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 ...
Howlin, the "blame game" is in full court press (no pun intended) on every news program as we type, so responding on FR to the criticism is fair IMHO. Frankly, I think President Bush has handled this disaster well, if not exemplary. That said, many heads should roll on this, from the cities all the way to the FEDERAL level, period.
That's what I recall reading too. He called them, but they blew him off.
Just to keep things in perspective, no one here is accusing Bush of having screwed up, above and beyond not dealing forcefully with Brown (which, admittedly, isn't as easy as it sounds). But Malkin has indeed posted facts about Brown's handling of the situation. So far, not a single one of her critics on this thread has addressed those facts. The longer that state of affairs continues, the more credibility her points are going to have (not that she ever lacked credibility in the first place).
I remember when conservatives were all about States Rights, do you? :-)
And then there's you, who never misses a minute bashing any and everything concerned with the United States government, up to and including the United States military.
Sent an email to President Bush this morning demanding this exact action of him.
No kidding.
so responding on FR to the criticism is fair IMHO.
Can you tell me exactly what "responding" with misinformation accomplishes?
That said, many heads should roll on this
Now I can understand the state and local governments being slashed, but why the feds? They ONLY respond to what they are asked for.
Can you name one thing the feds did that was wrong, other, of course, than realizing last weekend that the LA people were completely ignorant and declaring martial law?
Okay. got it. Lives were lost, mistakes were made. Let's fire everyone at FEMA tomorrow and and begin Presidential impeachment proceedings on Tuesday. Yessiree Bob, now that's what I call fixin' the problem.
Called them Saturday night.
And STILL Bush had to call Blanco Sunday morning and tell her to call a mandatory evacuation.
Did the thugs in NOLA have SAMS? If the answer is no why wasn't MRE/H20 air dropped in large amounts via military aircraft?
It isn't like it takes a lot of planning to drop pallets out of the back of planes designed to do just that.
How far north/west/east would you have taken those buses, without being able to communicate where they were headed, without anything waiting at the end of the line, and without the ability of those buses to be even modestly self-sufficient (no toilets and no under-the-bus storage areas that could be stocked with food/water)? Once the first evacuees step foot on that bus, they become the responsibility of whoever is running that bus.
I will fault and am faulting Nagan for not having stocks of food, water and portable toilets ready to go at the Superdome/Convention Center/et al. I'll fault him for not having flood-resistant communications for the police. I'll fault him for waiting until Sunday to use the word "mandatory" next to the word "evacuation". I'll fault him for not geting those buses out of flood-prone areas so they could help evacuate the "refuges of last resort" after the storm. But, unless he had someplace outside of New Orleans to take those buses, I can't fault him for that.
nice. thanks for the compliment. quoting brown:
"Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation -- not to say it wasn't going to be bad, but that the water would drain away fairly quickly," Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown said today. "Then the levees broke and (we had) this lawlessness. That almost stopped our efforts." ...
"Katrina was much larger than we expected," he said.
how do you justify comments like that? somehow WE ALL knew it could be a cat 5?!
were YOU unaware of the size of katrina? how could the FEMA director be ignorant?
letting the administration get away with
Don't you see, there HAS to be something here to trash the administration with; just has to be; dying to find something.
inquest has been after Bush since 1999.
......."What is it with conservatives? "
Fight this with FACTS...not emotion.
Follow the money trail...find out what led to this.
Shut up Michelle--and do the investigative work I know you can do.
According to what I heard last night (sorry, no link, it was on Fox), James Lee Witt is advising her to do this.
Why do you persist in laying everything that has occurred at the president's feet? You obviously have never managed anything and had to rely on other people to carry their part of the load. Your insistance on implicating George Bush who couldn't possibly be on the front lines is troubling coming from a "conservative".
That said, what makes you think for a second Ms Malkin has a clue anyway? She has no experience in running a disaster operation I suspect, and should probably keep her mouth shut until there's at least a modicum of evidence to look at.
FGS
That all may be true, but you left out the most important thing, at least they would be alive.
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