’)Katrina Response Hurts Bush Most
“Among the many controversies surrounding the Bush Administration, its response to Hurricane Katrina is most troubling to voters,” according to a new WNBC/Marist poll.
The survey found that 66% of registered voters nationwide “are bothered a great deal or a good amount by the administration s response to Hurricane Katrina.
The Back-Channel Chatter After Katrina
Like President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and homeland-security adviser Frances Townsend, Card was on vacation when the hurricane struck. Back at the White House, the job of monitoring the storm was left to Kenneth Rapuano, Townsend’s deputy. At 10 p.m., Rapuano left the White House to go home for the night, believing everything was under control.
It wasn’t. Half an hour later, at 10:30 p.m., the Homeland Security Operations Center sent out a two-page bulletin reporting massive flooding and bodies floating in the water. Rapuano later told Congress that no one at the White House woke him to tell him about the report, and he didn’t realize the extent of the damage until 6 the following morning, when another Homeland bulletin warned that “it could take months to dewater” the city. Only then did it begin to dawn on top administration officials, including the president, how grave a human and political disaster they were facing.
I’m surprised they had to take a survey to figure that out. Wonder what the next survey will be “Shocking Poll Results : Lying about spying upsets most Americans!”
‘including the president’ yeah sure buddy ….how many hours later was he photo op ing with the the guitar ?didn’t seem like he was aware of the magnitude of the situation ..or if he did his actions certainly did not show any involvement until quite some time later when he made his famous heckof a job drownie remark …what on earth was he talking about ? …like everything else these folks have miscued on ..they claim to have been engaged but the lack of action then or since in a straightforward organized manner …shows that the administration
still hasn’t reconciled how they fail to ‘provide for the COMMON good ‘
Popular Mechanics: Debunking Katrina Myths
Popular Mechanics is a respected magazine that deals with technological issues. Try reading the article.
Try again.
The military was rescuing thousands of people within hours. The three day window was in reference to other resources from other states. I agree that we can and should do better, but we should also balance criticism with the understanding that this was the fastest response our government has ever accomplished.
Popular Mechanics?
What’s next, “Field & Stream?”
Did NASCAR weight in yet JW? What’s the NRA’s response to Katrina?
REALITY: Whatever the response, it wasn’t fast enough. Thousands died.
I would assume that we’re all in agreement that the FDNY did a heroic and remarkable job in response to 9/11? Yet, we also know that communications failed, and that hundreds of firefighters might have been saved if they had heard the orders of their superiors to evacuate. We’re now looking at new systems and ways to prevent the communication and technology problems that hampered rescue efforts on that day.
It is inexcusable that it took 72 hours for the most wealthy and powefull nation on earth to mobilize its resources in response to a natural disaster on its own soil.
Scientists are telling us that these hurricanes are only going to get larger and stronger.
We’re going to have to do a better job of minimizing the damage, and maximizing our response.
JK
P.S. Please cancel my subscription to “Guns & Ammo.”
Don’t even argue JWG — the first wrong thing in Oliver’s opening is that it might be a political disaster.
The left has become like ghouls or vultures. No matter what happens, if it happend to a Republican, they’re summoning the Grim Reaper.
But he goes away emptyhanded.
Every time.
opular Mechanics?
What s next, Field & Stream?
Did NASCAR weight in yet JW? What s the NRA s response to Katrina?
Cripes, what a stupid thing to say. JK of course, the enlightened liberal from the Northeast where everybody is smart. He assumes that Popular Mechanics is published and written by a bunch of guys named Bubba who work on their 68′ Camaro’s over the weekend.
The fact is, most of the people who write for that publication are engineers, scientists, doctors, etc. People a whole HELL of a lot smarter than you JK.
Thousands died.
Source?
Nice blog.
You’re up on my blogroll here
it shows where Bush spent the money on public relations …
thousands are missing …thats not speculation it’s fact
and I personally know people who endured incredible UNNECCESSARY
suffering ….engineers ?i’ll look forward to reading that article in it’s entireity
to see how it addresses the massive communications failure affecting cell phones with 504 area codes all over the country …for days ….
as a former coast guardsman and step son of a seabee of ‘can do’ fame …
I am completely disgusted with anyone that posits that the rescue effort was anyhting but a collossal failure …..thousands of people were rescued
that’s correct but what you fail to comprehend is that this did not start to occur until five to six days after the fact ….I know residents that’s MY source
the amount of time it took to mobolize the rescue effort is unforgiveable …don’t try to rewrite history to make things different from what actually happened ….once again the media is paid to lie ..it’s official now …
so don’t expect us to buy into the revisionist history that the adminsitration pumps out to cover it’s ass ….in the case of Katrina they cannot
the buck does stop with the entire lot of them
form top to bottom city state and federal leadership failed to communicate with one another and take the action neccessary to co operate in an effective manner ….they still do not have it right …
thousands are missing ..and the evidence of their deaths was short lived due to the heat and climate of that time of year in the region …
so I guess for some the leadership of this country is let off the hook ..again
for what should be called what it is
criminal negligence ……simple enough for you bush apologists to understand?
Bush has been below 50% since Katrina. He hasn’t recovered yet, not from the SOTU, or the Supreme nomination, or from domestic spying. The response to Katrina was a disaster, even the House Republicans – to their credit – had to acknowledge that in their report. I’m not sure what benefit it is to you guys to pretend that it was all peachy keen.
In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history,
Typical Republican half-truths. Katrina was by far the largest natural disaster the US has faced in the modern era, so of course the rescue effort was the largest and fastest. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t incredible incompetence and negligence in carrying it out.
If the effort hadn’t been the biggest and the fastest people would be calling for Chertoff’s head, not just his resignation
By the way….how do you think the polls would look if the papers were publishing headlines saying how this was “the biggest and fastest rescue effort in the history of the world!”
A true statement….but you won’t see our left wing media putting that up will you, so I guess we will never know….
Ahhh yes, Wilbur sums it all up. You have let the curtain down on the all too transparent lefties.
If the effort hadn t been the biggest and the fastest people
Wilbur admits is was the biggest and the fastest but you see, regardless of how well they did, the Bush administration COULDN’T do enough to make the blood-thirsty leftists happy.
This was the admittedly, even by the the lefties with BDS, the benchmark, the goldstandard of rescue efforts. But it was still “negligent”. Nothing like this has ever been done before in the history of the world, yet not good enough for the lefties. Any of you old lefty military veterans (well, there was at least one Coastie in the string LOL), know full well that after every large operation there is the “hot wash”, the self-criticism and “lessons learned”. Katrina is no different. What you don’t do though is hang everyone involved, you see, they are the ones with the experience for the NEXT event.
Same thing happened in Iraq. Remember how the lefties told us it was going to be hand-to-hand combat in the streets of Baghdad, tens of thousands of americans dead? Reality? The fastest win in the history of warfare, never been done faster,more accurately or with fewer casualties on both sides in the history of the world….
The lefties? “Who cares, look there are still Baathist making a bomb or two a day!”
You guys change the tune every now and then, but the song remains the same. I wish that was a good thing for the country, but it isn’t. It is plain old self-serving politics.
Oh my goodness, this must be cult central. “Don’t believe what you’re seeing with your own two eyes, it was the liberal media who didn’t report what an awesome job our beloved president did during Hurricane Katrina”. COME. ON.
Look, maybe they aren’t as strong kool-aid drinkers as you guys or maybe its because they have to face voters who aren’t in the cult, but even the House Republicans have made clear that this was a failure.
More up-is-down-ism from the usual suspects.
Now, not only was the Katrina response not screwed up, it was the best ever!
Give it up. The Bush administration itself has already admitted that the response was inadequate.
The Superdome was completely evacuated six days after Katrina hit (Sep 4). Your understanding of time is seriously flawed.
The lack of reading comprehension is sadly lacking.
I said the government should do better. I just put it within the context that the government moved faster than it ever had before. Those who died were overwhelmingly elderly and frail and needed more immediate care.
Jay,
Do us all a favor and go review some more movies, OK? The world is dying to hear what Jay Caruso thinks about “Freedomland.”
The Bipartisan Katria Report has already concluded that the response failed on many levels, most notably, that of leadership.
“About 56 hours before Katrina made landfall, the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center cited an “extremely high probability” that New Orleans would be flooded and tens of thousands of residents killed. Given those warnings, the report notes Bush’s televised statement on Sept. 1 that “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” and concludes: “Comments such as those . . . do not appear to be consistent with the advice and counsel one would expect to have been provided by a senior disaster professional.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101409_pf.html
“Popular Mechanics” is great if you need to fix your old Volvo.
When you’re talking about a natural disaster of near unprecedented proportion, and our government’s response to it, be it local, state and federal, I’ll defer to the people who understand how government works (or fails to work).
JK
Do us all a favor and go review some more movies, OK? The world is dying to hear what Jay Caruso thinks about Freedomland.
Didn’t see ‘Freedomland.’ Of course I could choose instead to emulate you and spend my time doing nothing but going to other blogs, bitching and whining all day and making a fool out of myself by pretending that a publication like ‘Popular Mechanics’ is just a monthly version of a Chilton’s manual.
Popular Mechanics is great if you need to fix your old Volvo.
Go ahead and keep writing such stupid things. Do you get some kind of rise out of exposing your ignorance this way?
When you re talking about a natural disaster of near unprecedented proportion, and our government s response to it, be it local, state and federal, I ll defer to the people who understand how government works (or fails to work).
Right. The very people who wrote the legislation creating such garbage and have a political stake in it. Yeah, they’re REALLY the ones to trust on the issue. JK: The guy who will believe anything a government commission tells him.
Oh I see you failed to provide sourcing on your “thousands dead” comment, but that doesn’t surprise me since it’s a completely bogus number. Maybe you should write some movie reviews.
That is incredibly stupid.
the katrina response WAS the best ever, but it still was not good enough on every level.
This is the case with EVERY contingency I have been involved with. I have done red cross disaster relief for floods, taken care of aircraft casualties, and been in charged of large WMD response teams.
There is ALWAYS something that can be done better. But you don’t just try to hang everyone involved as you leftists are attempting…you explore the whole operation and learn from it.
Of course none of you lefties has actually DONE anything like this before so I can understand your lack of comprehension
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/anon.htm
Anonymous Authorities
Definition:
The authority in question is not named. This is a type of
appeal to authority because when an authority is not named
it is impossible to confirm that the authority is an expert.
However the fallacy is so common it deserves special
mention.
come again ? your political prejudice is showing with your pronouncement of the critics being ‘leftist’ as for not having any experience read my preceding posts ..or do you even bother ? there was plenty to be learned from the piss poor response to katrina ..how many days lead time did they have to prepare to mobolize? how correct were those warnings ? how do you defend the ‘run through’ of emergency response to such a disaster..as a practice and the failure of timely response that should have started MONDAY as the weather cleared ….not the following weekend
I know dozens of new orleans residents …some who made it out some who didn’t ..not to mention folks from pilots island and biloxi that disappeared ..
the thousands missing are dead….don’t kid us JAY C ..and you can spare me the put down about not knowing or reading M I ..I used to subscribe ….
why don’t you guys tell us what a great job bush is doing ‘nation bullding’ in Iraq while the gulf coast including a major port city is still lying in ruins five months later ….you reall y could give a rat’s ass about the people that died anyway Jay C they’re no more than a political football to you …more grist for the Bush is great at pissing off the liberals ..so he’s great ! ..,mill …
WTF are you talking about?
if you had any friends in new orleans you would know what I ‘m talking about
i’m talking about when the actual large scale evacuation finally took place
you don’t have a clue about the cell phone issue that affected cell phones of 504 area code residents because you were not among those of us who were trying to locate our friends and relatives that were there and those that left in advance ..these phones were out of whack for nearly ten days …sometimes they worked but for the most part they didn’t …i EXPERIENCED this action ….
the emergency reponse to the levee break was compromised further by the large proportion of national guard troops from the three state area being deployed to Iraq …..
another reason you don’t comprehend what I’m talking about is that you evidently haven’t been through a severe hurricane yourself ..
this storm was past the affected area by the afternoon of the day it struck ..the powers that be that PRACTICED an emergency response should have been prepared to get things done as soon as the sun came out …..they weren’t prepared for any thing at alll
why does Chertoff still have his job? the feds are still spending more time and energy covering their asses five months later ..
than they are managing their responsibility to the people they were supposed to protect and serve …..
Haw.
Amazing. When the Bush administration leaves the White House it will take the “biggest, most powerful” bottle of Glade ever manufactured to get the stench out. I suppose the Bushites will claim that as another great success for Bush.
To keep their little cowboy from looking bad, there’s no limit to the nonsense that the cultists here will espouse: anything wrong is the fault of the Republican congress. The editorial board of Popular Mechanics is stuffed with Nobel Laureates. Et.c etc.
gob-smacking.
The evacuation of whom? Are you refering to the forced evacuation ordered by the mayor a week after the hurricane? What does this have to do with FEMA?
Wrong. 2/3 of the Guard were available from the three states. The were more than were actually used by the Governors.
Wrong. I lived in Vero Beach, FL for a long time (my mother and sister still live there). I’ve only questioned your repeated claim about the response not starting until the following weekend (6 days later).
Huh? Who said anything like this? Who said anything favorable about Bush?
Again…reading comprehension is in severe shortage.
Has anyone made any attempt to point to an error I’ve made? Of course not. Everything I’ve written is true. I’ve defended no one. I put the national response into historical context.
Bottom line on Katrina:
Who was responsible? In order
1. Dem Mayor Nagins
2. Dem Gov Blanco
3. R Pres Bush
Biggest disatser: loss of life.
Reason: failure to evacuate.
Responsibility: Mayor “God wanted it this way” Nagins.
Did the Feds have some glitches?. Sure the disaster was unprecedented and the failure of the levee, dating from an inherent embedded flaw 16 years or more ago was only catchable once the levee failed.
Dugger
JWG:
Huh? Who said anything like this?
That would be when Jay C was responding to the bipartisan congressional report on Katrina.
Why is it always the people who can’t read who criticise others for not being able to read.
I ve defended no one
Yes you have, JWG. When people are criticizing the guard for falling asleep at his post and you come along and say “yeah, but look how quickly he called 911 when he woke up.” You are defending him.
Dugger:
I’ll call for the resignation of Nagins and Blanco if you call for the resignation of Bush. Deal?
No one mentions that the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as NOAA, warned the administration, as well as local authorities that something like this would happen 2 or 3 years previous (not might, would) and that the levees had to be maintained and strengthened.
How did the adminstration respond? They cut the Corps’ budget.
Why can’t the Righty’s just admit that the Man (read: Government, state, local, federal) was asleep at the switch. In Rapuano’s case, the only guy left in the office, it seems, he actually was asleep.
The National Guard post in NO was 8 feet underwater, so no, or very little communication or response could have come from there. It had to have, and should have come from higher up, both in a command sense and geographically.
hey duros they have been warning about an 8 + richter scale earthquake in california for years now….when should we evacuate? when should we demand that ALL buildings be upgraded to current seismic standards…
Think carefully lefties, we will all be looking at you when the big one comes..
It’s my understanding that the Democratic leadership doesn’t consider it “bipartisan.”
I’ve reread Jay C’s comments about the congressional commission several times and I don’t view it as blaming congress for the Katrina response. He’s criticizing people having faith in a political organization fairly assessing a system they designed. They are more likely to find fault in individuals rather than in the system itself.
Wilbur,
No deal. I don’t want Cheney aiming the missiles. (No Mr VP, North Korea not North Dakota!) But I would agree to the abolishment of FEMA and a concomitant reduction in federal taxes to allow the states to respond to their own disasters – since they have first responsibility anyway (states could then make reductions to cities) and New Orleans can keep Nagins and La. Blanco.
duros,
DO you have a cite for your assertion that both NOAA and the Army Engineers warned the Admin that something like this WOULD happen?
Dugger
At least the Popular Mechanics article mentions possible deep-thinking solutions to the problems Katrina caused.
Unlike Oliver and the sycophants.
Brandon, I have the most profound solution of all. How about letting COMPETENT people run our country going forward?
I think the problem here is the Bushbot’s definition of competence is different than 66% of Americans’.
Do you want an election do-over?
hey duros they have been warning about an 8 + richter scale earthquake in california for years now& .
Yes, and that’s why if it turns out -after the quake- that governor Schwarzenegger had starved his earthquake preparedness budget and appointed an unqualified hack to head up disaster response, there are going to be some tough questions asked.
It s my understanding that the Democratic leadership doesn t consider it bipartisan.
I was begin generous. It was, in fact, chiefly a Republican report. A truly bipartisan report would have probably been much more critical of the administration.
I ve reread Jay C s comments about the congressional commission several times and I don t view it as blaming congress for the Katrina response. He s criticizing people having faith in a political organization fairly assessing a system they designed.
A system that, in Jay’s words, “creat[ed] such garbarge”. Sounds like blame to me. Guess it just goes to show that you read what you want to read, especially if you’re a republican.
No deal. I don t want Cheney aiming the missiles.
I have to admit you have a point there, Dugger. That’s the way it is in the Bush era: we’re always between Iraq and a hard place.
“Brandon, I have the most profound solution of all. How about letting COMPETENT people run our country going forward?”
Rounds,
The most qualified person in the world would not have really made that much of a difference. Because like any other large government bureaucracy, FEMA is inherently inefficient.
The most qualified person in the world would not have really made that much of a difference.
I can certainly understand why a rabid Bush partisan would want to argue that competence and qualifications aren’t important.
“The fact is, most of the people who write for that publication are engineers, scientists, doctors, etc. People a whole HELL of a lot smarter than you JK.”
And I’m thinking the engineers might have more than a redeeming thing or two to say about the levees that broke.
You know, considering those dikes were designed and constructed by…
other engineers.
I’ve said before: I’m not a Republican. I only support this administration in their fight against terrorism.
Oh, so your analogy shows you admit that LA misspent their money. That’s a fair assessment.
I ve said before: I m not a Republican. I only support this administration in their fight against terrorism.
And you also equivocate about its responsibility in the Katrina disaster. Even if you’re not a Republican you can think, speak and act like a Republican.
equivocate – beat around the bush: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
What I wrote:
and
Peedro, now I have conclusive evidence that the dr before your name must stand for dunderheaded rube.
The point is that in this case, so much went so horribly wrong, on so many levels, in so many areas and in the face of a predictable disaster.
As a professional involved in disaster planning, I have some serious doubts about the level of your involvement in any of these disaster recovery teams. I’ll be sending your comment to some of my friends in the industry. They could use a laugh.
Look, JWG, I’m about to pay you a compliment!
“JWG knows a lot about football, but he is either seriously dim or seriously dishonest about his contributions on this thread.”
See, I didn’t criticise you, I complemented you. I said you knew a lot about football!
Wilbur, you have yet to point out anything I have said that is incorrect or dishonest. All you can say is that I’m not frothing at the mouth, jumping up and down, and calling for impeachment over Bush’s handling of Katrina.
JWG, there is a huge middle ground between “frothing at the mouth” and the sort of weasly equivocatory defenses of the administration you offer here (’sure there are problems, but….”).
That huge middle ground is where you’ll find me and the rest of the reality based community. Come on over and play sometime.
That is very, very funny. Let’s look at how you occupy the “middle ground”:
Additionally, you still don’t understand the definition of equivocate. Your former English teachers must be very disappointed.
“The school district failed to meet its requirement for the percentage of students to meet the ‘Proficient’ level. However, the district’s proficiency rate improved more than any other.”
Who is being criticized in this example? Who is being defended? Is this statement an equivocation?
According to Wilbur, I have supported the superintendant (i.e. Bush) using “weasly equivocatory defenses.”
I suppose that does seem like “frothing at the mouth” if you’re a hardcore reactionary right-winger. I thought it was kind of humorous myself. You don’t think I really think there are cans of glade that big, do you?
In my dictionary, this sentence is cited as an example of “equivocation”:
I agree that we can and should do better, but we should also balance criticism with the understanding that this was the fastest response our government has ever accomplished.
The assertion that this was the “fastest response our government has ever accomplished” is obfuscatory when the issue is the “bumbling by top emergency management officials” (acknowledged by your own source), which is what has resulted in the low opinion of the Bush administration. The response on all levels -not just federal!- eventually was huge. It had to be. If government -on all levels!- had done its job better it could have been bigger and faster. Bush provided minimal moral leadership during the crisis and had appointed incompetent political hacks to important posts. Katrina exposed that, and thereby burst the illusion of cool competence and decisiveness that this administration has built around itself.
If you pretend like you know what you’re doing, a lot of people will believe that you actually do – until you get into a situation where you really need to know what you’re doing.