Overall, the federal government has done a magnificent job in responding to the largest natural disaster in American history. Unfortunately, the defining images may be those of the people in the Superdome, Convention Center, and on the overpasses waiting for help for days while a massive Federal relief force was sitting outside waiting for the bureaucrats to make a decison. General Honore cleaned up the mess in essentially one day once he was given the green light.
You can't unring a bell. There are plenty of people to blame with Blanco and Nagin at the top of the list. It is unfortunate that the WH, Chertoff, and Brown were not more attuned to the political impact of the events in NO on Wednesday and Thursday. 500 buses were sent to the Superdome on Wednesday, which was scarcely enough.
Yes. But even without specifics he did not take a leadership role and oversee the organization and control of the entire disaster. He couldn't even take control of this interview.
People here are reacting to idiots in the typical het-Bush media and their stupid comments. My reasosn for seeing things this way are from being here at FR way back on the 30th and knowing that the entire city was being destroyed.
Chertoff and Brown never seemed to understand this and did not communicate the situation, even after two days, such as in this interview.
The leader needs to be as far ahead of the game as possible. Indeed he says in this interview they have plans for everything. But he does not ever even mention what is happening in terms of total destruction and total evacuation asap. Nor does he address the serious problem of armed thugs thwarting rescue other than to deny it, essentially.
This is supposed to be the top official for security in the event of an attack, or in this case a natural disaster, but he was reactive, not ahead stating the plan that has to be done over the course of given time periods.