Live Thread: Bush Speech About New Orleans (9 pm EDT)

www.freerepublic.com | September 15 , 2005

[Howlin]

9 P.M. EDT.

[Alia]

I'm glad I asked! We'd all be DEAD and PICKLED if we played that drinking game to the word "Katrina" as mentioned by the MSM. lol

[Conservababe]

What a refreshing breath of fresh air is blowing through FR tonight after the President's speech. Aside from the matter of debate if it is good policy or not, I am happy to see fewer posts of calling NO a cesspool and the residents human debris.

Ah, what a difference a speech can make in folks attitudes.

[usmcobra]

How does that rebuild anything?

[jveritas]

Great post. I think the absolutists among us cannot see this very important point.

[RobbyS]

Not just New Orleans.

[nascaryankee]

This is the way the three main plans sounded to me in simple terms:

1. Incentives for doing business in the region to help jump start the economy there. Like tax cuts.

2. Provide funding for people to get the education to find a new job. Not free money but a jump start on providing for yourself.

3. I think this one meant to provide land on which the person must begin to build on their own with help from the private sector.

I may be wrong, but this does not sound that bad.

[Arizona Carolyn]

As far as I know she is one of the people (in the Clinton Whitehouse) who never qualified for a security clearance and was always considered a temporary employee.

[JeffAtlanta]

Are you the one who brags over at DU how he posts here undetected?

So a person that believes in personal responsibility is a liberal now?

FYI, a conservative is compassionate with his own money - a liberal is compassionate with taxpayer money.

[nopardons]

No, Jefferson wasn't the first "Republican president" at all! You need to take a fifth grade history class.

LINCOLN WAS THE FIRST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT !

There was NO Republican Party in Jefferson's day. And Jefferson's policies weren't all that Conservative at all. Adams? YES! Jefferson? HELL NO ! And frankly, I wouldn't be so proud, if I were you, to call yourself a "Jeffersonian".

You sound like a child, you threw a mighty mean terrible two temper tantrum,back up the thread a way, and you're the one trashing a very good/great president and a fine speech.

[buckeyesrule]

Yes I saw that. Where did they get all those right wing black people. LOL! I saw one woman was pretty vocal as to blaming the mayor for being most responsible for the mess.

[wxdawg]

First, to all those that think what GWB proposed tonight is outside the bounds of the federal government, I would point you to the preamble of the Constitution...

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Obviously, it is the obligation of all the states united to "promote the general welfare." It is not in the general welfare of the US to leave an area the size of the UK devastated and leave barren the fifth-largest port in the world. Do you realize that according to the Red Cross, 75% of all homes in the six gulf coast counties of MS are uninhabitable? This is a disaster of unprecedented scale. It will take the resources of ALL Americans to rebuild and restore. I am a Mississippian, yes...but if this had happened as a tsunami in California...I would be just as adamant on using the national resources to rebuild...because first I am an AMERICAN.

On the issue of New Orleans' location...NO is, as was once said, "an inevitable city in an impossible place." But that is the point. The port of NO, which is the economic pivot of this country, cannot be located anywhere else. Further up the MS River, it becomes much too narrow and shallow for ocean going vessels to navigate. The fifth largest port in the world must have a city to support its workers and their families. Presto! You have New Orleans. Beyond this fact, we have many other cities, notably in CA, that will one day be destroyed...or have already been destroyed and rebuilt in the past. As GWB said, "Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature -- and we will not start now."

On the issue of flood insurance, many did not have flood insurance in MS because their home was above the Camille storm surge line. As a meteorologist, and according to NOAA SLOSH models, they should have been safe even in another cat 5 hurricane. Obviously, that assumption was wrong. But I would have been hard pressed to argue with them three weeks ago. And, of course, is it really a flood when the damage was caused by a wind-driven storm surge? But, as a conservative, am I supposed to tell them, "Better luck next time"? No...because that is certainly not in the "general welfare" of America either...or in its heart and soul.

And, before I am zotted as a liberal...or as a bushbot...I am a dyed-in-the-wool conservative...who has voted Republican since my first vote for Kirk Fordice in 1995. And, yes, I disagree with GWB on several issues...namely immigration. But as Dole once said, "I belong to a party, not a cult"...and we can certainly constructively disagree on many issues of the day. But on the issue of rebuilding a huge area of America that has been laid waste...on the issue of comforting people who were displaced in the largest mass exodus of Americans since the Civil War...and on the issue of revitalization of one of our main economic engines...NONE of that should be up for debate by any American. Now...lets get to work!

[OldFriend]

My son called from Ohio, up in arms over what ABC was doing.....trying to get the refugees to bash the President. He could not believe it. Of course, I am always ranting about the media bias and he got to see it big time.

I just emailed him about the WABC radio news.....interview of LA congressman who called the speech all fluff, no substance.

[ohioWfan]

OH...........but they're so much fun to tweak, Chuck.......

I rather enjoy taking them on. They're wrong about 98% of the time, so it's really easy to win. :)

[deport]

President Bush's Speech, Text, NOLA 9/15/05

[Howlin]

I wonder if they asked them to "act angry."

[Friend of thunder]

Why did these people not have flood insurance?

As I understand it, and I could be wrong in this case, flood insurance in flood prone areas is usually government subsidized. I am not saying that many of these people did not make poor decisions. But if it is done correctly this could empower people who have bought into the big government lie. Even if it does not people are hurting, we need to help them.

[proud American in Canada]

Thank you! Now I'll just have to convince my kids to listen, yet again, to a speech from the president. Or at least to let me have the pc. Since they have a teacher planning day (already!?) tomorrow and somehow my preference for news channels on t.v. or FR on the p.c. aren't popular.

Although: my almost 10 year old son, who was born and lived most of his life in the U.S., said, upon hearing me cry a week and a half ago about N.O. and the Gulf Coast, when I said, this area had such a history, he said, "Okay, it had a history before, but now it can be known for coming back."

I kid you not--I can't remember his exact words but EVERY time I'm on FR since the hurricane he wants me to post this.

Out of the mouths of babes.

And now I have posted it, Christopher. I'll print this thread for you tomorrow.

If we have enough paper. ;)

[JeffAtlanta]

How does that rebuild anything?

The person takes the money they recieve from their insuance claim and use it to relocate. It's simple.

[daybreakcoming]

.......the President isn't running for office again.

Wish he was. But I couldn't in good conscience wish that on him.

[SE Mom]

Thank you.