Exactly.
With power out from the high winds and movement limited, even news reporters in New Orleans remained unaware of the full extent of the levee breaches until Tuesday.
So, basically, people who LIVE news and GET PAID for news and were RIGHT THERE couldn't get to the levees to report, but the Bush Administration is supposed to have god-like powers and be on top of the situation two minutes ago.
I just get this picture of Bush and Cheney floating around on a cloud above New Orleans, directing things with mind ray beams and telekinesis, like some kind of X-Men to the millionth power.
At least, that's what they were SUPPOSED to be doing - BUT NO!
Bush was on his ranch, reading a children's book to a kindergarten class, and Dick Cheney was skulking about in the tunnels under Washington, D.C.
;-)
It's almost like he was taking a normal helicopter ride on a normal day, kind of like traffic monitoring on a sunny summer day, when suddenly he noticed a levee breach.
I've seen a hurricane first-hand, and all hell breaks loose. I imagine it was no picnic being on that chopper, and I also imagine that what they were seeing was obscured and indeterminate.
Yet Lipton, the NYT "reporter", acts like there was a gentle breeze blowing, with 10-mile visibility.
Lying by omission, as usual.
Why even have a city government, if the Feds are expected to do everything?
V537
Gawd, this is staggering:
"Mr. Bradberry, the state transportation secretary, told an investigator that he had focused on improving the highway evacuation plan for the general public with cars and had not attended to his responsibility to remove people from hospitals and nursing homes. The state even turned down an offer for patient evacuation assistance from the federal government."
They failed to plan to evacuate the most helpless. AND THEN TURNED DOWN A FEDERAL OFFER TO HELP WITH SUCH.
That is criminal incompetence. Blanco and Bradberry should be impeached, removed, tried and convicted - they left people It should have been its own shrieking above-the-fold headline. But the NY Times is too interested in what damage it can do to the Bush Admin, so it buried this stunning revelation at the very bottom of the article.
This is, IMO, the worst bias I have ever seen on the part of the NY Times. And that's saying something.
In a "sister city" relationship, emergency workers are cross trained in each others cities. The calvary hits the streets running.
Rather than waiting for an "invitation" to a disaster (which is require to keep helpers from being vigilantes under the law) the sister city can make their own determination and deal police to police and emergency worker to emergency worker. Bureaucratic red tape is avoided. To stop the smooth flow of assistance, an incompetent mayor must call and refuse help.
In addition, churches in sister city communitas would be asked to made arrangement to put up each other's congregations. Not every person in a strange city, but a sister congregation. The smaller number of people needing assistance can be helped by NGO and government groups. The smaller numbers will take pressure off a strained system in the event of large scale disasters.
These plans can also be used for terror attacks.
So basically, their argument is that the Bush Administration knew in advance that Louisiana government officials were incompetent, but did nothing about it. Does that sum it up?