Posted on 09/04/2005 8:38:30 AM PDT by wildwood
MEMO TO BUSH: FIRE MICHAEL BROWN
By Michelle Malkin · September 04, 2005 08:17 AM During his visit to Mobile, Ala., on Friday, President Bush singled out Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for praise:
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Really? "Brownie's" job is to direct the federal response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Let's review his public statements during the past week:
- He admitted that he didn't act more aggressively because as late as last Sunday he expected Katrina to be a "standard hurricane" even though the National Weather Service in New Orleans was already predicting "human suffering incredible by modern standards."
- He proved himself utterly clueless about the disaster unfolding in New Orleans. He claimed that the federal relief effort was "going relatively well" and that the security situation in New Orleans was "pretty darn good."
- He blamed the flood victims in New Orleans for failing to evacuate on time, even though local authorities failed to make municipal vehicles available to residents who could not drive or did not own their own cars.
READ MORE!!
(Excerpt) Read more at michellemalkin.com ...
YES, the authorities at the State and local had screwed up. FEMA does rely on State and local agencies to do their jobs. They (obviously) did not.Nagin and Blanco were incompetent. But, compounding this tragedy (not comedy) of errors was the fact that Brown simply did not even grasp this critical dimension and instead thought that things were more or less proceeding by the book. So who is the bigger fool MNJ? The fool or the fool who follows him?
That is the point that Malkin is making.
Like I said before, Brown at FEMA is like Ziglar at the INS.
Aren't there FEMA officials at the state and local level? If so, how good a job did they do in assessing the disaster and getting that info to Brown. A lot of info can get lost or eliminated, being passed up through the chain of command. Maybe Brown was guilty of trusting the evaluations of the locals too much.
Yes, he is more informed on this topic than I am. And that's saying something.
We need Ari Fleischer back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/nationalspecial/31rescue.html
Battling the waters are hundreds of emergency workers mobilized by FEMA, including the Coast Guard and incident teams from Texas, Missouri and Tennessee.
The teams, 70-member groups of firefighters and medical specialists, arrive with 18-wheelers and other trucks loaded with generators, chainsaws, tents and dogs that can sniff out the living and the dead.
As of Tuesday night, they reported saving 315 people, including a 400-pound woman who was reached by cutting through a roof and a belligerent woman who had run out of methadone.
A 50-vehicle convoy made its way into the city from Baton Rouge on Monday night. But the original base of operations, the downtown convention center, proved impossible to reach.
Never, ever, ever, trust a Democrat politician.
Don't forget that, even IF Nagin had used those buses, because of the utter incompetence of the governor, Kathleen Blanco, in failing to get shelters in northern Louisiana open or talk to neighboring states in getting shelters open there, he had nowhere to go with them.
but it IS their fault!!! they VOTED FOR the scum into whose hands they put their own lives... and failed them.
No, what would be disastrous would be letting the administration get away with messing up (if in fact it did), just because we're "at war". If the charges are baseless, then no President should have any serious problem showing them to be baseless.
The problem comes not from the criticism (which, face it, is going to happen unless martial law is declared nationwide), but from the administration's inability to handle the criticism.
a lot of freepers believe in "accountability" -- unless you're a member of the bush admistration. so for blanco, it's accountability, but not for brown.
Well good for him. I'm sorry Howlin, but I think critique of the relief effort is valid. It could have been better, it could have been a h@ll of a lot worse. But look at this thread, old timers being called trolls and worse because they opined that Malkins might have made some valid points......
Your phrase in parentheses proves my point....WE DON"T KNOW ALL THE FACTS YET. So, let the Liberals take care of all the premature, knee-jerk blame gaming and we can wait until we get the whole story.
But she isn't making valid points, that's the point.
But you're willing to jump on the bandwagon and besmirch the good people who are TRYING to help.
For God's sake, can't you all wait until they pull all the bodies out of the water?
So? Even being in those busses out of harm's way beat the alternative.
None of the negligent idiots were fired over 9/11. Why does Michelle think anyone will hang for Katrina no matter how utterly derelict they were in their duty.
So, I guess the lack of accessibility was the reason that the Convention Center wasn't chosen as an official shelter/evacuation point?
Perhaps some think that saving lives is more important that the "current political climate"
How dare they!
And I'm not talking about the Bush Administration as the fault lies with the local and state officials in Louisiana for the terrible first reponse to the disaster. None of them are going to get fired. As for members of the Administration who might have been negligent, you're not going to see any of them get into any trouble either. I haven't yet figured this out as to why people who blew it somehow get protected and don't even lose their jobs.
Thank You.
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