Posted on 09/09/2005 2:21:53 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
Former Vice President Al Gore urged Americans on Friday to hold the Bush administration accountable for failing to adequately prepare for and respond to Hurricane Katrina.
"When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable," Gore told environmentalists at the Sierra Club's national convention.
Gore had been scheduled to give a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans this weekend about the likelihood that global warming will spawn increasingly deadly hurricanes. He decided to take his speech to San Francisco after that conference was canceled.
"The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis, it is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences," Gore said.
Bush administration officials have said Katrina's damage could not have been anticipated, but Gore rejected that.
"What happened was not only knowable, it was known in advance, in great and painstaking detail. They did tabletop planning exercises. They identified exactly what the scientific evidence showed would take place," Gore said.
In his Sierra Club speech, the former senator from Tennessee didn't mention an act of mercy that he was personally involved in - his help airlifting some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans to Tennessee on Sept. 3 and 4. He did that at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of his son years earlier.
Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and accompanied him on the flights, told The Associated Press that "Gore told me he wanted to do this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."
An account of the flights was posted this week on a Democratic Party Web page. It was written by Greg Simon, president of the Washington-based activist group FasterCures. Simon, who helped put together the mission, also declined an interview.
On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.
"The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute - food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.
Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.
"None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews," Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."
He also recruited two doctors, Spickard and Gore's cousin, retired Col. Dar LaFon, a specialist in internal medicine who once ran the military hospital in Baghdad.
Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape, personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in New Orleans.
About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on Sept. 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga.
He'll collect from FEMA --just wait and see.
Let me get this straight - Kline and the Pizza Kitchen dudes were the underwriters of the flights; the doctor was the one treating the sick/injured?
Someone tell me exactly what AL DID?? Other than make phone calls.
Oh wait, I forgot. That's what Al does.
Wasn't Blanco the "Controlling Legal Authority" not allowing water, food, medical kits to go into the silverdome and convention center.
Who was the "Controlling Legal Authority" evacuating NO?
Who was the "Controlling Legal Authority" who exercised the right or refusal to use 1,000 buses 1.2 miles away from the superdome?
Gore could rent a fleet of C-130s and run them nonstop for a week and it wouldn't get him elected dog catcher back here in Nashville.
Here, Al pisses the river.
Now, here's my question: How many poor black people did Al Gore have on those flights?
First, good on our boy Woody for helping instead of just running his mouth. That said...he would have been better off just helping.
He didn't need to mention it in the speech because he knows the liberal media will do it for him, I'm sure however he did mentioned it to the media otherwise how would they know.
First, where did albore get this kind of money?
Second, did he think we would forget he listed less than $400 in charity contributions on his income tax.
"Has sKerry said any tripe yet? Thats about the last one I havent heard about yet."
Kerry: I had a plan that would have stopped that hurricane. I couldn't tell you about it until I got into the White House. ...and I was in Vietnam!
Hmm, seems there was global warming, levee neglect, and poor black folks without cars in NO on Gore's watch.
I saw Al in a Video clip somewhere in the Katrina Coverage, and I just knew he would let it rip on the President.
The Democrats are closing in on another Dry Hole in their search for a Smoking Gun to bury the President.
Sooner or later the Chickens will come home to Roost and the Democrats, will understand the level of incompetency the locals in LA have brought to the scene of the disaster.
It would have been alot better if the Federal Government had taken over - but the Democrats would have been Screaming over that too.
The article does not say where the people that Gore airlifted were housed after landing. As I recall, during Gore's failed presidential run, there were articles posted on FR about a tenant in one of his rentals who was complaining about the lack of maintenance. Maybe his generosity this time was confined to paying for the airplane delivery. Since he is using what could have been considered an act of compassion and Charity for political gain, I give him no credit for anything but being a political opportunist.
Don't miss the last sentence.
From a friend:
"Here is a story you will not hear on the endless media reports about Louisiana, because the man involved will do no interviews and has only told the press that he wants no mention of his action, lest it be "politicized".
Al Gore, private citizen with , certainly, a certain clout, began an initiative on Thursday, September 1st. He personally and privately rented and American Airlines jet and crew, got a doctor friend of his and several nurses, and on Saturday morning, he flew to Louis Armstrong airport in New Orleans, gathered up 140 elderly and ill people from the triage center there and flew them to the Knoxville, Tennessee airport.
They were met by relief workers who unloaded the plane and took the people to area hospitals which were on alert and ready to welcome the people.
After being checked out, those who were able were taken to a Red Cross shelter set up at a local church. Mr. Gore and his doctor had intended to make a second trip on Saturday, but the undertaking - the loading on and the loading off took several hours each, and by the time he could go back to N.O., it was getting dark and, of course, there are no landing lights at the airport in N.O.
Sunday, they flew to Dallas and collected another planeload of refugees and brought them to Chattanooga. That's as far as my information goes.
I only know this because the local paper was at the Knoxville airport and got pictures of the people and Mr. Gore moving among them, helping them off the plane. His doctor spoke briefly to the local press, saying,"Al called and asked for help. So here I am."
This is the man we elected president."
I had this picture of a large blimp with a suit, slicked back hair, and "Algore" painted on the side.
Ah ha! This is what the RATS call "Not Publicizing" it, eh?
That is one really die hard supporter!!
"First, where did albore get this kind of money?"
Maybe he is selling his earth-tone shirts on eBay.
So does this mean the Sierra Club is now in favor of building more dams?
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