Get Off His Back (Updated)[Must Read- Ben Stein]

The American Prowler ^ | 9/2/2005 | Ben Stein

[Bellflower]

It was the President that addressed the people and implored them to get out of NO. People left because he bothered to tell them the seriousness of the situation and they could tell by his voice and attitude that he was dead serious. From my understanding he declared the area a disaster area 2 days before Katrina hit so that the governor could mobilize the national guard and she was slow. The President had to pressure the LA and NO authorities into action from the beginning from my understanding. They still are standing in the way of the President from having more authority to send in the help he wants to. They don't want to relinquish power. They don't want him to be able to get any credit and they are willing to let people suffer and die to keep him from being able to do more so that they can blame him. They are guilty and are furiously throwing it in the direction of the President to divert attention from their own culpability. Has anyone else followed these events? If you have and know more about it please post the info.

[dubyawhoiluv]

Ben Stein is a great writer, his articles in American Spectator are awesome. Mr.Stein is the only republican who has said kind words for President Nixon callig him his friend; and acknowledging his good deeds that are overlooked by the msm and the GOP.

[Serb5150]

Stein ping.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Do you have any idea how many sets of duplicate "Humvees" you would need to keep a set 500 miles from anywhere?

-

20. Clearly I should have checked a map before saying 500 though. Let me revise that please to 750.

(1) Seattle. (Covers WA, MT, ID)
(2) CA/OR border. (OR, N. CA, N. NV)
(3) SFO. (CA, NV)
(4) San Diego. (S. CA, AZ, S. NV)
(5) Las Cruces. (AZ, NM, W. TX, UT, CO)
(6) Brownsville. (TX)
(7) New Orleans/Mississippi (LA, AR, OK, MS, MO, KY, TN, AL)
(8) Savannah (VA, WV, KY, TN, AL, GA, FL)
(9) DC Area (where to start - SC to MI to VT)
(10) Maine (all of New England)
(11) St. Ignace (MI, IL, IA, OH, IN, NY, PA, MN, WI)
(12) Lake of the Woods (ND, SD, NE, KS, MO, IL, IN, MI)
(13) Plentywood (ND, SD, WY, ID, MT)
(14) Bonners Ferry (WA, OR, ID, ID, MT)

(15) Anywhere on HI

(16, 17, 18, 19, 20) Pick five locations in AK.

[Restorer]

The fact is that, despite the administration's own targetting of NO's levees being 1 of 3 top nat'l sec. priorities in 2001, funding to complete levee renovation was cut.

Don't know about the other one, but the major levee breack was in an area that was recently brought up to the final standard. In other words, budget cuts didn't cause the levee to break.

Nobody wants to talk about why the levee broke. It seems awfully suspicious to me that a levee broke from water pressure when it wasn't even full to the top. Sounds like it failed to live up to design specs.

Let's see, it is possible that somebody took shortcuts during construction and somebody else looked the other way, perhaps for an under the table payment?

[Restorer]

What nobody seems to recognize is that if this hurricane had wobbled 40 or 50 miles to the west, we wouldn't be having most of this discussion, as everybody who stayed in NO would be dead. Present conditions, plus 25 feet of storm surge, plus waves and wind. Little left. In some ways an easier situation to deal with.

[konaice]

That's a hell of a lot less than we already have in the National Guard. Plus the Guard has bulldozers, helicopters,
heavy off road transports, C130 Heavy lift aircraft, Air refueling tankers, ambulances, medical corps....

Plus they have it everywhere, not 15 hours away.

There's no point in re-inventing the wheel. This stuff is already in place. It can be used at a moments notice as long as you have a governor that is on the ball and not trying to save face.

[Blue Champagne]

Bookmark. I think I'm in love with Ben Stein.

[konaice]

Nobody wants to talk about why the levee broke. It seems awfully suspicious to me that a levee broke from water pressure when it wasn't even full to the top. Sounds like it failed to live up to design specs.

Ah, you were standing there when it broke were you?

How did you survive the the 30 foot surge that ripped the bridge deck off of the 4 lane bridge across Lake Pontch?

The You never saw pictures of the surge coming across the lake so you have no way of knowing how high the water was. The guy who owns that car above might have and idea, IF he survived.

The Levee failed because it was engineered for a Category 3 but was hit with a Category 5. No point in getting the tin foil hat out, leave that to the Democrats

[podkane]

You can't build Levees in 4 years, you can't even get the EIS done in 4 years.

Started latest rounds in 1995 with the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project after some folks died in a flood...

The money went toward paying for all the Wellfare queens under the Johnson Ford Carter Clinton administrations.

I'll assume that wasn't a racist comment, just a non-sequiter... billions have poured into the DHS since is was created in '02 ... what do Ford, Carter, etc. have to do with this? whatever happened in the DHS, the world sees that we're no more secure than before 911. Guiliani had fed help immediately - and (we are assuming) there was no warning, and he didn't have the entire city destroyed.

The mayor of any city can't marshall these forces - that's why we have a federal emergency management agency and a dept. of homeland security.... the people supposedly in charge should be fired immediately. GWB is certainly this decisive - what are his advisors holding him back for?

The decision to build levees to defend against a Cat3 hurricane and NOT a Cat5 were local/state/federal decisions, made over 50 years by successive administrations at all levels of government.

That is true... folks don't want to do the responsible thing with preventative planning. That said, the current admin. and congress continued that sorry trend, most recently cutting funds for the SLUFCP. Independent of that, the DHS and FEMA weren't able to do their jobs... at this point, trying to blame a serious vulnerability of nat'l security on a couple of sorry local politicians of a poor state is just going to make GWB look weak...at a time when our enemies are paying close attention (and they aren't giving one tinker's d**n about what's being opined here or in the MSM).

[konaice]

The mayor of any city can't marshall these forces - that's why we have a federal emergency management agency and a dept. of homeland security.... the people supposedly in charge should be fired immediately. GWB is certainly this decisive - what are his advisors holding him back for?

The mayor can't but the Governor can, and she refused to call out the Guard even when the PRESIDENT ASKED HER TO.

And if you bothered to read anything on FR in the last few days you would know that the President can't order in the Guard or the regular army unless ASKED BY THE GOVERNOR.

But the Governors chief advisers were more concerned with PREVENTING a federal take over because they were afraid how it would LOOK for a Democrat Governor to have to ask a Republican President to help.

This did not happen in Mississippi, (another Democrat state), he got on the phone immediatly to Guard headquarters, AND the president and got stuff rolling. He cares more about his people than saving face.

You are sadly way behind the knowledge curve on this issue for a Freeper. Turn off CNN and start surfing the threads on FR.

[Restorer]

New Orleans, and its levee system, were missed by most of the storm surge. The levees apparently broke purely from water pressure caused by water levels in the lake about 7 or 8 feet above normal. Unless I'm missing something, water levels of this height are what levees are designed to keep out.

The levees were (mostly) not overtopped and they broke well after the storm surge and the high winds had passed. It is, of course, possible that the levees were weakened in the storm, but at least one of the sections that broke was a very recently rebuilt concrete section.

According to this article from 2002, the system was designed to protect the city from water levels in the lake 11.5 feet above normal, expected in a Category 3. From what I've read, they broke at about 8 feet. That sounds a lot to me like a system that did not meet design specifications.


http://homepages.uc.edu:8000/~maynarjb/105/NewOrleans/NewOrleans_hurricanes.htm

[DTogo]

Ben Stein '08!!

[konaice]

New Orleans, and its levee system, were missed by most of the storm surge. The levees apparently broke purely from water pressure caused by water levels in the lake about 7 or 8 feet above normal. Unless I'm missing something, water levels of this height are what levees are designed to keep out.

Yes, you are missing something.

New Orleans was not "missed by the storms surge". N.O. is inland some distance from the coast, and consequently protected from MOST of the surge, but Lake Pontch is not. The lake had a 18 foot storm surge that washed right over the bit of land that separates it from the Gulf, with wave height of an estimated 7 feet above that.

Look at the picture in post 49. Does that look like something that happens with water 7 or 8 feet above normal? Last time I checked, concrete did not float. Especially when its bolted down with two inch bolts. It took a MASSIVE wave to dislodge those spans.

No one knows when the precisly when the breach happend. The city discovered the breaches while looking for the source of the water that was coming in - it was rising when it should have been going down.

The pictures tell the story, and the story isn't about a fairy tale of 7 or 8 feet extra water. There is no rain heavy enough to add 8 feet to lake Pontch over night. The isthmus was washed over. The lake dumped a huge surge onto the Levee. It washed out. End of story.

[konaice]

New Orleans, and its levee system, were missed by most of the storm surge.

The levees ... broke well after the storm surge

Which is it you are claiming, Missed by the surved or Broke after the surge.

You can't have it both ways.

[Restorer]

You can't have it both ways.

My theory may be inaccurate, but it is not illogical.

IF the levees held through the storm surge, most of which went well to the east of New Orleans, then broke 24 hours or more after the storm had passed, I would like to know why.

I don't know if anybody remembers, but immediately after the storm there was lots of talk about how NO had dodged another bullet. There was a general perception that the worst was over. Attention quickly turned to MS, which had indeed suffered major wind and storm surge damage.

Now, of course, the media acts as if everybody knew what was happening and going to happen in New Orleans, primarily because it makes a great club to bash GWB.

[jazzlite]

"Is there any problem in the world that is not Mr. Bush's fault, or have we reverted to a belief in a sort of witchcraft where we credit a mortal man with the ability to create terrifying storms and every other kind of ill wind?"

I love Ben Stein..He is so wise and so smart..And, Ben, you are correct..To place the blame on George Bush for everything which happens under the sun and for every dream of utopia which does not come true is worse than witchcraft. It goes into the area of true evil. Scapegoating is a dispicable thing, though very common. We are so fragile as human beings that we place blame for terrible things or for our own problems so that we can avoid having to face our own vulnerabilities or our own failings. The most awful thing about scapegoating is that it increases the horror and ties the hands of people who, when linked together, could solve many problems in situations like this. People on the front lines, doing the "hard stuff" should be endorsed, encouraged and praised. What have we heard from the big megaphones for several days? Nothing but cruel remarks and criticism of our President and others. You have seen some of the politicians badmouthing and trying to scapegoat the President and his administration but you have not heard our President badmouth anyone. Rabble-Rousers increase the suffering and pain, for they weaken the very hands needed to relieve the awful aftermath of any kind of devastation. Perhaps God is trying to tell America something..Unfortunately, most of us do not listen until we are in a "foxhole" ourselves.

[A. Pole]

Mr. Stein forgot to mention the key element - proper maintaining of the levees.

If they were maintained the flood would not take place.

[rintense]

I posted this on a liberal forum and the only reply I got was laughing at God blessing the President.

[Puddleglum]

Ben is such a good thinker and writer. He puts into neat sentences the ideas I've been struggling to express for days. Thanks Ben!