If Bush walked on water, some folks would blame him for not swimming.
Good post. There seems to be a lack of common sense these days, but then I'm not involved in the loss directly.
You nailed it. If the president had "usurped" the Governer's power, it would have been impeachable...and don't believe that the Dems wouldn't have seized on that. Most idiots in this country think of the President as some kind of "SuperGoverner". Those idiots know nothing about the Constitution. And one more rant I have, this is a free country. That means people are free to make stupid decisions, and they are free to experience the consequences. If I am asked to evacuate, I can exercise my freedom to ignore it, but I also am free to die from that decision. There is one...and only one person responsible for the death. I understand that a lot of those people couldn't actually walk out of the city, but that is a different situation...normally, that is where family and friends come in.
Remember - there cannot be any positive stories about the response in Mississippi, because Barbour is a Republican and well, the MSM doesn't want to create another Rudy.
Folks - let's just face it - democrats/liberals are never going to be any help with anything - whether it's a major catastrophe, a war, an economic issue, whatever. They will be nowhere to be found, other than writing snippy little hate pieces in their plush Manhattan digs.
So, can we just start ignoring liberals, kind of like when you ignore your kids' whining after a while?
I agree with much of what you have said.
There is always room for improvement, at all levels of government, in planning and response. Hindsight is 20-20. If we learn from this, then that's a silver lining to a very dark and ugly cloud.
You are right that NOTHING would have stopped those many, many buildings from being blown away. And many people could have left, but didn't.
What I find interesting is that we didn't hear of widespread government failure or massive lawlessness in Mississippi, which was the hardest hit. OK, New Orleans is a large city, and the flooding presented its own dangers. But grossly ineffective state and local governments and a culture of violence and criminality seem to have made the most difference.
Also, there ARE limits to what the federal government can legally do. Maybe we need to look at that. The Bush administration will bear some of the blame, like it or not, for appearing to defer too much to a governor who obviously is not qualified for even the lowest elective office. And the President's opponents and the media will pile on (and have done so already) as much as possilbe, overplaying their hand and having it boomerang on them as usual.
I think everybody got a bit "fooled" when New Orleans was spared the brunt of the storm on Monday. Remember all the "New Orleans dodged the bullet" headlines from Monday afternoon until about a day later, after the levee broke? It was about another 24 hours before the Superdome lawlessness and looting stories started to circulate.
I say investigate and let the chips fall where they may. No one should be afraid of a full, fair and impartial inquiry - if in fact such a thing is possible in today's atmosphere. I try to "test" my feelings on a matter by saying what if the shoe was on the other foot - what if a Democrat president and a Republican governor and mayor were in charge. Would I feel differently? Would the media?
This is a disaster of almost Biblical proportions. It's a shame anyone has to expend an ounce of energy on finger pointing when there are still untold corpses strewn about the countryside and thousands upon thousands whose lives have been shattered. But I guess we're on notice as to what we're facing. If Bush has somehow "federalized" the State of Louisiana, the law be damned, the left would be howling about thew "illegal" and "unilateral" action, comparing it to their view of Iraq and calling Bush a dictator. They would add in that he was being a hypocrite about "states' rights" into the mix. And then they would keep blaming him because unless he could have stopped the storm from hitting the US MANY PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE NO MATTER WHAT, sad to say.
Again, if there's incompetence on the federal level, let's weed it out. I just want the whole picture to come to light. And a sizeable portion of the media, if not the public, will never give Bush credit for anything. I like it best when he just does what he thinks is right and ignores the baseless criticism.
Also consider there were scenes like that being played out all over an area the size the UK. That TV cameras caught it made it prolem # 1.
No water at the Superdome clearly falls in the lap of the Mayor, if anyone.
At the suggestion of writer Michelle Malkin last Friday, I have cobbled together a blogsite called Texas Clearinghouse for Katrina Aid to serve as a clearinghouse for refugee efforts in Texas.
Texas is getting more refugees than any other state -- that's fine, we'll take them all -- but we need help providing them with food, clothing, and shelter.
If you are a refugee, you can information that will help you find relief. If you want to donate or volunteer, you can find someone who needs you.
Right now the site mostly covers Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio but I will add various churches, schools, and other charities in Ft. Worth and Lubbock tonight. My wife spent yesterday at Reunion Arena in Dallas handing out care packages and otherwise ministering to the refugees as a representative of her employer.
There are a lot of churches and other organizations in Texas that need help in dealing with the problem and I would greatly appreciate it if you would get the word out.
Many thanks,
Michael McCullough
Stingray blogsite