GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Katrina Blame Game — America Decides

by

Hat tip – Queer Conservative

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH:
CNNUSATODAYGALLUP POLL: ONLY 13% BLAME BUSH?
Wed Sep 07 2005 10:42:26 ET

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 609 adults taken September 5-6 shows:

Blame Game — 13% said George W. Bush is “most responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane”; 18% said “federal agencies”; 25% said “state and local officials”; 38% said “no one is to blame”; 6% had no opinion. — 29% said that “top officials in the federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired”; 63% said they should not; 8% had no opinion.

MORE

Government Performance — 10% said George W. Bush has done a “great” job in “responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding”; 25% said “good”; 21% said “neither good nor bad”; 18% said “bad”; 24% said “terrible”; 2% had no opinion. — 8% said federal government agencies responsible for handling emergencies have done a “great” job in “responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding”; 27% said “good”; 20% said “neither good nor bad”; 20% said “bad”; 22% said “terrible”; 3% had no opinion. — 7% said state and local officials in Louisiana have done a “great” job in “responding to the hurricane and subsequent flooding”; 30% said “good”; 23% said “neither good nor bad”; 20% said “bad”; 15% said “terrible”; 5% had no opinion.

Developing…

By the way, I can already predict the comment thread….. “Bush is evil.” “Gay marriage.” As PatriotPartner said, I could post a picture of a kitten and the comments would be “there would be more kittens if George Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq”… and….. “that kitten is the reason I can’t see my partner in the hospital.”

Oy. I’m in a foul mood today.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Comments

  3. Just caught 15 minutes of Rush – He is making a good point – Democrats have been running N.O. and LA for 60 years; have gotten tons of federal money, e.g., under Clinton – so, why aren’t N.O. and LA a liberal utopia? why do they have a seemingly large minority of poor, passive and/or dependent people? (Not slagging the majority of “active” citizens, black and white alike, who evacuated) and why were the local governments so poorly prepared for the inevitable Cat 4/5 storm to come, and so very slow in busing out their citizens who lacked the means to flee?

    I think that’s the real story of all this blame we’ve been “treated” to from the Left. New Orleans and Louisiana are a disaster on every level – not just the physical catastrophe, I mean, but politically, economically and socially. They were an utter failure long before the hurricane – the hurricane just exposed it in a particularly painful and horrible way. It’s a long-term failure of liberalism – the failure to create jobs or hope, the failure to think about the future, the failure to “deliver” on plans and promises, the failure to create a police force that performs its basic duty to society.

    All are key parts of the Katrina story. And no liberal in his or her right mind would want to face up to it – so, blame it all frantically and heatedly on Bush and “racism”….even if the record objectively shows that Bush was trying to get Nagin and Blanco to do the right things from days before Katrina happened, that the USS Bataan (ship they keep mentioning) was well positioned and has been doing its job, etc.

  4. P.S. And the slight silver lining in all this horror and tragedy is that now we have national attention focused on N.O. and LA; maybe some good can start happening for those poor people.

  6. Well, Bush IS evil and nothing else matters. I mean, simply EVERYTHING is his fault! The hurricane, 9/11, the fact that I haven’t gotten laid in, oh, well far too many years even for me to count. Anyhow, the point is that everything that’s bad can and should be blamed on that nasty Chimpy McHitler and BushCo!!! Even the open sores all over my arse are his fault (although I probably should share some of the blame for those).

    And as for the 87% of poll respondents who think that the hurricane ISN’T his fault, all I can say is that the votes must not have been counted by Democrats. That is all…for now!

  7. So you are in a foul mood? Poor baby.

    I am so glad that you are maintaining a pro-Bush-at-all-cost agenda. It looks good on you. I have come to the conclusion as to what crippled the Clinton administration: he talked too much. He went on endless sprees of explanation informing the American public. What a fucking mistake. It would have been better, and this is the great lesson, to let things be and spin, spin, spin EVERYTHING retroactively.

    The success of this Bush administration is that everything has been explained in the perfect light of 20/20 hindsight. It is not what you are doing right that counts but what you appear to have DONE.

  8. You left off one prediction, Bruce: when confronted with the facts, the LibLefties either switch to a new irritant issue to divide the country or ignore the facts and return to their original Blame-America-1st rants.

    I’m waiting for the facts to be overstepped in the NO’s blame game Democrats started. Let’s find out why the buses weren’t used by City Hall. Let’s look to see why the federal $$$ didn’t get spent for repairs and improvements. Let’s keep an eye on recovery, but get to the truth.

    Forget the loudmouth Bush haters like Reader.

    What I like is that it says the hardcore anti-Bush sentiment is only held by about 13% of America. Trouble is, that 13% includes all the hate mongering gay left and the MSM elite. Tough crowds to shout down in the public square.

    I wonder if the NO tragedy will eat into Jerry Springer’s audience share?

  9. Bruce, are you letting Tiffany (aka Glisteny, Glistenie, and who knows what else) write under the “Reader” pseudonym too? Why?

    The real Reader actually puts some thought into his posts and avoids the type of slop found in #6 above.

  11. To make a comment rather in the same thread as joe, and as a response to those who are looking to paint Bush as the cause for the death, destruction, and slow response in New Orleans:

    It’s amazing how the Democratic governor of Lousiana, Kathleen Blanco, would simply throw up her hands and respond that she doens’t know what to do while the Bush Administration and Congress vote to send aid to the region. The Democratic Mayor of New Orleans Roy Nagin told a talk show that he was at a point where “it don’t matter,” and that the city had no clue as to what was going on, while the Bush Adminstration called in the National Guard (which, Nagin remarked later, was really able to whp things into shape in the city).

    So maybe the response wasn’t as fast as it could have been. I’d just like to know where those 13% are coming from…

  12. #8 – Didn’t some Pew Center study show that MSM reporters favored Kerry by 12-1? They expected to win in 2004 and they didn’t. It sticks in their craw that, through alternative media like blogs and radio and word of mouth, 70% of Americans got the Swift Vet message (for example) despite the MSM’s initial blackout and ongoing efforts to boost Kerry.

    They’re political, they’re activist, and they’re determined to slant/edit the facts however they have to, to destroy Bush, in whatever the current news story.

    It remains to be seen if the alternative media will continue to negate their myths. One thing working against the MSM liberals: their tendency to over-play their hand. (To over-emote, over-rage, be too obvious in what they’re doing.)

    If Bush did something wrong in Katrina, I’m all for knowing and fixing it. So, let’s have that Katrina Commission demanded by Hillary. Let’s just make sure, to be fair, that it reviews the Katrina plans & responses of ALL levels of government.

  13. Okay, one thing about Democrat Nagin: HE ENDORSED and CAMPAIGNED with George W. Bush last year. Bush lauded his leadership at the time. DINO? I don’t care. How about just giving the President for just a little bit of the blame? Just a little bit. Lets just stick in the tip and see how it feels.

  14. What an astute “conclusion”, Chandler: “He talked too much.” Yeah, that’s it. A President gets in trouble when he talks. Brilliant! If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t ever seek our nation’s highest office.

    But I was surprised to learn that the Clinton administration was “crippled”. as you say. I don’t think any of us realized that. Seems to me that he kinda just coasted through fairly unscathed, what with all the left wing media protecting him at every turn. Perhaps on your planet you have access to information that the rest of don’t here on Earth?

    And to the extent that his administration was damaged, dont’cha think that letting an intern suck you off in the Oval Office might’ve had something to do with it? Or was that just another viscious rumor spawned by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?

  15. #13 – Sure, John. Come up with something rational. What did Bush do that he shouldn’t have done….or, fail to do that he could and should have done? Let’s have a rational discussion. None of this “USS Bataan” stuff……Real stuff only.

  16. #15 – #13 P.S. – Also, the whole claim about the levees is pretty well trashed, so that would be another one not to bring up. (Recap: Bush didn’t personally cut the funding. The levee that broke was the one that lacked for nothing, in work or money. The levees were designed and rated for cat 3 storms; a cat 4 levee takes a decade to build, meaning they should have begun the job under Clinton.)

    I’m really asking. I’ve said many times in these threads that I’m not a Bush supporter – only a supporter of constructiveness and rationality. Never given him money. Didn’t vote for him in 2000. Don’t admire his big-spending, Big Government ways.

  18. And to the extent that his administration was damaged, dont’cha think that letting an intern suck you off in the Oval Office might’ve had something to do with it? Or was that just another viscious rumor spawned by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?
    Comment by glisteny
    =====================
    Not true. Presidents have been getting fucked in the WH forever. The fact that Republicans made his private life prime agenda, never before, never since, and the fact tha he was PUT UNDER OATH and lied about his private life is what was his downfall. Has this president EVER given sworn testimony?

    Anothe lesson learned. NEVER GIVE SWORN TESTIMONY.

    But this is the first president after the Special prosicutor statute tolled.

    Just you wait ‘Enry ‘Iggings, just you wait.

  19. Day 14 at Camp Fluffy:

    I got up really early today to head back to Camp Fluffy. On the way I had some amazing conversations with the clerks at Petco. I was talking with Roy who was scooping up the hamster droppings in aisle three. He had just received photos of the kitten litter left behind by this terrible war. Tears welled in his eyes, and I shared his secret pain.

    Damn you, Bushitler! Why did you have to send those ninja cats into Fallujah?! These were our babies, our widdle kitty woos! So much needless feline sacrifice, and for what?! The Jews!

    I hope you burn in hell, you kitten slayer!

  21. I don’t blame Bush. I blame the entire Federal Government for the slow reaction. But I also blame the Democrat Governor of Louisiana – who waited to long when the President offered to declare a state of emergency – I believe this is where the main blame lays. Here is a very interesting list of what the Governor failed to do as reported by The Flying Monkey-Right Blog:

    -She provided no leadership whatsoever in this crisis (except perhaps when she cried on T.V.);
    -She refused the Bush Administration’s request for a federal takeover of the evacuation;
    -She admitted on Saturday that, “We did not have enough resources here to do it all;
    -Yet she failed to request additional guardsmen from neighboring states;
    -She also failed to deploy the Louisiana National Guard before Katrina’s landfall;

    Please visit the link to the site to read the entire article, because it also discusses the failings of the Mayor.

  23. #22 – Then Bruce, I’m gonna ask you as well as John: What was piss poor? What precisely could FEMA or Bush have done, that they didn’t in fact try to do?

    Again, real stuff please – no levee carping or USS Bataan stories.

  24. Here’s one thing I’ll give you: Arguably, the Federal government should have seized control from Blanco / Nagin – effectively imposing dictatorship, martial law, etc. – a lot faster. That would have saved lives. “Constitution be damned.”

    But that’s only clear in hindsight, which is 20/20.

  25. It’s against the law (the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878) for the military to act in any law enforcement capacity within the US. When there is a disaster or civil insurrection, governors call out the National Guard units in their states. This arrangement ensures that only governors can unleash the militia and declare martial law within their own states, which prevents the president from creating a dictatorial national government.

    Posse Comitatus a good law. Madame Blanco is a bad governor. The good people of Louisiana just got an ugly demonstration of what’s at stake when they elect a bad governor, and maybe they’ll elect a better one next time.

  26. I still the like “Completely Devoid of Irony Remark” by Ted Kennedy quoted in BOTW.

    “What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died.”–Ted Kennedy on Hurricane Katrina

    People with cars and money get out of trouble easily, while those who don’t drown. Thanks for reminding us of that, Teddy.

  27. Well, Ted Kennedy is all about liberal guilt. (I mean, when he’s not about lust for power.)

    He didn’t make his father’s money. He has no idea how his father did it, or what it takes to actually MAKE money. Few liberals do. In TK’s world, money is a “resource” that just comes from “somewhere”. Therefore, it’s unjust if some have more than others, like some people owning more of the sunlight or the atmosphere. And God knows he won’t give up his own, but he can alleviate that lifelong nagging guilt (and enjoy personal power as well) by using government coercion to force other people to give up theirs.

  34. I think this article from the L.A. Times will shed some light on the conversation:
    By Peter G. Gosselin and Alan C. Miller, Times Staff Writers

    WASHINGTON — While the federal government has spent much of the last quarter-century trimming the safety nets it provides Americans, it has dramatically expanded its promise of protection in one area — disaster.

    Since the 1970s, Washington has emerged as the insurer of last resort against floods, fires, earthquakes and — after 2001 — terrorist attacks.

    But the government’s stumbling response to the storm that devastated the nation’s Gulf Coast reveals that the federal agency singularly most responsible for making good on Washington’s expanded promise has been hobbled by cutbacks and a bureaucratic downgrading.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency once speedily delivered food, water, shelter and medical care to disaster areas, and paid to quickly rebuild damaged roads and schools and get businesses and people back on their feet. Like a commercial insurance firm setting safety standards to prevent future problems, it also underwrote efforts to get cities and states to reduce risks ahead of time and plan for what they would do if calamity struck.

    But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, FEMA lost its Cabinet-level status as it was folded into the giant new Department of Homeland Security. And in recent years it has suffered budget cuts, the elimination or reduction of key programs and an exodus of experienced staffers.

    The agency’s core budget, which includes disaster preparedness and mitigation, has been cut each year since it was absorbed by the Homeland Security Department in 2003. Depending on what the final numbers end up being for next fiscal year, the cuts will have been between about 2% and 18%.

    The agency’s staff has been reduced by 500 positions to 4,735. Among the results, FEMA has had to cut one of its three emergency management teams, which are charged with overseeing relief efforts in a disaster. Where it once had “red,” “white” and “blue” teams, it now has only red and white.

    Three out of every four dollars the agency provides in local preparedness and first-responder grants go to terrorism-related activities, even though a recent Government Accountability Office report quotes local officials as saying what they really need is money to prepare for natural disasters and accidents.

    “They’ve taken emergency management away from the emergency managers,” complained Morrie Goodman, who was FEMA’s chief spokesman during the Clinton administration. “These operations are being run by people who are amateurs at what they are doing.”

    Richard W. Krimm, a former senior FEMA official for several administrations, agreed. “It was a terrible mistake to take disaster response and recovery … and disaster preparedness and mitigation, and put them in Homeland Security,” he said.

    Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged in interviews Sunday that Washington was insufficiently prepared for the hurricane that laid waste to New Orleans and surrounding areas. But he defended its performance by arguing that the size of the storm was beyond anything his department could have anticipated and that primary responsibility for handling emergencies rested with state and local, not federal, officials.

    “Before this happened, I said … we need to build a preparedness capacity going forward,” Chertoff told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added that that was something “we have not yet succeeded in doing.”

    Under the law, Chertoff said, state and local officials must direct initial emergency operations. “The federal government comes in and supports those officials,” he said.

    Chertoff’s remarks, which echoed earlier statements by President Bush, prompted withering rebukes both from former senior FEMA staffers and outside experts.

    “They can’t do that,” former agency chief of staff Jane Bullock said of Bush administration efforts to shift responsibility away from Washington. “The moment the president declared a federal disaster, it became a federal responsibility…. The federal government took ownership over the response,” she said. Bush declared a disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi when the storm hit a week ago.

    “What’s awe-inspiring here is how many federal officials didn’t issue any orders,” said Paul C. Light, an authority on government operations at New York University.

    Evidence of confusion extended beyond FEMA and the Homeland Security Department on Sunday.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said that conditions in New Orleans and elsewhere could quickly escalate into a major public health crisis. But asked whether his agency had dispatched teams in advance of the storm and flooding, Leavitt answered, “No.”

    “None of these teams were pre-positioned,” he told CNN’s “Late Edition.” “We’re having to organize them … as we go.”

    Such an ad hoc approach might not have surprised Americans until recent decades because the federal government was thought to have few responsibilities for disaster relief, and what duties it

  35. Mike #21-

    Two more things to add to Governor Blanco’s toll…

    1) The Red Cross had supplies ready and waiting to take to the Superdome immediately after the hurricane had passed. At Governor Blanco’s orders, the state police refused to let the Red Cross into the city. Result: chaos in the Superdome.

    2) The hurricane knocked out the radio tower used by N.O. police officers to communicate with one another. The N.O.P.D. got radio repair teams to come to the city to fix the tower. At Governor Blanco’s orders, the state police refused to let the repair teams into the city. Result: chaos in the City.

    I began this week blaming Mayor Nagin for many of the problems his city experienced. The more I learn, the more I blame Governor Blanco instead. (Some of what I hear about Director Brown is infuriating as well. Firemen taking an eight-hour sexual harrassment training seminar before being flown to LA?!?)

  36. Brian,
    Nice article but no one here has the time to read it to those that need to partake of the information. Keep the posts to three paragraphs max and always leave the harsh folks room to call you a douche bag or some such sparkling rebuke. Information serves little purpose here.

    I enjoyed it though.

  37. TGC-

    Re: Bataan…

    It’s an amphibious assault ship (LHD) that was active in the area and able to respond quickly. Her helicopter teams have been truly extraordinary in rising to the occasion. (With 4 large helicopters and 5 small helicopters, they’d evacuated over 1,600 people so far, delivered 8,000 gallons of water and 100,000 pounds of other cargo by the start of this week.)

    Much fuss was made in leftist circles (most recently by Paul Krugman) of the fact that her extensive medical facilities on board had no patients in them — while clearly there were many people in need in New Orleans.

    What these critics failed to appreciate was that the most efficient way to get thousands of patients together with several dozen medical personnel, using limited helicopter capacity already in high demand for the evacuation, is to move the medical personnel to the temporary evacuation shelters around the city, rather than trying to move all the patients to the Bataan.

    But go and read the stories at the Bataan’s web site — we’re not hearing enough about the incredible job our troops are doing.

  38. Brian-

    Skimmed the article, lost interest as the glaring factual errors made it seem most unlikely to reach supportable conclusions.

    Examples:
    1) FEMA director was never a cabinet or cabinet-level post.
    2) FEMA’s response has gotten faster, not slower, over the last decade. (See Hurricane Andrew for comparison.)

    Would FEMA’s response have been faster if it weren’t reporting to DHS? If Brown had led more competently?

    I don’t know. I suspect we’ll all know quite a bit more about this over the next few weeks.

  40. #34, #38 – Agree.
    – I can’t remember FEMA ever having had Cabinet status under any Pres.
    – The Katrina response has been considerably faster than Hurricane Andrew, a fact many have forgotten.
    – Cutting 500 out of approx. 5000 FEMA staff, over a period of years, is not automatically horrible; depending on who was cut, it could have even been an improvement (in the 1990s I dated someone who would moan endlessly about FEMA’s waste and inefficiency). We would need more information to form a solid conclusion.
    – Some of the other bureaucratic criticisms sound like they could be valid. Then again, maybe not. Maybe consolidating 3 duplicate teams down to 2 (as mentioned in the article) was the right thing. We’ll learn more in weeks to come.
    – The criticism about pre-positioning disaster teams, supplies, etc. is legitimately debatable because they would then suffer hurricane damage themselves.
    – The cut-and-paste of the article ended early; ironically in a sentence noting that the Federal government is not traditionally the front-line responder in disasters.

    I could be wrong about all this – All I’m saying is, it is rocket science, in a way that most voices in the debate haven’t yet acknowledged.

  41. #37 – I imagine that some of the leftists making the Bataan fuss could be the same ones who objected to the U.S. sending a military aircraft carrier to Tsunami relief – not realizing that a small city that generates hundreds of thousands of gallons of freshwater per day and can co-ordinate communications and send helicopters all over a damaged region is just the thing.

  42. #40
    -Remember when Bush was slammed by the liberals by responding to our hurricane Charley too quickly last year?

    -It took James Lee Witt 3 weeks to respond to the flooding after hurricane Floyd in 1999.

    -I still haven’t found any degree or formal training that qualified Witt to head FEMA, other than BJ’s cronyism

    -Now it’s coming out in ABC News that Gov. Blanco is starting to blame Nagin

    -It appears that Gov. Blanco prevented the Red Cross from delivering food and water to the Superdome and convention center while Nagin was bitching at the federal government

  45. Perhaps I’m being unrealistic, but I would have expected FEMA to respond faster to a natural disaster in the US than the Sri Lankans to a Tsunami. The tsunami victims were provided food and water within one day of the disaster. Sure, we have a more complex system of photo-ops and press conferences AND long vacations, but still our response could have maybe been faster than FIVE DAYS!!!

  46. When the tsunami came, Bush Rulez, it came in from the sea. People moved away from it and concentrated in inland locations, which still had transportation access.

    Meanwhile, in New Orleans, when the storm hit, it severed transportation links and cut off the victims from the outside world.

    That was why the disaster plans involved two things — getting as many people out of New Orleans as possible, using public transit like schoolbuses, and stocking the shelters of last resort with several days’ supply of food and water.

    Instead, Nagin and Blanco deliberately allowed hundreds of buses that could have carried people to safety to be flooded and shoved thousands of people into an area with inadequate emergency supplies.

    Are they malicious, or just plain stupid?