Posted on 09/11/2005 9:57:10 AM PDT by John Jorsett
I was just watching Fox News Sunday interview Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and I couldn't believe what she was saying. Here's my transcript of part of it. Sorry if I've mangled any of the proper names; I'm not going to go to the trouble of looking them up:
Chris Wallace: "Was it incompetent and insulting for Mayor Ray nagin to order a mandatory evacuation, but then to leave buses -- and we have a picture of them -- hundreds of buses idle so that they could be flooded instead of using them to get people out?"
Senator Landrieu: "Well, Chris, I was there as you know through the whole ordeal with state and local officials, and was right there with Louisiana Democrats and Republicans, city council members, police chiefs, mayors, and governors. And could watch what Hayley Barbour was doing and Governor Reilly in Alabama. I am not going to level criticism at the local level. These people did ..."
Wallace: "But I'd like to answer if you could this one significant question ..."
Landrieu: "I will answer it. I'm not going to level criticism at local and state officials. Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, less [sic] alone getting them out of the city in front of a hurricane. It's because this administration and administrations before them do not understand the difficulties that mayors, whether they're in Orlando, Miami, or New Orleans face. In other words, ..."
Wallace: "But but wait. Senator. Senator ..."
Landrieu: "... this administration does not believe in mass transit. They won't even get people to work on a sunny day less [sic] alone getting them out ..."
Wallace: "But Senator. Senator, there were hundreds of buses sitting in that parking lot ..."
Landrieu: "... less [sic] alone getting them out ... I'll tell you why ..."
Wallace: " ... can I just ask the question?"
Landrieu: "You can, but let me finish ...
Wallace" "Well ... well ... well there were hundreds of buses ... if I might ... here, we're looking at a picture ... there were hundreds of buses in parking lots. THe city ... It wasn't underwater before the evacuation."
Landrieu: "Those buses were underwater ..."
Walace: "They weren't underwater on Sunday ..."
Landrieu: "We had two catastrophes. We had a hurricane and then we had a levee break. When the levee broke, not only did New Orleans go underwater, but Saint Bernard went underwater, and Saint Tammany parish went underwater ..."
Wallace: "But they weren't underwater on Sunday ..."
Landrieu: "... and Plackman went underwater. And because the mayor evacuated the city, we had the best evacuation between Hayley Barbour and Kathleen Blanco of any evacuation I've sen. I'm 50 years old, I've never seen one any better."
Walace: "But there were 100,000 people left in the city."
Landrieu: "They did 100,000 people left in the city because this federal government won't support cities to evacuate people, whether it's from earthquakes, tornados, or hurricanes. That's the truth, and that will come out in the hearings."
If Vitter is smart, he is out there handing out food, water, ice & real assistance, while the dims are screaming like the teenagers they are.
As for sweet Mary L., Daddy's little girl looks like a deer in the headlights. Ditto for Blanco!
Good God, Louisiana! Get some LEADERS over there! Quick!
Another bad-hair day/month/year/tenure, and all the pumps in the world may not bail you folks out.
As for Nagin, his bad-hair day began a long time ago! When was he elected? Fat Tuesday?
As for the next mayor of NOLA - LTG Honore'! Sooner the better!
Why is this B!tch not in a straight jacket or jail cell? Listening to her over the last two weeks....I really think she is dangerous.
She got elected by the very ones they left to drown.
Or she was drunk during that interview. "Less" for "let" twice seems to me like she was slurring her words.
Excuse me, but is anyone here fluent in gibberish?"
Excuse me. I speak gibberish.
She means that the mean-spirted, racist Republicans have never offered sufficient support for public transportation so that we could have provided evacuation transportation to the disenfranchised using only municipal transit buses. To use school buses to evacuate the disenfranchised would be an insult to their dignity. As one wise woman said, school buses are for children.
Therefore, unless you have enough buses suitable for adults available (either municipal buses or Greyhound buses brought in by FEMA), any evacuation at all risks harming the fragile self image of the disenfranchised. You will end up leaving some behind, and it is wrong for some to be rescued when all will not eb rescued. Or you will end up using yellow school buses in order to evacuate soem of the disenfranchised, and this results in harm to the dignity of those who are evacuated using yellow school buses.
Furthermore, if you try to do a thorough evacuation of everyone who cannot afford transportation out of New Orleans , you will need to use many people as drivers who are not certified or licensed to drive the buses you ask them to drive. If accidents occur, as is likely to happen in so massive an undertaking, the local government and perhaps the State government are taking on liability risk that no one should be asked to take on. Furthermore, a thorough evacuation would involve using non-Union drivers, and would also inevitably involve violation of Union work rules by Union members who are made to drive longer than the union rules permit.
When all of these factors are considered, the decisions made at the local level are entirely understandable and appropriate. The job of those in local government is to stay out of trouble and avoid risk and liability. It is not to "save lives" at all costs in the reckless manner of a John Wayne.
See, I can speak gibberish very well.
Think they must all be on dat crack.
"Only in Lousyanna could this little twitch be a senator"
California has it's share of demwits - m.waters, b.boxer,waxman, shall I continue...
It's the job of the mayors to get me to work? I thought it was MY responsibility to get MY a$$ to work, regardless of the weather. Damn, I've been doing this all wrong all these years......
Huh??
The difference between Barbour and Blanco was the difference between a Yugo and a BMW.
Is it possible Landrieu is a delusional 50 year-old crack-addict?
Yes, yes, I see now. Thank you for the translation. Perhaps in place of ebonics we should be funding educational classes in GSL, or Gibberish as a Second Language.
III. Roles and Responsibilities This section discusses the roles and responsibilities of Federal, State, local, tribal, private-sector, and nongovernmental organizations and citizens involved in support of domestic incident management.
Police, fire, public health and medical, emergency management, public works, environmental response, and other personnel are often the first to arrive and the last to leave an incident site. In some instances, a Federal agency in the local area may act as a first responder, and the local assets of Federal agencies may be used to advise or assist State or local officials in accordance with agency authorities and procedures. Mutual aid agreements provide mechanisms to mobilize and employ resources from neighboring jurisdictions to support the incident command.
When State resources and capabilities are overwhelmed, Governors may request Federal assistance under a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration. Summarized below are the responsibilities of the Governor, Local Chief Executive Officer, and Tribal Chief Executive Officer.
Governor -- As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that State or territory.
The Governor:
¦ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
¦ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders and regulations;
¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of declared emergency within State jurisdiction;
¦ Encourages participation in mutual aid and implements authorities for the State to enter into mutual aid agreements with other States, tribes, and territories to facilitate resource-sharing;
¦ Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces (National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32 Status and the authorized State militias); and
¦ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded or exhausted.
Local Chief Executive Officer -- A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and welfare of the people of that jurisdiction.
The Local Chief Executive Officer:
¦ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to address the full spectrum of actions to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents involving all hazards including terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
¦ Dependent upon State and local law, has extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct evacuations, and, in coordination with the local health authority, to order a quarantine;
¦ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating to the public, and in helping people, businesses, and organizations cope with the consequences of any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction;
¦ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; and
¦ Requests State and, if necessary, Federal assistance through the Governor of the State when the jurisdiction’s capabilities have been exceeded or exhausted.
She was definitely an unhappy camper this day. It did not fair wll for her.
My only question is WHERE ARE OUR GOP REPRESENTATIVES PUTTING THESE PEOPLE IN THEIR PLACE. Our problems (always) is that we allow all the BS for days and let them get a head start bringing in all the wackos out of the woodwork and then It's difficult to do any kind of damage control - and it's not the damage of the hurricane, it's damage done by those who blame and whine the loudest and get aways with this. By the time the truth comes out the damage has already been done.
Pity the students and parents of students at schools that will hire these lying incompetents. Landrieu's lied, and so
has Nagin. How about Blanco? Or do I owe her an apology?
Yeah, I'm with you. I don't get it either. So if Bush did "believe in mass transit," (ignoring, btw, that such systems are always the result of local initiative, planning and decisions) then Nagin would simply have had more buses to leave parked and flooded. I mean, he didn't use the buses he had, what difference would it have made if he'd had more?
Mary was weak, lame, illogical as well as rude and angry. How the 'Rats can think this approach is going to work for them is beyond my ken, but then so is most 'Rat logic.
Oh, and Mary's comment about "now is not the time to point fingers!" I laughed out loud. How dumb was that?! She had to know that Chris would have the video of her own over-the-top finger pointing and blame shifting cued up.
She's sputtering because she will likely be tossed out on her ear in 2008 as she has lost her base of support in N.O. She HAS to defend the locals and damn Bush. It's called politics; in this case, the politics of survival.
They all represent their electorates viewpoint perfectly.
They'll all be elected again unless they're convicted on Federal Charges.
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