Devils Advocate, Even If LA Officials DID Make Mistakes...

[K8-EEE]

Clearly GWB & FEMA HAVE THE AUTHORITY to take over in a national disaster, per the law. Once those people were stranded and dehydrating on TV and the mayor was screaming SOS SOS, are they saying that the proper paperwork wasn't done, protocol followed, so screw em?? These people who said they would KEEP US SAFE? HOW LAME IS THAT?

If you see Americans dying and you have the whole military under your command...then DO something! I just don't get their argument. They took all these billions to fund Homeland Security and while an American city dies on our TV screens they sit around and do an old Freddie Prinz act? It's no my yob, mahn...

:crazy:

[MADem]

1. FEMA gave their workers two days to get there

It would have taken ONE PHONE CALL to put a military transport aircraft on the tarmac. They could have mustered their people, loaded the plane, and been there within hours. The Bataan was sitting off the coast, they could have been put up there and gone to work immediately.

It did not happen because FEMA is FUBAR. And chimpy would rather eat cake with McCain than lead.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Check the White House's own website

Here it is; read it and (make a Freeper) weep:

Bush took responsibility on August 26th, two days before Katrina hit land.

There is no interpreting the act. Bush signed for it; it was also signed by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco; that's it. End of story. It's Bush's responsibility.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.html

Any and all stories about lapses in protocol, Blanco not filing the right form, Nagin not "commandeering" school buses, insufficient provisioning, bad planning by Blanco and Nagin, and especially stories about how Federal officials waited for orders from Blanco and/or Nagin, and not Bush, are just so many excuses.

Excuses. For which 10,000 to 40,000 people died, a world-class port was put out of commission, and a cultural mecca was destroyed.

--p!

[carpe diem]

3. that's what I've been saying...

what if it had been Al Queda that blew up the levee or flood wall and no one in NO had prior warning or had been evacuated, would DHS have required local officials to fill out a certain form, turn in a circle and jump up and down three times before they would have come to their aid.

Whatever f**k-ups occurred BEFORE the hurricanne hit, after you had 100,000 people stranded in a flooded, hurricane destroyed, contaminated city, there is NO local gov't in this country that can manage that magnitude of a disaster. That's WHY FEMA was created in the first place and is the ONLY reason for it and DHS to exist. If they can't/won't spring into action without all the cute little games of who asks who to do what first, while people are DYING , they should just cut the BS about homeland security and let the country know that the cities and states are on their effing own and if something catastrophic happens, tough.

At least let folks know up front you have no intention of coming to the rescue (esp. not if democrats run the state/city in question) so people won't be counting on the calvery to come.

[etherealtruth]

4. I am sure that the local's did make mistakes ...

I am also sure that the local government's had neither the human or financial resources to deal with a disaster of this magnitude ... That's why FEMA is there.

The lame excuses given by FEMA and the rest of the expected federal response (bureaucracy,ignorance of the facts) caused large scale death and human suffering. As the U.S. and the rest of the world watched in horror.

Of course the local government's made mistakes ... that was apparent Monday night ... Why did the fed's sit back and watch?

[K8-EEE]

5. And Why Did * Promise Over And Over Help Was Coming?

....later to say "oh they didn't ask for it in the right way, it's so-and-so's job to request blah blah blah."

We all SAW what happened! We SAW the mayor & governor begging for help, we say Bush PROMISE the help in the most self-agrandizing way possible. Then HOW is it not his fault when the help doesn't show??

[etherealtruth]

6. I give the MSM a lot of credit ...

...they highlighted the massive human suffering, made the American public aware that the local governments were BEGGING for help, they showed the pREsident responding in a flippant manner to the tragedy and suffering ...