Bush Comments On Katrina Sound Sour In New Orleans

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(01-12) 15:29 PST New Orleans (AP) --

President George W. Bush can defend the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. But to Gertrude LeBlanc, the view from her home in the city's Lower 9th Ward is all the evidence she needs to believe it was a failure.

A row of concrete foundations is all that's left where her neighbors' houses once stood.

"Bush didn't give a damn what we got," said the 73-year-old, who says she rebuilt her bright yellow house with the neat yard with help from a church group and the "little bit" in federal aid she got from the state-run program meant to help hurricane-affected homeowners, Road Home.

"To me, black folks weren't handled right, but we can't worry about it. We have to do the best we can."

When Bush leaves office next week, New Orleans will still show the scars of Hurricane Katrina, which slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005. LeBlanc's neighborhood is still largely uninhabited, with weeds tall around some decrepit houses and roads cracked and warped. In some neighborhoods, apartment buildings and businesses are empty. Some houses still bear the haunting markings left by search teams in the frantic aftermath of the storm.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/12/national/a152901S38.DTL

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Outliving The Shame Caused By Bush Will Take Decades!

eom

[MichiganVote]

2. Michigan ain't too pleased with this "legacy" either.

[Fire1]

3. You got that right!

[Trillo]

4. Neighbors are priceless.

There is no amount of money that can replace them.

[MikeNearMcChord]

5. "Bush didn't give a damn what we got,"

Basically that sums up the Bush Legacy to average Americans, who will pay horribly for years if not decades. Thank You fro giving us the epitaph of the Bush Administration.

[nbcouch]

6. The disaster was preventable

and the response in the aftermath was prima facie inadequate and slow. How could George W Shit-for-brains rationally or reasonably defend it? Oh, that's right, rationality and reason don't count for jack when it comes to BushCo.

[uppityperson]

7. on the 1 hand, aside from inaccurate #s, he was right that the fed response was fast.

You know, people said, 'Well, the federal response was slow.' Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed."

The fed response was fast in blocking people who came to help.

[nbcouch]

8. You can't call him a liar

To call someone a liar is to presume that they have some minimal grasp of the truth. Clearly that is not the case with W. He lives in a fantasy world of his own design, a solipsistic playhouse where as long as nothing bad happens to HIM, all is right with the world.

30,000 people pulled off rooftops?? It was probably closer to 300, and that was just the Coast Guard, who were already present in NOLA, doing their job and doing it well.

I didn't see the entire "press conference" yesterday, because generally I can't stand to look at that asswipe excuse for a public servant, but I did hear his complaint about the complaints that he didn't have them land Air Force One instead of flying over the devastation. This was TWO DAYS after Katrina made landfall. The fact that he singles out this point in defense of his government's response is most revealing. If the only complaint, or a major complaint, were that he shouldn't have flown over on Wednesday, New Orleans would likely be in great shape today. It is not.

On Thursday (!) "Brownie" first learned of the thousands waiting outside the Convention Center, where they had been told to wait, without food or water or even basic sanitation. It wasn't until they had been there nearly a week that people were first evacuated from the Superdome, where they had been told to wait. But this was only the immediate aftermath. More than three years later, tens of thousands still have not returned to their homes, because they cannot. The relief they still need has never reached them. But lordy, don't let anyone tell W that his government's response to Katrina wasn't fast!

People like Brad Pitt have given enormously of themselves to see to it that there has been SOME progress in the Ninth Ward and elsewhere, and for that they deserve our respect. George W Bush would deserve nothing but our contempt, if he weren't so far beneath it.

[lunatica]

9. Bush should be forced to give his speech to the people who were stuck in the Superdome..

after Katrina. And he should have his mother there to win the crowd over..

[kentauros]

10. Hell, even in his supposed "home" state of Texas

Galveston has gotten the same "response" as New Orleans got. Sure, it's not as big or populous or seemingly "important" but it's still going to be years before it recovers, if ever.

So, another city destroyed and Bush ignores the plight. Seems to me that all the cities and towns ravaged by Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Gustav and Ike should be high on the list of Obama's reconstruction plans. Or we should hope so.

[KamaAina]

12. NOLA did not even appear on a list of the ten cities best positioned for the stimulus package!

let alone be No. 1, as you might expect. Trouble is, their mayor has his head so far up his ass he can practically see Russia, and his handpicked recovery czar spends most of his time at his university teaching job. In Australia. :eyes:

http://www.nextwave.org/economy/cities-submit-stimulus-package-wishlists

Sacramento is No. 2. Sacramento. And, as usual, NOLA can't even get it together to even be in the game. I've been all over the blogs about this (which makes me, not recovery czar Ed Blakely, the recovery point man here in the Pacific Rim); as yet, a lukewarm response even from the normally civic-minded bloggers.

[TEXASYANKEE]

11. Where was he?

If my memory serves, Bush was given a status report from NOAA before Katrina made landfall. Then he promptly put it out of his mind and went off to attend fundraisers and share birthday cake with McCain. He didn't watch any of the news converage and seemed to care nothing about the status of the hurricane or the US residents it descended upon. To me, this is the very essence of Bush -- a deep and sincere lack of empathy or sympathy.

I was glued to my TV from the moment the levees broke. I will never forget the people stranded and terrified while Bush and our Government did nothing. Why was Bush so disinterested in this disaster? How much more could have been done had he been even remotely interested and/or involved.

He can not defend his actions on this, as far as I'm concerned.