had W responded quickly. He had too many chances when it mattered.

If the situation degrades into the levees breaching (water was already flowing over them since the 28th), and looting on the 29th, and Bush is playing guitar with a Country and Western singer (Mark Willis) on the 30th, and then he flies home to Crawford (passing over N.O. descending as close as 2500 ft.) because it's the final night of his vacation, then you've got me sold. If W gives his first ever statements on Katrina on the 31st at 5pm, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice takes in a Monty Python Broadway musical at the Shubert at 8pm (where she was booed by some in the audience, which indicates how glaring her detachment from the Gulf Coast was) no more proof is necessary. If the situation in New Orleans (67% Black before the storm, and reportedly the lowest car ownership rate in the US) sinks to anarchy starting with some of the trapped 3,000 in the Superdome, with only reportedly 36 hours of food on the 29th, and th number grows to tens of thousands trapped by 9/1, and Rice ia visiting the US Open and hitting a few with former player Monica Seles, only to then spend thousands on shoe shopping, while N.O.'s Mayor Ray Nagin is now tearfully pleading for help from the state and federal government, then count me as one of those who don't need a building to fall on top of him.

As it is, all this administration has proved to me, is that they have White leaders who flat-out knew this would happen one day, and simply could care less, and a Black female leader who can shop at stores that even Oprah probably can't. It's not that Katrina did that much damage to the city. The Mississippi coast took the worst of the actual storm. According to a report by Alicia Jrapko: "What differentiates the rest of the Gulf Coast from New Orleans is that the many thousands of deaths in New Orleans were absolutely preventable and occurred after the hurricane. On everyone's lips is the cutting in federal funds to strengthen the Levees of Lake Pontchartrain." To say this implies a conspiracy is an understatement. I wrote years ago that timing is everything with Bush. The levees were said to have broke on 8/30 at 4am, the storm had already been blown over into Lake Pontchartrain the previous day 8/29 according to one website. That means the levees collapsed 21 hours later due to heavy flood waters (Some say explosion).

Few know about an immediate option President Bush could have used, stationed off the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina hit land, was the USS Bataan; an 844 ft amphibious Marine assault ship equipped with "helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water, up to 100,000 gallons a day." According to the Katrina Timeline on the www.thinkprogress.org website, the Bataan didn't just sit idle during the storm. "The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore awaiting relief orders. Helicopters pilots flying from it's deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients are empty." Hmmm. The number of countries offering to assist the US with the Katrina victims grew from 20 on 9/2 to 65 on 9/5. Many of them were markedly poorer than the US, but Bush so far is brushing them off. These include close neighbors Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and even nations carrying the US "evil" label, Cuba and Venezuela (Hugo Chavez reportedly offered cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers, Cuba's Fidel Castro offered to send around 1500 doctors, and 26 tons of medical supplies and equipment according to CNN, other sources give Castro's experienced rescue team high marks).

Bush defenders are running out of excuses for this guy, but I give them points for persistence and creativity. For the 2nd time in 4 years, the president ended his vacation at the throws of a national calamity, for the 2nd time in 4 years he had prior advance knowledge of the upcoming situations, for the 2nd time in 4 years he was slow to react. The recent news of his now accepting responsibility is too-little-too-late. Beneath all the focus on looters and finders, refugees and broken levees is the simple fact that all of this could have been avoided had W responded quickly. He had too many chances when it mattered.

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