London 2010
Posted on 09/10/2005 5:16:37 PM PDT by jmc1969
AN overwhelming majority of Britons believe that President George W Bush has mismanaged the response to Hurricane Katrina, a Sunday Times poll has found. Fully 86% of people said his handling of the crisis was “bad” or “very bad”, while 70% said he was a generally incompetent president.
By almost three to one, 63% to 23%, people think the response to the hurricane would have been speedier and more effective if most victims had been white and middle class. By 67% to 19% they think race and class divisions in America are as bad as ever.
The poll of a representative sample of 1,856 adults, carried out on September 8-9 by YouGov, the online pollsters, is the first major test of UK public opinion on the crisis.
The poll uncovers deep hostility to Bush; 57% agree and 23% disagree that he is “one of the worst presidents America has ever had”. By 66% to 18% they think he is generally “not trustworthy”, and by 68% to 21% that he is “not really concerned about the fate of ordinary people”.
The disaster has also hit America’s reputation more generally. By 63% to 20%, people said the Katrina aftermath and the Iraq violence showed America is “losing the ability to organise and run things”.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Brits dont know squat. All they know is what they hear or read in the media. A media that is on a war footing agsint the Bush administration. Sons of beaches.
True. I'm not much for "world opinion".
But there is a danger here. The so-called worldwide mainstream media is courting disaster by creating a serious misconception as to a.) the President's powers and b.) his broadspread (still) domestic support.
By their depiction of Bush as a bumbling fool without any political support, they are inviting some ill-informed despot (or mullah) to try his luck.
Thus, their biased, inaccurate, irresponsible and wholly hysterical reporting is inviting yet another geopolitical crisis.
Asked whether they had given money to help the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, 70% said they had and 30% that they had not. Asked whether they had given or would give to the victims of the hurricane, 31% said yes and 69% no.
The findings coincided with a US survey showing that 55% of Americans have a deep feeling of shame about the handling of the hurricane’s aftermath.
Americans believe by two to one that the government should have been better prepared. One in three says it would have responded faster if most victims had not been black and poor.
The mounting criticism has prompted supporters of Bush — whose approval rating fell to a record low of 39% in another poll yesterday — to try to shift the blame to Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans.
Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist, blamed the chaos in Louisiana on “looting in a Democratic city run by a Democratic mayor and Democratic governor”.
Nagin, who has condemned with four-letter words the Bush government’s lack of help, failed to follow his own emergency plan, critics said.
A spokesman for Tom DeLay, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, said: “There is an understanding on Capitol Hill that Mississippi, which took the brunt of this, had a much better response than Louisiana.”
Page 1 || Page 2
What do they know? They have no clue how our system works. Unlike Blair, Bush does not run the whole country.
Page Two:
Nagin responded furiously to the attacks. “To those who would criticise, where the hell were you?” he said.
Mary Landrieu, a Democrat senator, accused the government of “staggering incompetence”. She said the administration had gambled with the safety of New Orleans by ignoring warnings of the impact of a severe storm. “Washington rolled the dice and Louisiana lost.”
Bush is to fly back to the stricken Gulf coast today in the hope of restoring confidence. New Orleans leaders hope to reopen the French Quarter within 90 days and hold the traditional mardi gras parade on February 28.
John Prescott was criticised yesterday for linking the disaster with America’s record on climate change. In a speech in Berlin, the deputy prime minister said he believed global warming was to blame for rising sea levels and increased storm activity and criticised the US for failing to sign up to the Kyoto protocol, which aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Patrick Mercer, Conservative homeland security spokesman, said: “I hope Mr Prescott hasn’t forgotten the full depth of the emergency that has overwhelmed America. This does strike me as being needlessly opportunistic, to say these things at this time.”
Gordon Brown yesterday called on the oil-producing countries to increase output to bring down prices.
I just returned from the UK last weekend. I had supper in an Italian restaurant where we were waited on by a young man from Turkey. He knew us for Americans and said "UNCLE SAM!!" while smiling and treating us like gold! I have travelled and lived in Europe extensively for the past couple of years and they are incredibly uninformed. I had supper with and Italian couple who bashed our President. I asked if there was ANY President of the USA they liked and he replied "Ronald Reagan". I told him I found that interesting as he had just called Bush a "cowboy" and that was the exact same "insult" levied by Europeans to Reagan. He did not believe it! I met many people from Eastern Europe and North Africa who still very much believe in the USA. To them America is all that is right and good and the land of opportunity. It isnt all bad "over there" although the ignorance of our great country is greatly undermined by CNN International! Being from Atlanta and a CNN viewer when we moved to France I vowed never to watch them again ..and have not!
May I take this opportunity to take back anything nice or supportive I have ever in my life said about Britain or it's citizens?
They are snickering with the rest of our enemies at the Katrina disaster. They just never "get it" that we will rise past this.
PS: This does exclude our Brit Freepers
Now is the time for all good little Marxist journalists to write for the MSM...
Blair doesn't run the whole country. Westminster has had it's control over Scotland and Wales reduced drastically since 1997.
That is correct! The thing to do is email the Times about this poll and explain just how things work in the USA. They (or the Telegraph I forgot which..sorry!) had a running commentary last week with many such comments. If they arent educated (and they do live in a "NannyState") they will continue to believe the worst. But please dont blame all the Brits..many DO know the score!
The Sunday Times - Britain
September 11, 2005
Bush bungled Katrina crisis, say Britons
Sarah Baxter, Washington and Tony Allen-Mills, New Orleans
AND YOU BELIEVE THIS?
IT WASN'T W'S RESPONSIBILITY....ESPECIALLY...WITH AN OBSTRUCTING DEMBO GOVERNOR.
How the %$*& to they know?
Andrew Sullivan Writes for The Times on Line...(snip)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1774328,00.html
"What happened after Katrina hit — the complete failure of local, state and federal authorities to seize control of the situation — was not about right or left, Democrat or Republican. It was about simple competence.
Take the latest spin from the White House public relations operation, now in overdrive. The White House blames Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, for not specifically requesting federal troops to impose law and order (as opposed to search and rescue), and so clearing away legal hurdles for the federal government to help.
An anonymous source — Andy Card? Karl Rove? — told The New York Times: “Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?” Well, actually, at that point it was completely clear that the state authorities were overwhelmed and “lawlessness was the inevitable result”. Emergencies such as Katrina are precisely why the federal executive branch exists. It exists to take control and do things swiftly. Instead, the White House worried about gender politics and public relations while people drowned and corpses littered the streets of a city.
And Blanco’s defence? “I need everything you have got,” she said she told the president last Tuesday. Alas, she didn’t specify which type of soldier and for which purpose: “Nobody told me that I had to request that. I thought that I had requested everything they had.” If this weren’t a human catastrophe, it might be a comedy.
Suddenly, I understand the situation in Iraq a little better. I understand a little better why two years after the invasion, the road from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone is still insecure. I understand why, when looting broke out immediately after Saddam was toppled, the US military simply watched..." READ MORE...
THIS IS WHAT THE WHINING POMS ARE READING?!!!
Maybe so, but we will continue to stumble along for a while longer until the next Rulers of the Universe show up.
Europe should get their own house in order before criticizing others. African immigrants in France , many of them children, have died in recent house fires in Paris. These deaths have highlighted a long standing housing crisis and has raised serious questions over the treatment of immigrants in France. I read about this just the other day and it seems that Europe isn't taking care of the poorest that live among them. I also recall a large number of elderly folks in France who died due to the heat while family members vacationed far from home.
AN overwhelming majority of Britons -- are silly-ponce, butt pirates.
Immigrants die in new Paris fire
A fire has killed seven people - including four children - in a building housing African immigrants in Paris, just days after a similar lethal blaze.
Officials say about 12 families from Ivory Coast were living there in deplorable conditions. The blaze happened in the central Marais area.
On Friday, 17 West Africans died in another Paris apartment block fire, and a similar blaze killed 24 in April.
The government has now ordered a review of housing policy for immigrants.
President Jacques Chirac expressed sadness at the latest fire and ordered an inquiry.
It broke out at 2200 (2000 GMT) on Monday and firefighters took 90 minutes to control it.
A child who jumped from a window in the building died in hospital. Six other bodies were found in the ruins.
Friday's deadly fire - also in a building used by African immigrants - provoked street protests in Paris.
Fourteen of the 17 who died in that blaze were children.
Members of the African community took to the streets over the weekend, urging the authorities to provide better housing for immigrants.
They were joined by left-wing activists and pressure groups who accused French leaders of neglect.
Conditions 'unacceptable'
Some 100 firefighters and 30 vehicles were used to control the latest fire, which is said to have started in the lower part of the building - reportedly an old squat.
Fourteen people were injured, three of them seriously, fire officials said.
The cause of the fire is not known.
Pierre Aidenbaum, the mayor of the third district, said he had been dealing with the building "for many years now, telling the police headquarters about the living conditions, because I considered the conditions to be totally unacceptable".
He said the building's 40 residents were to have been relocated in September to allow for renovation work.
Housing crisis
In all three lethal blazes that hit African immigrants the flames spread quickly from the stairwell to the dilapidated wooden interiors of the apartments, the French news agency AFP reports.
According to the French lobby group Right to Housing, only 60,000 apartments or houses are being built in the public sector each year - half the amount needed, the BBC's Mike Sanders reports.
The group accuses the authorities of failing to requisition empty private accommodation to house those on the waiting lists.
But Paris City Hall says that in the past four years it has identified 1,000 private apartment blocks to refurbish or replace. It says it has already renovated some 300 of them, twenty times as many as in the preceding period.
Reacting to the latest fire, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said "we must close down all these squats and all these buildings, to prevent such tragedies."
AFRICANS KILLED IN PARIS FIRES
1. 15 April: Blaze at Paris-Opera hotel kills 24
2. 26 August: Fire in 13th district kills 17, including 14 children
3. 30 August: Seven die in Marais fire, including four children
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4196080.stm
Published: 2005/08/30 14:44:09 GMT
© BBC MMV
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4196080.stm
The European news media are a bunch of drooling Bush hating morons. I'm not surprised at this poll, they are not informed.
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