Centerfield

If this report is true?

As much as I wish the study had been funded, and more federal attention had been paid to the problems facing Louisiana for many years now, you've picked the wrong place to demand a firing, Rick.

Budget decisions ALWAYS involve trade-offs. There is not enough money to fully protect against every possible risk facing any of us, much less facing the entire country. What you need to ask is how many other studies and budget requests were made by every federal agency, and how many lives and how much property were each of those requests projected to save? What were the odds of each potential disaster occurring? Did they fund the other 2 most likely disasters? Americans have historically not prepared adequately for the next disaster. We do a great job of investigating and making sure "this never happens again", but that only works when lightning strikes twice in the same place.

And that's just looking at the budget for catastrophes. Expand and ask whether you could save more lives by funding that request or funding dialysis centers, or social workers to individually make sure every person goes to get their dialysis. Or more studies on health risks of whatever-is-cancer-causing-today. Or (a la Clinton) more police to cut down the murder rate. Or drug treatment. Or whatever your favorite program is.

The silliness of the left in blaming President Bush for this is astounding. There's ample blame to go around. Let's blame Congress, too. They passed the budget, and I haven't seen any signs that any non-Louisiana Democrats tried to restore those funds. Plus, the levees weren't in any better shape during the Clinton administration.

And money is fungible. It would be just as easy and correct to say that Congress diverted this money from the Corps to the massive amounts of pork it has been eating of late (that's legitimate criticism of the Republicans, there). I know you made this point, Rick, I'm just emphasizing it.

Not to mention (as it is discussed plenty elsewhere) that the work being primarily studied with the funds discussed would (1) barely have been done when Katrina hit and (2) would not have strengthened the levees to protect against a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, only up to a Category 3.

I've gone off on a bit of a rant, let me return to the topic.

As a Louisianan, I certainly wish a different budget decision had been made, to protect us from the next storm even though it wouldn't have helped us in this one. But budget decisions are tough, while hindsight is 20/20. We know which disaster did happen, but we have no way of knowing which will happen next, and we can't protect against all of them. Firing the non-elected officials who help their masters make those tough calls won't help anybody, and will make future budget decisions even worse, frankly.

Well, Pat, I can name a few things our federal leaders could have done, like hire people who have actual experience dealing with disasters.

Well Jean, I certainly would like to find a way to keep politics out of politics when it comes to high-level federal patronage. Let me know when you figure out how to do it.

I was never in favor of creating the Department of Homeland Security, and I have been aggravated from the beginning that President Bush caved in so completely to the critics (mostly Congressional Democrats) who demanded it; he fought it as long as he could, then it became a political inevitability because of the Congressional Dems and newspaper editorials which questioned the president's commitment to fighting terrorism if he wouldn't create a whole new department to do it. If you want to criticize a political decision, that's the one to pick.

By putting agencies like FEMA actually under an agency which is, as a practical matter, focused primarily on terrorism, you guarantee that budget decisions will be made in favor of one area at the expense of another. That's got precious little to do with who is holding the offices, and everything to do with the organizational structure of the decision making.

If you really want to change this outlook, then start demanding that the head of DHS (whoever took Tom Ridge's place) get on TV and fly to New Orleans and Baton Rouge to face the consequences of those decisions. While you're at it, please bring along every Member of Congress who voted in favor of creating that senseless department, and every Member who voted in favor of that budget. And all the budgets from the previous administration, too.

And when the time comes, there will be plenty of criticisms of local officials, as well. I doubt I will make many of them, publicly, because I have to live here. But I would note, for example, that the historically corrupt NOPD seem to have been without coordinated communications from Monday. By yesterday, all pretense of coordinated action was gone, and some cops were giving angry interviews to reporters about how unprepared they were. New Orleans, of course, has been run by Democrats for over a hundred years now.

But it is still too early to be talking about blame. They are only now stopping the search for survivors to go after the looters. Then they will have to collect the bodies. The National Guard and the Army and Navy will be here in the next day or two and things will soon be under control.

I couldn't agree more with Pat. As of yesterday afternoon, the remains of Katrina had not yet left the U.S., they were blowing down lots of early leaves in my backyard. But on the kitchen tv news, the blamestorming had already begun.

Rick, under your logic, if a budget cut is made in any area related to something bad which later happens, does this mean that the cutter should therefore be fired? Let's not lose sight of the fundamental problem here, which is that New Orleans sits below sea level on the coast of a region known to experience hurricanes, many of them powerful.

Not to insult New Orleans, but there's some folly in that combination. How elaborate a system we should pay for to provide ultimate protection is a serious question when we live in a real world with finite resources. OF COURSE ideally we'd pay for the cadillac of cadillacs in every situation if we had infinte resources. But we don't.

Here's the thing: given that New Orleans sits below sea level on the coast of a region known to experience powerful hurricanes, it was always going to get overwhelmed one day, sooner or later. Prior to Katrina, was there a genuine sense of urgency among enough people to get an elaborate expensive protection system built? I say no. In a real world with limited resources and a host of risks and needs, it's human nature to whistle through he graveyard on some things, especially if the risk is small even though the danger is great.

I genuinely think that the best way to understand this is in the context of risk management given finite resources. Not blamestorming via 20-20 hindsight. Katrina will be used to help us figure out what modern and hopefully better system to put in place going forward. Whatever we do, it has to acknowledge the limits of human power in the face of the situation, which to re-iterate is that New Orleans sits below sea level on the coast of a region known to experience hurricanes, many of them powerful.

I think BK is right. As long as people insist on living in and developing dangerous areas, the risk of catastrophe will exist regardless of what preparations we make. If there is blame for New Orleans (or other future places, such as South Florida and parts of California), it seems to me to be in the lack of political will and leadership to control the unrestricted development in areas that are vulnerable to violent weather.

I doubt anything will really change fundamentally after Katrina. The politicians will look for quick and easy solutions that won't inconvenience citizens (ie developers) too much and that won't slow down development. We will periodically continue to have catastrophes like this and people will continue to wring their hands.

The hurricane itself was an "act of God." But the fact that New Orleans is inundated, and many lives have been lost, is the responsibility of man. There should be accountibility.

Would a shareholders in a corporation tolerate bankruptcy and ruin without someone losing their job?

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. wrote a widely discussed item on Huffington Post suggesting that global warming might be behind an increase in destructive hurricanes, and the President indirectly at fault for neglecting to address global warming.

A more interesting question is, when the news media started saying "holy cow, this storm is big, everyone needs to get out, now!, why did so many people ignore that advice? Did the media's handling of past storms help create a feeling of apathy, or did people's past experience create that unwillingness to leave?

he fought it as long as he could, then it became a political inevitability because of the Congressional Dems and newspaper editorials which questioned the president's commitment to fighting terrorism if he wouldn't create a whole new department to do it.

Rick, it seems to me that most everyone here agrees with the notion of accountability being an appropriate thing.

The question is how to reasonably construe accountability, and I don't think you're doing so reasonably here. I dont think we're going to be able to put our fingers on a single person who has accountablity in the same way that a CEO or a CFO has it for a bankruptcy. Seems to me you're making the analogy that company is to bankruptcy as federal government is to hurricane katrina. I find that inapt. Bureaucratic inefficiency in the face of a regional crisis for the feds is nowehere near being at the same level as bankruptcy would be for a corporation. The latter would a complete and total failure at the most basic level.

Just a quick note on a point that keeps coming up.

New Orleans was founded long before the United States existed as a political entity. It was such a valuable city, solely because of its location, that Thomas Jefferson was willing to spend quite a bit of money for it. The ambassadors sent to negotiate with Napoleon were there to buy just New Orleans, not the entire Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon decided he wanted to unload the whole thing, so the price was upped a tiny bit and 2/3 of a continent came along with it.

New Orleans has been a major city in the United States ever since. It is not some retirement village set up on a barrier island in the last 30 years. Should we abandon Los Angeles because it happened to develop along a major fault line?

Should we abandon Los Angeles because it happened to develop along a major fault line?

The question is how to reasonably construe accountability, and I don't think you're doing so reasonably here. I dont think we're going to be able to put our fingers on a single person who has accountablity in the same way that a CEO or a CFO has it for a bankruptcy. Seems to me you're making the analogy that company is to bankruptcy as federal government is to hurricane katrina. I find that inapt. Bureaucratic inefficiency in the face of a regional crisis for the feds is nowehere near being at the same level as bankruptcy would be for a corporation. The latter would a complete and total failure at the most basic level.

The hurricane isn't the problem. It's the lack of preparedness for it..and the lack of appropriate response after it takes place.

Funding for repairing and reinforcing levees in the region has been slowed to a trickle in the last five years...even though locals and reps from the area have tried to secure it. The wetlands in the region that have helped keep flooding in check have been lost to major development. Post hurricane, the lack of leadership by the President has been stunning, frankly. He hasn't even bothered to set foot on the ground to survey the damage (more lives are likely lost here than 9/11, easily). Navy ships at the Pascagoula shipyards could be dispatched to help rescue and house refugees. Cruise lines in the region could do the same. Dead bodies are floating around uncollected.

There isn't a single accountable person. There's lots of them. Many of them are at the federal level, including the President.

The POTUS is the person we look to as a nation in times of national crisis, like this. If he doesn't step up and show real leadership...things deteriorate in a hurry.

The hurricane isn't the problem.

LMAO. No, not really.

Words fail. I refuse to engage. I choose to simply declare that any such efforts at blame and recrimination should be set aside until the situation has been stablized. I expect this stabilization to come through the efforts of thousands, even tens of thousands of government agents who I expect are now working around the clock to help out. None of this stabilization will be furthered by bitching about the POTUS. None.

Whoa, hold up there, Carla. A trip is being planned, for the end of the week- and he has surveyed the damage, from AIR FORCE ONE. If he were to come in, a lot of the efforts currently underway to rescue people and try to repair the levy, restore peace, etc would be diverted to the presidential show. Are you sugesting that is more important?

stephanie,

Of course Carla is suggesting it, to her the only thing that counts is what she can 'see'.... never mind that even an idiot knows that things are going on behind the scenes, since she can't 'see' it - it doesn't matter.... hence her idiotic insistance on Bush personally stopping looters, etc.

I just cannot BELIEVE the idiocy that I'm reading here.... do you HONESTLY believe that nothing is happening if you don't PERSONALLY see the President doing it??????

"The POTUS is the person we look to as a nation in times of national crisis, like this. If he doesn't step up and show real leadership...things deteriorate in a hurry. "

Carla, this is exactly the difference in our personal philosophy, You look to the government to take care of everything, and I look to US to take care of everything. (US is just empasized 'us' not U.S.) Instead of the lawlessness and looting, etc. these people should be working together protecting the resources until they can be rescued, not squandering them or hoarding them so nobody else can use them. Instead they have taken the 'animal' mentality of everybody for themselves, it is truly sad and scary to see how quickly civilization goes out the window.

It is not the President's fault that people didn't heed the warning and leave the area when they were ORDERED out.

There is one complaint that I have, that the local government didn't fire up all of the school buses, comandeer the intercity bus system and use them to start bussing people out of the area before the storm hit. The taxi's in the area should have done the same thing (they wanted to save the taxis so since they would be moved anyway why not save more people. If they did infact do this, then they have done everything that they could reasonably be expected to do and these people have to take some responsibilty for their own decisions here.

Rick,

"Would a shareholders in a corporation tolerate bankruptcy and ruin without someone losing their job?"

That depends on what caused the bankrupcy and whether it was reasonably forseen and if the risk was great enought that the cost/benefit analysis showed that a certain action should have been taken. If an earthquake occurs in an area that is unusual and destroys a company building, if they didn't have specific insurance for earthquakes they wouldn't be covered and very well may go bankrupt. If the business is located in LA I would say 'Fire them' if the business is located in Ohio and it happened then I'm not sure that the benefit/cost analysis would bear out paying years of earthquake insurance... since the earthquake would be a 1 in 500 year occurance.

I disagree with just saying to 'fire' somebody because they didn't have a crystal ball and couldn't see into the future.

Let me see...it’s too early to blame W for appointing his unqualified buddy to lead FEMA, it’s too early to blame W for pushing for the top tier tax cuts that starved FEMA’s budget and the levee building fund, it’s too early to blame W for doing his Nero impression but it’s just the right time to blame Robert Kennedy Jr. for bringing up global warming. And the Democrats who proposed the Department of Homeland Security. And of course, the NO folks who were “personally irresponsible” enough to live there in the first place.

One of my favorite presidents, Harry Truman, used to keep a sign on his desk that said “The buck stops here.” I guess the sign on W’s desk would be “The buck stops with Clinton. Or the Dems. Or the Easter Bunny. But not us. It’s too early to blame us. We’ve only been in office five years. We’ve only had Congress for the last ten. Heck, it’s not our fault.”
Let’s face it, it’s not just the left who’s ripped at him this time; it’s the right too. You can see it here, here, and here.

Me, I blame the Hurricane Fetus for it all. (Though it looks more like Sonic the Hedgehog to me). ;-) Apparently, the powers-that-be aren’t wondering why God chose the three reddest states to punish, instead of say, oh, New York, California, or Massachusetts. Logic is something that heathen Mr. Spock practices.

And, of course, I see Our Lord’s index finger and thumb are being held hostage. Apparently, the fact that the Christ’s statue’s thumb and index finger are gone means that He “flicked” Katrina away from New Orleans.

Wow. What kind of message would it have sent if Jesus’s middle finger was missing? ;-)

Yeah, I really find the politicization of this to be troubling. I listened to a reporter querying someone working to restore a levee breech, and she asked questions about the mayors complaints, and the delays, and was it due to lack of planning.

And the guy just told her, well the planning's fine, we know how to fix a levee, we do that sort of work every day. However, access to the site is a problem, and finding resources like sand, equipment, contractors, etc, was a problem too. Then the reporter gave the guy the opportunity to criticize the decision to pull off helicopters (they were dropping 15000 lb bags of sand) to do something search and rescue related, like somehow that couldn't be the proper prioritization.

I just can't get on board with the instant moves to 2nd-guessing. It's such an insult to the thousands of people out there breaking their humps, doing the best they can to get things together. Postpone the crucificion, we need the wood for the fire.

bk,

I don't agree. Politics is the way citizens make their government accountable. I reject attempts to leverage this tragedy for other issues, like global warming, but it is entirely appropriate to discuss the issue at hand. If someone is in a position to go there and lend a hand, then I say, shut down your computer and go. But for those of us who are just observing at a distance, it is proper to discuss mistakes that have been made, so they can be avoided, say, if and when Manhattan has to be evacuated after a major terrorist attack some time in the future. If we wait, the public's attention will drift to some other topic, and nothing will get fixed.

Carla, this is exactly the difference in our personal philosophy, You look to the government to take care of everything, and I look to US to take care of everything. (US is just empasized 'us' not U.S.) Instead of the lawlessness and looting, etc. these people should be working together protecting the resources until they can be rescued, not squandering them or hoarding them so nobody else can use them. Instead they have taken the 'animal' mentality of everybody for themselves, it is truly sad and scary to see how quickly civilization goes out the window.

National disasters of such immense magnitude require government assistance. If you'll notice..private relief organizations can't handle this type of situation on their own. And I've yet to see Exxon Mobil dispatch tankers to the region to pick up the stranded and displaced. We have a Federal Emergency Management Agency to deal with these issues.

It's the government's job to deal with natural disasters of this immense magnitude. When people are dying by the hundreds (probably thousands) from disease wrought by water filthed in feces, urine and bloated dead bodies..it's a national health emergency.

This idea that private enterprise is going to step right in and pick up the slack is not only folly..there's no evidence to suggest they're willing or able to do it.

A trip is being planned? Gee. Hope they don't break a nail.

I guess all that death and destruction is just a little too much to expect someone to actually get their ass over there IMMEDIATELY, eh? Sheesh.

I disagree with just saying to 'fire' somebody because they didn't have a crystal ball and couldn't see into the future.

The Times-Picayune newspaper had repeatedly brought the issue of the levee and wetlands problems to the fore

More sober analyses will come with time.

What is this mysterious correlation between liberal political viewpoints and the inability to make a damn hyperlink?

I fully concur with Rick's comment in this thread.

I think This might be what Carla was trying to link to at the bottom of her last comment.

"National disasters of such immense magnitude require government assistance." and "I guess all that death and destruction is just a little too much to expect someone to actually get their ass over there IMMEDIATELY, eh? Sheesh."

yes they do, they also require that you get off of your ass and instead of becoming part of the problem to hinder the rescue effort. There have been plenty of ASSES that have worked through the storm and are continuing to work as we speak.... there have been many more that have come into the city since the storm and are working extremely hard to handle the problems.

You don't have any idea of what goes into a large disaster response and the problems that they face in co-ordinating them. This is a city where the police was without communications, where city officials had to walk to nearby radio station because they had not way of communicating with the citizens. How do you coordinate something when you can't even communicate??

They couldn't have the rescue equipment in place before the store because it would have been damaged and under water too.... they had to wait for the storm to pass and then start shipping in the equipment. Just because you believe that there is a 'magic wand' that someone only needs to wave and everything will be better doesn't make it so. I am really tire of the constant harping from idiots like you about the people that are trying to help. When you hear about citizens that were fleeing the city being more concerned about taking their possessions than taking begging citizens with them, I say that yes, in situatiion like these the PEOPLE need to get off of their ASSES and help in the EVACUATION process to save lives!!!!

I don't agree. Politics is the way citizens make their government accountable. I reject attempts to leverage this tragedy for other issues, like global warming, but it is entirely appropriate to discuss the issue at hand.

I agree that it is appropriate to discuss the issue at hand. But I don't agree that it's appropriate to get ahead of the facts and assign blame simply because the stuation is dire. A crucial part of reasonably "discussing the issue at hand" means each of us acknowledging the limits of our knowledge of the details. I have very little knowledge of the details of what is being planned and set into motion at the current time, and I'm pretty sure that's true for most of the rest of us.

It is of course deeply tragic that levees failed, and it is also deeply tragic that some people wanted to fortify them while others found reasons to delay making such efforts a higher priority. The point I want to make is that such instances do not constitute a new storyline in human history, but rather an ongoing pattern. I can't help but think about the sort of pattern you generally see in areas prone to epic natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc. When I say epic, I am speaking of something that happens once every several generations, like a hundred year flood or a category 4 or 5 hurricane hitting a particular given area.

Here's the pattern I expect to continue to see unless human nature suddenly undergoes a serious shift towards additional prudence. A region experiences an epic disaster, and then rebuilds with renewed vigor and focus, generally using the improved technology of the time. Residents with fresh, vivid, tragic memories are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of prudence. After things have been rebuilt more prudently than the last time, years and decades pass, and the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of prudence decays, as does the protective technology, which does not generally get continually maintained or upgraded to expensive state of the art stuff that provides better protection, but at substantial cost. One governing factor becomes prominent, which is that it it becomes more and more prohibitively costly and inconvenient to replace existing systems compared to building from scratch, the latter of which is often not a feasible option.

When the next tragedy occurs, that becomes the dearly-bought opportunity to rebuild using state of the art technology that provides better protection.

As far as New Orleans goes, it seems likely to me that many people knew that the systems in place would be overwhelmed if a really big one hit. Collectively, the choice was made to keep whistling through the graveyard, hoping for the best. Which worked perfectly well until the day it failed miserably and tragically. I chalk this up to human nature.

Having lived through a decade plus of the Big Dig here in Boston, I know how gargantuan a task any such public works improvement can be when the engineering task is vast and a big city needs to keep living in the midst of upgrades. My guess is that, should we decide to rebuild New Orleans in a way that substanstially restores its previous state, but with greatly upgraded flood control and protction systems, such a project will make the Big Dig look like replacing a section of sidewalk. And it'll make paying for the Big Dig look like buying an ice cream cone.

Maybe it is too soon to be criticizing the federal response to the catastrophe in New Orleans. I don't know. But is there some room for reasonable and substantive criticism for how this was handled and anticipated? Of course it takes time to get resources on the ground, but the real question is how much time. Does anyone here know what was or could have been done in preparation for this storm once it was predicted? Could resources have been on the way ahead of time, even if they couldn't have been in place? I guess I feel like there is just as much knee-jerk defensiveness for the response as there is knee-jerk criticism.

One of the things that has bothered me from the beginning about the Iraq war was the resources it would ultimately require. I'm not going to get into a simple minded rant that the money and the people over there should have been for this particular situation, but I don't like the idea of having too little in reserve to deal with an unforseen crisis. Maybe it's just me. I save rather than going into debt. I fear overextending my resources.

I look at a few large pieces of policy in light of this. We went into Afghanistan because we had to. This required resources. We initiated tax cuts to help the economy. We went into Iraq, knowing that we had already done the previous two things. We're using reserves and National Guard to supplement the regular military as a result. That's what they're there for, when necessary.

But now we have this situation in Louisiana and Mississippi. No one could have predicted it when the Iraq war was started. No one could have predicted it when the tax cuts were made. We didn't know this would happen as the deficit swelled, requiring spending cuts in some areas of the federal budget. But at some point, shouldn't someone have seen that we were spread thin?

Maybe we're not, in fact, spread thin. Maybe it has nothing to do with the response to this situation. I don't claim to know for sure. But is it unreasonable and leftist for me to wonder? Are fiscal conservatism and domestic preparedness liberal notions?

My point is not to defend the left, but to defend sincere critics of the current disaster response against charges of left-wing partisanship. Again, sincere critics. And spread any deserved blame to the Democrats in congress and in previous administrations, by all means.

"Maybe we're not, in fact, spread thin. Maybe it has nothing to do with the response to this situation. I don't claim to know for sure. But is it unreasonable and leftist for me to wonder? Are fiscal conservatism and domestic preparedness liberal notions?"

The sections of the levee that gave out were sections that were already fortified and in good shape, the problem is that after a cost/benefit analysis it was decided to make them safe for a Category 3 Hurricane... this one was a Cat 4 when it hit land. To pretend that 'nothing' was done because of the war in Iraq is a partisan arguement, you could just as easily said that it was because of the spending on 'Prescription Drug coverage' that was voted in place... but then you aren't against the drug coverage.... see what I mean by partisan arguments?

IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAN FOR EVERY EMERGENCY, IT WOULD ALSO BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PAY FOR IT. Should we have done this, should we have done that??? We are human beings doing the best that we can, we do not have working crystal balls that tell us what and when something is going to happen. The local government did a cost/benefit analysis about the levees, THEY decided that the cost was too high to prepare for the remote possiblity of a Cat 4 or higher Hurricane. Why would they come to this conclusion? Because of how often they get a Cat 4 Hurricane, it wasn't often enough to justify the added expense and trade offs. That is the way that all budgets work... you have to make the same decisions in your life. Some of the citizens here made decisions, they did a cost-benefit analysis on whether they should spend the money and leave or stay and try to protect what they had.... You don't get to know whether your decision was good or bad until after the event is over, then it is too late to change it.

Debbie,

Are you angry with me or with someone or something else? And what makes you think I'm not against the prescription drug program, or did "you" refer to a generalized person and not me?

I guess my question still stands. Is there room for substantive criticism of the response and/or preparation for this event? Given your response above, I would assume that your answer would be "no."

And how many national guardsmen were deployed for the prescription drug program?

Carla's complaint about lack of presidential leadership may or may not be valid. I'm not really sure what she means by presidential leadership. Just running around yelling do this, do that is not going to make much difference. I think some of the criticism is frankly hysterical--it's not like Bush is going to personally coordinate relief efforts. It's up to his subordinates to do this. This isn't like 9/11 where Rudy Giuliani could run around New York like a ward boss.

To me, a more valid criticism, and one that predates but includes Bush, is that we have seen 25 years of constant anti-government rhetoric and mindless tax cutting from conservatives that have undermined the ability of government agencies to provide essential services. Thus, budget cuts for the Corps of Engineers, an obvious lack of preparation for what was not a totally unforeseen disaster. And short-sighted policies by state and local officials afraid to stop development in dangerous areas or to push for infrastructure repair. This isn't specifically Bush's fault, but he certainly contributed to it. I obviously have no specific basis for this, but I suspect that FEMA's reaction 25 or 30 years ago would have been much more efficient and prompt. The lack of organization is simply appalling and, while I am sure FEMA is working feverishly to do all it can, I think it's hard to argue that the mission couldn't have been better handled.

I will assume that Carla's point was that the damage could have been minimized with better preparation. I agree with that, but even if the situation was foreseeable and planning was better, you couldn't reasonably expect there not to have been significant damage and, given the demographics of New Orleans, that it would have largely impacted poor people. And it was inevitable that in any kind of catastrophe like this, people would be angry and dissastisfied with relief efforts.

I totally agree with BK on at least one point. People don't want to spend money to prevent a problem that does not seem likely. Once the immediate problem passes and we make improvements in New Orleans and years pass without any problems, we will probably see the same thing happen there or someplace else. It's inevitable. When I lived in Miami in the early 80s, it had not been hit by a hurricane in many years and people stopped heeding warnings. That changed, I'm sure, after Andrew in the early 90s.

So, Deb, let me get this straight. The government's job is to ENRONIZE America on the economy and just wait for a hurricane to happen by not allowing the local and state government to pre-emptively prevent flood damage from a hurricane but that it's ok for Ken Lay to knowingly cheat his employees and investors of their life savings or for that matter that America must pre-emptively attack another country based on lies even when there were no WMDs and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 but that this was really a war for BIG OIL and strengthening Al Quaida and insurgents and then using fear to brainwash voters into keeping these same lunatics in office. Well Deb, you sure know how to support fascism at large by campaigning for socializing poverty, under/un-employment, terrorism, crime, and war. You neocons have given us principled and honest conservatives a bad name !

Candidly speaking, this crisis isn't about liberal or conservative, republican or democrat; it is about job performance. In the aftermath of 9/11, one could reasonably and passionately and fairly rally behind George W Bush's leadership. When a week has passed since Katrina hit New Orleans and human beings--U.S. citizen not refugees--are still being dug out of attics; when those who most need government protection died on the sidewalks outside the Super Dome; when the so-called quintessential "leader" showed up to merely announce the obvious, his Presidency no longer merits the support of men and women of moral conscience. The benign neglect of the suffering and the oppressed is at least as criminal as an act of fellatio between consenting adults. No buck-passing excuse making will do. No self-congratulatory back patting of equally incompetent or racist underlings will do. Shame on this President and shame on America if we do not recognize the abomination that has been visited upon us for what it is. No, the President is not responsible for the hurricane, but from last Monday evening right down to the very present moment, he is culpable and complicit in the mismanagement of a mess.

Do you guy even recognize that there has been a federal presence in New Orleans since the 'day after the hurricane'... There have been Coast Guard on the scene since Tuesday, there has been Army Corps of Engineers since Tuesday trying to work on the levee.... but, no the feds weren't doing anything... right! Do you even acknowledge that the national Guard delivered MRE's and water to last 15,000 people for 3 days at the Superdome before the storm hit.... why, because it takes FEMA 72 to 96 hours to respond to a disaster. They have to wait for the storm to be over, then fly over for an analysis of the damage so they know what is needed, they then have to find routes into the affected area or clear routes into the area. This is besides the logistics of obtaining personnel, supplies and equipment. If you go out and read these 'Emergency Plans' you would see this.... FEMA responded within their stated timeline.... I know that all of you 'perfect people' could have done everything perfect and within 2 hours, at least in your heads... but this is the real world.

The real tragedy is that the local and state government didn't follow their existing evacuation plans and didn't provide transportation via buses to the poor without transportation.... instead they allowed between 250-500 buses sit unused and damaged by the flood. I wonder why people aren't questioning this policy error???? It was in their evacuatiion plan!!!!! It was not done!!!!! President Bush even called the Governor and begged her to issue a 'Mandatory Evacuation' for the city of New Orleans... This was before the hurricane even hit! If these people had been transported out of the city before the storm you wouldn't be have seen the kind of massive problems that arose. Then you have the communication problems that occur during every crisis, people assume that everybody was told the same thing and people work at cross purposes... unfortunately that is the nature of working during a crisis. It happens with every crisis, it will always happen with a crisis, but it is certainly nice to know that everybody that you are trying to help will be second guessing everything you do so they can call you names, and make up idiotic crap about you.....

You have 1/3 of the New Orleans Police Department just up and quit, left the area, leaving the other 2/3 to deal with everything... talk about a breakdown. This led to no law enforcement on looters, which led to a mob mentality and increased crime and looting getting out of control. To the point that these idiots are actually shooting at their rescuers!!!! Which of course made FEMA stand down and wait for security back-up before resuming rescue operations. This whole thing was a cluster-F*#% from the beginning, when the 100,000 plus people were not evacuated and little errors continued to pile up along the way. Unfortunately that is the way that most disasters go, especially when anarchy is allowed to reign. Security is so important in a crisis because we are not as sophisicated and civilized as we think we are, and it doesn't take much for us to revert back to primative instincts...

Instead we have the professional ignorant race baiters running around and saying that the federal government is racist and it was planned this way because the poor people in NO are people of color.... It really amazes me how these people get any air time, let alone actually convince some people to believe their crap...

When Bush wanted to Federalize the relief effort the Gov. said to giver her '24 hrs' to think about it.... oh yeah, that down time must be Bush's fault....

And to address the 'tax cuts, war, no money' meme, it was a section of the levee that was just restored and improved that gave way....

It's just partisan politics as usual, everybody wants to play the 'oh yeah, well....' game.

Actually, in the words of at least one conservative Republican Louisianan, it was Blanco and Nagin who pleaded with people to evacuate, and then worked around the clock to help the survivors,while Dear Leader vacationed.

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