[blogblogginaway]

Headline could have read : New Orleans Officials Totally Unprepared For Levee Break .......... but noooooooo. Bush's fault.

[frankjr]

Katrina is so 2005.

[onyx]

But that doesn;t fit their agenda.
See how that works?

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money"

Oh come on! This place was a cesspool and was due for a flushing, to the detriment of a multi-generational, public assistance addicted people. Unfortunately because of continued democratic controlled governments and their lack of action, as usual there are attempts to shift blame. They need to look in the mirror. This story is page 22.

[zipp_city]

why did they not use the church busses that take the "poor" to vote to get them out of town,

[COEXERJ145]

Looks like Katrina and "Cheney leaked Plame" are the talking points for the Sunday shows.

Next week it will probably be back to Bush-Abramoff and NSA "domestic spying".

[MrBlueSky2005]

...and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population...

Well now whose fault is that?? President Bush was supposed to exactly what about this...?

Oh and also from the article:

The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators, "We put no plans in place to do any of this."

yep...Bush's fault...clearly... /s

[newnhdad]

They are really doing a full court press this weekend. This is just recycled nonsense with another misleading lead. We should expect this manufacturing of news to be the norm from now until the elections. Lies, deceit and falsehoods will be presented as news with unnamed sources and weak facts so the left can create a reality they want, versus the actual reality.

[Agog]

But I thought the levee didn't break until a day or so after the storm passed, in which case the headline is inaccurate.

[Pukin Dog]

The Media is in full out attack mode today.

It is really fun to watch. They know that they couldn't win on Alito, they are losing on the NSA program, Harry Reid is going down, Hillary cant win in 08, the Patriot Act is going to pass, McCain took the shine off Obama, the Stock Market is taking off, Unemployment is down,

AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE BROKE!!!

It is a great day to be an American.

[JennysCool]

Thanks for gettin' me off the hook, New York Times people!

[Richard Kimball]

When I lived there in 1978, I was joggin on the Mississippi levee. I looked up, and saw a Danish cargo ship go by, towering ten or twelve stories above me. I looked down at my house, about ten to fifteen feet below the levee. I said to myself, "What's wrong with this picture?" I completed MY evacuation plan in 1979, and the city has known about this possibility for over 100 years. Plans to reinforce the levees were cancelled in the 70's because of lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club over the Environmental Protection Act. Beyond that though, New Orleans proves you can't give people more money than they can steal or throw away. It doesn't matter how much Federal money they get, because every dime will be stolen.

[msnimje]

Of course they did, they BLEW it up. Duh!

[clintonh8r]

The evil White House hurricane machine, designed by Rove and built by Halliburton, has long since been disassembled and launched into deep space from a secret base on Dick Cheney's ranch.....they'll never pin nuthin' on the bastards!

[VeniVidiVici]

Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.

Yeah, I think they've known for decades.

Let's look at this another way. What would the NYT have printed had the Federal government FORCEABLY removed 100,000 Black folks from their homes? Anyone care to guess? Anyone care to guess the reaction here on FR?

[rightwinggoth]

Indeed. They even enumerate most of the failings on the local rather than federal level.

[Fruitbat]

Ya know, it's comical. Libs bitch about W's government being too intrusive in their lives, but apparently wanted him crawling up every individual citizen's butt to play mommy and daddy.

Meanwhile, the state and city officials take a fraction of the heat for the problem to begin with!

[Fruitbat]

Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.

the rest of America knew it too and has for decades! I guess the translation is that those 100,000 were morons.

Also, anyone believing that there were 100,000 people with absolutely no way to leave with a good 48 hours worth of warning, please raise your hand.

[ILS21R]

The headline is misleading. The National Hurricane Center warned that the levee could be topped. They did not foresee a levee break.

[mumps]

Look, for a disaster the size of Katrina, the established response protocol is a federal one. That's why FEMA was created.

Katrina happened during Bush's watch, and with his appointees in place in the government departments with responsibility. That's the reality. That's just the way the political responsibility cookie crumbles. This is as true for the president of the United States as it is for the mayor of Mayberry. Is it always fair? No.

The point is to figure out what went wrong and to fix it. And if the sytem is not fixable, then the government should be honest with Americans and say: Look, if a catastrophic natrual disaster (the scale of a Katrina) or a catastrophic terrorist attack (the scale of a Hiroshima or Nagasaki) destroys your town/region, you are basically on your own. Get your ass in gear and move on. Don't look back.

[Fido969]

Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.

Well, that is interesting.

By the way, how much of the plan for evacuating the poorwWhite population had they completed? 100%?