This is what leadership is all about. Doing what is right regardless of the consequences. Bush would not have been impeached, at least as long as the GOP controls Congress. The President can federalize the National Guard and take emergency actions to protect Americans regardless of what state they live in. Let the Dems rail against Bush about states' rights when he is saving lives. The American people will support Bush, especially after the facts come out.
States have rights, that means they have responsibilities. The federal government took over when they were permitted and only did what the state agreed to.
Tell that to former Gov Wallace or the people of Little Rock. When the lives, safety, and rights of American citizens are in danger, the Federal government should intervene. You are using the process argument, which may be legally correct, but morally wrong.
Understand your levels of government. The Federal government intervened in Little Rock because the Governor would not enforce FEDERAL law. Local emergencies are a function of STATE government, and as such are handled by the state. Under what FEDERAL law do you suppose Bush would have been justified in using to intervene ?
Here's a great LOCAL plan for NO.
City to Offer Free Trips to Las Vegas for Officers
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER and CHRISTOPHER DREW
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 4 - A day after two police suicides and the abrupt resignations or desertions of up to 200 police officers, defiant city officials on Sunday began offering five-day vacations - and even trips to Las Vegas - to the police, firefighters and city emergency workers and their families.
The idea of paid vacations was raised by both Mayor C. Ray Nagin and senior police officials who said that their forces were exhausted and traumatized and that the arrival of the National Guard had made way for the officers to be relieved.
"I'm very concerned about individuals who have been here, particularly since the first few days, and have been through a lot of hardship," Mr. Nagin said in an interview.
He said most of the police officers, firefighters and emergency medical workers "are starting to show signs of very, very serious stress, and this is a way to give them time to reunite with their families."
You do not even have any facts as to how many lives were lost due to the feds not rushing in to solve the disaster immediately. Would it have comforted you if hundreds or thousands of lives of federal first responders' lives were lost due to gangs, looters, etc.? Do you not value the lives of FEMA officials, rescuers, military, volunteers AT ALL?
You seem so obsessed with placating the left, that you have no interest in the implications of your arguments.
Then write a law stating exactly that and campaign for it to be passed into law. Then the next Clinton can Waco a major city with that law instead of a compound on the outskirts of a mid-sized town.
What you're demanding is DANGEROUS and I cannot believe you and the others screaming for the same thing don't see that. The reason is because while we can never predict the exact damage that a given theoretical disaster will do, we damned sure DO know what damage can be done by a leader who goes power mad and behaves like a dictator.
Such a law will be abused whether another major hurricane hits an American city or not.
I can't BELIEVE so many people on FR scream about how the Patriot Act is taking away our civil rights and that the government should stay OUT of the privacy of our own homes but are willing, screaming, DEMANDING the government send in the US military to declare martial law and SHOOT PEOPLE WHO YOU WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO DEFINE AS DANGEROUS TO OTHER PEOPLE.
Might be useful to keep in mind what the head of USNORTSCOM said about US military preparations:
"USNORTHCOM was prepositioned for response to the hurricane, but as per the National Response Plan, we support the lead federal agency in disaster relief — in this case, FEMA. The simple description of the process is the state requests federal assistance from FEMA which in turn may request assistance from the military upon approval by the president or Secretary of Defense. Having worked the hurricanes from last year as well as Dennis this year, we knew that FEMA would make requests of the military — primarily in the areas of transportation, communications, logistics, and medicine. Thus we began staging such assets and waited for the storm to hit.
The biggest hurdles to responding to the storm were the storm itself — couldn't begin really helping until it passed — and damage assessment — figuring out which roads were passable, where communications and power were out, etc. Military helos began damage assessment and SAR on Tuesday. Thus we had permission to operate as soon as it was possible. We even brought in night SAR helos to continue the mission on Tuesday night.
The President and Secretary of Defense did authorize us to act right away and are not to blame on this end. Yes, we have to wait for authorization, but it was given in a timely manner."