Posted on 09/20/2005 11:35:05 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The US military has categories of stupidity. The highest is “gross public dumb.” But a higher category is needed for moments like the “bus interview” by Louisiana Governor Blanco. It is spectacularly stupid. You’ve got to see this to believe it.
Interview of Governor Blanco by John Hill of Louisiana Gannett News, 19 September, 2005
“GANNETT: In hindsight, what would you have done differently in the first response?
“BLANCO: Well, I would have placed less confidence in a structure elsewhere (the Federal Emergency Management Association) and depended more on ourselves. As an example, when buses were not delivered in a timely fashion, we had already started gathering school buses ... and buses of any kind ...
“We gave ourselves a false sense of confidence when we were counting on 500 buses that FEMA had ordered that did not come in until Wednesday night. So ...we would depend more on our own resources.”
Is this a stupid statement? To quote Elizabeth Browning, “Let me count the ways.”
Louisiana and New Orleans were supposed to use their OWN buses. So says the Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan, 1 January, 2000. Was Governor Blanco aware of the Plan? Apparently not. But for any Governor of Louisiana, isn’t dealing with the occasional hurricane part of the job?
She refers to “confidence in FEMA.” Did she think FEMA had magic buses which would run with their engines under water? Did she think people could board those buses from the attics of their houses, hiding from flood waters? Hasn’t she seen the aerial photographs of 500 local buses flooded where they were parked before Katrina hit? Hellooo.
In the past she knew how to roll the buses. When she was running for Governor, she got the buses rolling in New Orleans Parish, with signs and Dixieland bands to turn out voters for Blanco. Which is the higher priority – getting votes for Blanco, or saving lives? Hellooo.
Was FEMA “late” in helping New Orleans? Let’s review. Katrina is the worst hurricane measured by square miles of territory wiped out. The second worst was Hurricane Floyd in 1999. It lingered over North Carolina, wiping out roads, electricity, gas lines, letting loose millions of gallons of sewage and agricultural waste on the eastern third of that state.
In 1999, the Governor did not retire to his fainting couch to “think about it” for 24 hours as Floyd approached. Yet FEMA’s response to Floyd (a smaller destroyed area) was slower than its response to Katrina now. Blanco has to know this, because her hired gun for the political aftermath of Katrina is James Lee Witt, Director of FEMA in 1999. Hellooo.
Asked about her comment which CNN taped that she “should have specifically asked for more troops," she said:
“BLANCO: Well, that was at a point in time when we were wondering if we were getting any significant federal aid. I guess because of the dynamics of the situation, when I asked for help, then I started getting bombarded with, ‘Did you ask specifically for this, that or the other.’ .... When people ask me for help, I know what kind of help I can get to them, and I can get it to them pretty quickly... Nobody bothered to ask me those questions.”
Note that last sentence. If nobody asks her a question, she doesn’t even think about that subject. Should any executive in or outside government ever act like this in an emergency? Hellooo.
Asked about the “breakdown... between state, federal and local people,” she replied,
“BLANCO: “I think the breakdown was at the point of not being able to get (buses) there on time. ... We had one mission in those early days, and it was search and rescue. Get people out of the water.”
No, Mrs. Blanco, the FIRST mission was to get the people out BEFORE the water got there. Hellooo. This woman is unfit to run a lemonade stand. She would have a gross lack of sales because she thought someone else was bringing the lemons.
I’m not picking on Governor Blanco as a Southern woman and Democrat. In three generations of women in my family, most are/were Southerners and Democrats. None of them, in a crisis, ever dithered or worked themselves into a swivet. They sized up the situation and did the best they could. No one was harmed because they couldn’t act..
But people did get harmed, people did die, because Blanco became Governor, clueless of her duties whenever the next major hurricane hit New Orleans. That goes beyond the high standard of gross public dumb.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Her resume claims that as Lt Governor, he specialty was tourism. TOURISM. Is it any surprise that she is inept and incompetent in disasters? Her entire legislative career is on the corrupt side -- working pols, doing deals, but not LEADERSHIP.
That's what Democrats elect -- idiots who can't lead. That's why the Governor of Mississippi, and Rudy Giuliani, did exemplary jobs when their states or cities experienced disaster. And that's why Louisiana had thousands of people stranded.
Does this qualify as gross public dumb?
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana --- The initial claims by New Orleans and Louisiana officials that tens of thousands of people were killed by Hurricane Katrina are apparently off by tens of thousands. When asked to explain such a huge discrepancy, Mayor Nagin of New Orleans blamed the failed school system that was destroyed by the Bush Administration.
"If the school system here wasn't such a failure, then maybe our officials could count better," said Nagin. "Bush and his Administration destroyed our public school system by lowering taxes and passing No Child Left Behind. I even had trouble counting the number of buses we had available to evacuate people. Imagine my shock when I discovered dozens of buses under water that could have been used for evacuation. I only counted three. Bush has destroyed education in this country, and in New Orleans in particular."
When asked how the education system was destroyed by Bush years prior to his election, Nagin was adamant that Bush was at fault. "I can't answer that question, and that's Bush's fault," said Nagin. "Had Bush not been elected, I'd have an answer to that question. He's a racist, a liar, and a failure."
Let's see... Nagin is 40ish, neither he nor anyone on his staff can count above three, and that's Bush's fault? I grabbed this off ChronWatch. I want to believe this article is a parody, I hate the idea that an elected official can be that stupid. Even for a liberal. Sorry, I don't know how to link it so I just cut-and-pasted.
..I heard the same "excuse" a few days ago..to which I replied," "and the LA National Guard had how many drivers available?"
Doogle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3361863
Texas declared a disaster area ahead of time
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry declared the state a disaster area today in anticipation of Hurricane Rita hitting Texas and personally asked President Bush to approve federal aid to affected counties.
A FEMA official is already at the State Operations Center, which went on full alert status today with 34 state agencies on site around the clock, said Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt.
"FEMA has already been part of this. They have offered whatever support we need,'' Walt said. "Texas is not Louisiana. You won't see that breakdown occurring here.''
Walt said that Texas National Guard troops returning from Louisiana at Perry's request will be staged along evacuation routes when officials better determine the most likely landfall for the storm.
"That's so they're positioned and ready to move when they need to whether it's rescue or whatever assistance they need to provide,'' she said, adding the troops might help keep traffic moving along evacuation routes.
Compare and Contrast Texas to Louisianna
"I heard the same "excuse" a few days ago"
It's about as good as an excuse as the dog ate my homework!
I remember the smear campaign she ran against Bobby Jindal, now LA state rep. (Excerpted from PolyPundit archives) "Her opponent Bobby Jindal, a former Rhodes Scholar who led the state's Department of Health and Hospitals at the tender age of 24, made a convincing case that he was better prepared to jumpstart the state's ailing economy. But Blanco successfully turned Jindal's technocratic prowess against him. Despite pledges from both candidates to run positive campaigns, just before election day Blanco unfurled attack ads featuring the former head of a state physicians' group taking the wunderkind to task for the pain his health budget cuts inflicted. Jindal had no time to respond and lost by four points." The numbers were grossly inflated and her 527s worked him over behind the scenes.
You can bet he wouldn't have left the state "high and dry" in real governance.
Praise in this Storm - Hurricane Katrina Video (Warning this is over 6 megs for all those on dial up)
Bush Offering a Hand Up, Not Handouts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1487340/posts
go to post #9 to see an INCREDIBLE video/music of Katrina!
"We were not at any point in time trying to get our citizens to come in and be at risk. We were just wanting them to come and take a peek. "
-- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, on why he initially supported such a quick re-entry process.
Did this idiot really say this?
I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me.
;^)
CB, you forgot the punchline: Blank-O will be reelected. As will Dallas-homeowner Naggin'.
...I used an excuse after hearing that in grammar school and thought I had one better, I said " my brother ate my homework", to which the teacher replied, "don't you mean your dog?"..I said "no, he ate him too"...although cute, it got me extra homework and a note for my mother to sign. She was not amused.
Doogle
Has anyone challenged her on these comments? Has anyone pointed out on a main stream broadcast what you have pointed out here? I find that I can no longer watch any Katrina/post-Katrina coverage of any kind, so I might have missed it. But, it needs to be said. Let the finger pointing begin with by some conservative with stones who simply has to be willing to finger point at the city and state laws and back at city and state officials who didn't follow them. Maybe Zell Miller would do this for the good of the country.
Another one outta the park, Billybob!
BTTT
The Orleans Parish school system has been failing for a LONG time. The best thing that has happened to it has been the flood. The kids are no longer trapped in those failing schools.
Napoleon once said, In politics, stupidity is no handicap
That Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Blubber was in studio to do a segment with, I believe, CNN. She gets there 15 minutes early and they leave her sitting in a chair in front of the lone camera as all of her flunkies and WLPB staff retreat to the small control room (visible in the background).
She's sitting there, and all of a sudden, she BURSTS INTO TEARS! No provocation, just blubber. It was over quick because some of her staff came out to ask her a question (which puts the legit time stamp on this) -- her staff came out to ask her what to do about a rumor that possibly a Louisiana "FEMA" vice-president (actually LA Homeland Security) had a mother in NO who was unaccounted for.
I think she could be impeached, if there was the right framework in place a la Schwarzenegger (strong alternative candidate, petition drive ready to go, etc.).
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