Posted on 09/05/2005 9:52:43 PM PDT by NavySEAL F-16
Edited on 09/05/2005 11:08:18 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Sen. Bill Frist rode to the rescue in more ways than one last week, with his call for a comprehensive congressional investigation into the failings of planning and execution of preparing for Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing relief effort.
Frist's efforts weren't intended as a slam at President Bush, who has taken a pummeling in the media from Democrats in Congress, their operatives, and cooperative journalists who were willing to set facts aside for the opportunity to create a political fire storm around the Republican president.
Instead, Frist's call for an investigation sent many Democrats running for cover. "If you look at the history of appropriations and funding of federal dollars, no delegation served their state and major cities better than Louisiana," says a Senate staffer. "In the end, if the Democrats want to place blame, they know the behavior of their party members, for a generation really the only party in power in New Orleans and Louisiana, is damning, and they don't want to draw any more attention to the issue than the media wants to."
Senate Appropriations Committee staff late last week were drawing up statistics on just where the hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for New Orleans over the years, on everything from community support, federal policing dollars, emergency preparedness, and levy control and modernization.
"Let's put it this way," says an Appropriations staffer. "There is a fair degree of certainty up here that dollars that should have gone for projects and programs that might have been helpful in New Orleans' time of need was never used for those purposes. If I were a local politician or a state or local bureaucrat down there, I'd be nervous about now."
Further lost in the aftermath of Katrina's furor was the fact that neither New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin nor Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco had wanted to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, a city of 485,000 people. Both politicians had been avoiding the issue until Saturday, August 27, when President Bush called both Democrats and, according to congressional and White House sources, essentially demanded that a mandatory evacuation be ordered. The order was made on the 28th.
At a news conference announcing the evacuation, Nagin also went on the record predicting that the storm's surge would top the city's protective levees, yet in the aftermath, Nagin was quick to place blame for the levees on Washington.
"There is absolutely no question that federal support should have been put into place sooner and that we were caught flat-footed," says a Homeland Security Department staffer. "But when everything is said and done, nobody is going to want to be in the way of the political fallout that comes from a thorough investigation of what happened down there. And that includes Democrats."
By late Sunday, what had emerged was a picture less to do with Washington, and far more to do with incompetence on the state and local level. Federal emergency preparedness officials were poring over Louisiana's and New Orleans' emergency plans.
"There is a very good reason everyone down there has clammed up about beating on the President," says the Homeland Security staffer.
"The only people who continue to do it are the likes of [Tim] Russert and the New York Times, and they are just feeding off the tragedy for political gain, nothing more. In the end, it's the very people they have been listening to for the past week that they will have to put under a microscope."
I used to view Russert as one of the few straight shooters on the left side. I've now lost all respect for him.
Well Hillary must not have gotten the memo because she's still calling for a Commission to review the lateness of the response. Which would open up a can of worms about the corruption in LA.
Like I told Howling last week, "wait until Congress gets involved, things will get interesting".
I could see this coming right after the fingers of blame pointed at the White House in light of all the nonsense coming from the NOLA mayor and "Governor Blame-Co".
Of course. This is territory the Democrats would be wise to steer clear of. They've set themselves up for a fall.
The corruption eminating from NOLA goes far and beyond that of Chicago. The corruption in Chicago is nothing compared to the decades of Democrat corruption of NOLA.
Dems figure that by the time any investigation is launched into the response to Katrina, it won't be front page news. And if by some stretch of bad luck it is, they'll lie. With a complicit MSM, they expect to dodge the bullet.
FOFLOL!! You noticed that too? HAHA!
I'd love to see each one of those LA Democrats sobbing on their way to prison for absconding the American taxpayer.
Bump
Crying thinking of the federal penitentiary?
The whole thing will turn into a "gee, I don't recall, I was baking cookies moment. Or who hired Craig Livingstone. Still nobody knows who hired Craig Livingstone. The Dims will deny, lie, completely run the subject around in circles until everybody gives up in frustration.
And of course you have a hundred news channels parroting their lies 24/7 and when the truth does come out, they conveniently half heartedly report it once buried in their stack of health issues or something and then move on to another feeding frenzy somewhere else. You can always tell when the medias reporting half truths is about to catch up with them. They move on to something else.
Frist was down there at the makeshift hospital at the airport treating patients. As a doctor, I'm sure he was stunned and outraged at the lack of organization and planning for the care of the sick and dying. He saw people dying for no reason except a lack of planning. He is personally pissed and wants to get to the bottom of it. let the chips fall where they may, this is no time for either party to be accused of a coverup.
Mary Landreiu is scared to death about something which is why she keeps losing it on t.v.
"Frist was down there at the makeshift hospital at the airport treating patients. As a doctor, I'm sure he was stunned and outraged at the lack of organization and planning for the care of the sick and dying. He saw people dying for no reason except a lack of planning. He is personally pissed and wants to get to the bottom of it. let the chips fall where they may, this is no time for either party to be accused of a coverup."
Oh, I agree. But as many posters here on FR and other sites have noted, the evidence is more overwhelming to damn the Louisianna and N.O. governments than it is the federal government. Frist and co. can have all the facts on their side, but that will not stop the MSM from trying to turn it around on President Bush. They are not looking at it now, so what makes you think they (MSM) will not look at it 3 months or so down the road?
I agree with you 100%!
I'm not so sure. Corruption in chicago is well entrenched and has been around for decades. Anyway, I think that local gov't, especially big cities, is in general corrupt and wasteful.
This is true.
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