The Katrina Video (And Related Thoughts)
- It does a pretty good job of encapsulating the 6 year occupation of the White House by Bush and his team. His only companions in the room are an aide and a White House photographer. To them, this is not an informational session with the disaster response team – it’s just another opportunity for a propaganda photo op (here is the photo in question).
- Our leader has the intellectual curiosity of a moth. He asks no questions, even as meteorologists and other experts are making it clear that the incoming storm is a major deal. He simply rattles off a couple of platitudes and says that the federal government is prepared to act. The corpses in New Orleans and the human suffering that ensued, show us otherwise.
- As usual, conservatives are beating up the messenger (how dare the AP report a news story!). Some of them say its ludicrous to compare them to a cult, but this is what cults do. The leader is infallible, and anyone who would even point out one of the leader’s faults is a heretic. The followers of Sun Yung Moon, Charles Manson, Kim Jong Il, and George W. Bush all exhibit this same trait. Leader is infallible. Biased media plots with Leader’s enemies to destroy Leader.
- This will never happen, because there is no oversight of the President from either the Congress or the mainstream media, but I would really like to have the President explain under oath and in clear detail his and his administration’s activities during the week of Hurricane Katrina, and how their response was so negligent it allowed a major American city to drown.
- Hurricane season is 3 months away. Al Qaeda is growing. George Bush is in charge. Feel safe?
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
’)
Sorry, MJB. It makes a better headline if “Bush was warned before the Hurricane”. Substance doesn’t matter to Oliver. It’s all about what you can exploit for Brand Democrat!
Those 33,000 people extracted by the coast guard and the Navy medical units on the scene in the first two days after the hurricane just don’t matter. Clark Kent would have saved the levys with his heat vision and would have spotted all those school busses and alerted local authorities.
Yeah, Oliver- hindsight is 20/20.
Before we get all fired up about whether bush lied or not (we all know in substance he did) his actual words do not contradict the portions of the video we’ve seen so far. The meteorologist merely talked of whether the levees would be “topped”, not breached. Until the rest of the tape is released and analyzed, or first hand accounts come out attesting that “I was there in the meetings and he was specifically warned of breaching”, we should hold off. To simply rely on the portions of the tape released so far to say he lied is not exactly accurate yet. If I’m wrong, please show me, I’d love to be wrong on this.
Lack of preparation and lack of prior evacuation is the issue.
Yeah, for what is probably the billionth frigging time, that is the RESPONSIBILITY OF STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS, not the President of the United States.
mjb gets at least this part right, but finish the sentence. Who is responsible for preparation and evacuation? Say it with me now: the LOCALS.
Also, who was responsible for building those faulty levees in the first place? GWB? Try again…
While I agree that there is a big difference between the two, I don’t think it really matters. What would have been any different if the levees held but the storm remained a Cat 5 and overtopped the levees? There still would have been a massive disaster. Would the outcome have been different? No.
Marty, settle down. Don’t be so smug, it’s clear that bush treated the situation, during and after, very casually. The tapes and reports so far do show that he was useless and dishonest about being prepared. He just technically, for all we know SO FAR, on this limited issue, not literally a liar, yet.
And, evacuations after landfall is not the issue, and you know that. Lack of preparation and lack of prior evacuation is the issue. And don’t even start with “bush told them to leave” because you know many couldn’t leave, and bush didn’t care. Got you GWB4EVER tatoo yet?
JWG, the flooding wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. The breach was an order of magnitude worse than just overtopping. Of course he knew of the breach possibility, no responsible person briefing him would have left out that possibility, and soon we’ll know about it, but right now we have no solid proof that he was told.
Marty, you are seriously deranged if you think that it’s acceptable to mock the horror the Superdome people went through. Just because the media was lazy in reporting that part doesn’t mean there wasn’t a real catastrophe occurring in there. screw you.
And about those estimated 10,000- 15,000 dead and the murderous, baby raping rampage in the Superdome. Whatever happened with all that? (Serious question.)
While I agree that there is a big difference between the two, I don t think it really matters. What would have been any different if the levees held but the storm remained a Cat 5 and overtopped the levees? There still would have been a massive disaster. Would the outcome have been different? No.
A pretty rational comment, good job. Indeed, parsing of words doesn’t change the fact that the levee system was discussed. The scenario where the levees were inadequate for containing the storm was discussed at this meeting. So for the pResident to say that noone thought this could happen is just, a lie.
Hell, I thought it could happen, as did anyone who watched the news reports before the storm that talked about the levees failing and NO becoming a frappe of toxic waste.
If the Left can turn “The British Government has learned that that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” into a “lie”, then they certainly have no problem muddying up the difference between “breaching” and “topping”.
Farris;
If the Left can turn The British Government has learned that that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa into a lie ,
If the famous 16 words were designed to cover their legal ass cheeks
by cleverly inserting ‘British’ when all were vociferously propounding
the intel from our own sources, it proves the lie.
You’re absolutely right MJB. Lack of preparation and lack of prior evacuation IS the issue. The City of New Orleans had a written evacuation plan that was not followed. The state and federal government didn’t help implement that plan. There was certainly poor planning for the evacuation. Hundreds of busses were available, but we were all waiting for someone else to bring in the Greyhounds.
Lots of things could have been done better now that we know what actually happened. It is amazing that more people weren’t killed in this amazing catastrophic event that affected a 900(?) mile stretch of the Gulf Coast. Maybe Clark Kent could do that earth rotation thing he does and we can get a do-over.
And no- no tattoo. I have enough things I disagree with him on that will help me forgoe that session of discomfort.
I agree. Release all the information and let the chips fall where they may.
1) Fine. Nagin and Blanco screwed up too. Fire them.
2) You’ll notice I said too. See, heres the thing. For all Nagin and Blanco coulda shoulda woulda done more, you still have a huge number of problems.
3) No evacuation, not even using your precious school buses, would have gotten all those people out before the hurricane. There still would have been thousands left there. Even if they had gotten them all out, where would they go? How would they be provisioned for in the following weeks and months? Also, disaster recovery on this scale is beyond the resources of the states. Hell, its pushing the resources of the country. We got WATER FROM MEXICO for christs sake. But in order to tie all this national effort, before and after, together you need national leadership, which leads us to…
4) Chertoff and Brown are both JOKES. Neither one of them has anywhere near the qualifications to be in their position. It’d be like putting me in charge of a major software project, except I might have a chance of doing better than them because I’m not a braindead sycophantic monkey, I would care about the job, and I wouldn’t be busy looking for photo-ops. Either Chertoff or Brown could’ve stepped in and gotten shit done, but they weren’t capable. People who aren’t capable in a time of disaster or conflict need to be removed quickly. As an example, look how many generals Ike removed from their positions of authority in the early days of WWII in Africa. They fucked up, he replaced them. Until he found someone who could’ve done the job. Which leads us to…
5) Bush himself is both totally incompetent and values his loyalty to his underlings in the face of gross incompetence above getting the job done…even when not gettin ghte job done costs thousands of lives. This is probably because he is so incompetent himself that he feels the need to support incomptence. On top of this, the very fact that it took him what, 3 days or four to get his ass off vacation and start paying attention to hundreds of thousands of people crying out for his help. If Nagin and Blanco were failing to get the job done, but could still very easily have directed military and civilian resources to just go in and get shit done, but he didn’t. He’s a bureaucrat, not a leader. A leader as strong as you lot like to think Bush is would’ve taken charge, got his people moving, and helped. And none of this is even mentioning the vast organizational disaster that has been the cleanup effort. Nor is it mentioning that the lack of decent oversite on the cleanup effort means that there is almost as much pork and graft involved with that as with Iraq.
Long story short: I continue to repeat my offer. We’ll fire Nagin and Blanco if you’ll fire Bush, Chertoff, Cheney, and rest of the criminal and criminally incompetent gang.
Off topic: check this out: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/minnesota/polinaut/archive/2006/02/decipering_the.php
I ve never heard anyone on the left blame bush without also saying that nagin and the governor were negligent
Oh please. The harshest the host of this site has ever been is to say that the locals “weren’t perfect.”
Jay, why, because you said so? If that’s the precedent you wish to establish (and it clearly is the precedent the right wants), then fine, but don’t pretend that this federal response was anything like federal responses in the past. Admit this is new, and you wish to push this idea because ideologically you don’t believe there is a role. Dont’ conflate your desire with the reality that the feds have always had a primary role.
better than you saying it s not bush s role
What are we in the second grade? Are you going to say your Dad can beat up my Dad next?
The fact of the matter is, preparedness is a state and local responsibility. It is not up to the federal government to make sure citizens are evacuated. Why the hell do we bother have state and local governments if they’re not going to do this?
better than you saying it’s not bush’s role
Only because the storm was a strong Cat 3 (which couldn’t be predicted accurately beforehand). Computer models predicted that a Cat 5 hurricane directly hitting NO would completely drown the city and kill thousands. No one knew how strong the hurricane would be when it hit land. It was possible that it would still be a strong Cat 4 or even a Cat 5. The Bush administration obviously knew the storm could inflict terrible damage…why else would Bush have personally asked for a mandatory evacuation order rather than a voluntary one? No one was prepared for a worst case senario, and hundreds of people paid the price with their lives.
Why do you people automatically think that criticism of bush means absolving the state and local govts? We have no problem blaming all three (I’ve never heard anyone on the left blame bush without also saying that nagin and the governor were negligent), but the issue today is the fed response. The only way one can not also blame bush is if one believes that the feds have no role in disaster coordination. Some believe this, but it’s ridiculous. But you small governmenters wouldn’t let ideology get in the way of saving lives would you?
Semantic, what? Please clarify.
Bush said:
“No one could have anticipated the levves being breached.”
Sure, there is a difference between topping and breaching. However, he was told plainly that the levees would be topped. Once they know that, is it so far of a logical leap to at least anticipate the levees being breached?
The man is criminally negligent. Odds on Houston or Miami being destroyed by a hurricane on his watch: 5 to 1. Odds on wingnuts defending the man again once that happens: 1 to 1.
JWG, agreed. We all know that he knew of the dangers and was deathly negligent. Any sane person or competent leader would have taken all possible precautions even based on the “topping”warnings. But nothing we’ve seen so far from these tapes makes his specific statement about the breaches a lie. Yet. There’s much more to come. Like I said, people who briefed him will come out and say “of course I told him the levees could breach, every asshole knew that”.
Jay, just being intellectually honest. Unlike you. Nyah, nyah. And please repeat your assumption again, I might believe it. Maybe use caps again, that seemed to work before.
“what should the White House have done differently?”
Congress just released a report which has tens of pages of suggestions.
The first response to a disaster will always rest with the locals. They are the ones on the scene and in the best position to offer immediate aid.
That said, FEMA has historically been a very effective agency and needs to have its power restored by taking it out of Homeland Security. The Director of FEMA should report directly to the President as it is the President who has the authority to mobilize the military, Coast Guard, etc.
Even if there was full knowledge in advance of the potential disaster, I am not sure what could have been done differently at the Federal level, at that point. I recall watching experts say that you are not going to place people and supplies in harm’s way of the coming hurricane so I don’t see anyone saying they should have (or could have) mobilized faster or to a greater degree. So other than the intangible aspect of “leadership” (the importance of which I am not discounting) what should the White House have done differently?
If you’re giving those odds, I’ll definitly lay down money on “not destroyed”. Jeb and Rick Perry don’t wait until 18 hours pre-landfall before issuing an evacuation order.
Only if you assume that the levees weren’t constructed to spec by the Dem-run levee boards to begin with. Which, come to think of it, isn’t that far of a logical leap. Damn Bush for trusting Democrats!!!
gotta love the wingers.
Do you really think someone parsing words so carefully as to be technically true while also obfuscating the truth is a GOOD THING?
Well, then you’re supporting a certain Mr. Clinton, then, aren’t you? I call bullshit on all this word-play. Bush could have done more. Nagin and Blanco could have done more. Shut the hell up and let them reap the rewards of their negligence. For god’s sake, you’re defending someone who was playing his guitar present while people were dying in the Big Easy? “Watch this drive!” writ huge.
What’s wrong with you?
After this briefing, Bush did what again?
Went loafing down in Crawford “clearing brush” and then flew off for a photo op with some country stars?
Cheney was where? Hunting, I believe. (Maybe that was for the best.)
Rice? Buying shoes and giggling at actors calling “Bring out your dead!”
That’s a mighty impressive record.
“Hedley Says:
March 2nd, 2006 at 11:48 am
The first response to a disaster will always rest with the locals. They are the ones on the scene and in the best position to offer immediate aid…”
While I agree wholeheartedly with that mindset, who’s responisble if the the devastation and destruction is so bad that it wipes out the local responders capabilities to communicate and react?
I ask that not to bait or inflame argument here. It just seemed to me that with as much damage the hurricane did and the added complication of the levees not holding up that the local responders ability to really do much was totally crippled.
To me, the most damning thing about the video is the seeming lack of interest on the part of the pResident. He had no questions? There was nothing he needed clarified? He clearly didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. And after the meeting, he went to Arizona for a fundraiser. Nice leadership.
Jay, you guys shouldn’t be so confident because you know it’ll come out that was specifically warned of breaches so just settle down.
Jay, you guys shouldn t be so confident because you know it ll come out that was specifically warned of breaches so just settle down.
It really doesn’t matter if the word “breaches” comes up or not. Any thinking person would call “Noone could have anticipated….” a lie. To argue that it is not a lie is to deny one’s own humanity.
“topped, not breached”
“that depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”
Yeah, you guys are right. Dear Leader performed his duties perfectly. Remember to clean your sneakers before the comet passes by.
You know Oliver, if you knew that the difference between topped and breached is like the difference between a gidget softball player and Albert Pujols, you wouldn’t say such ridiculous things.
But, the meme is already out there. Somebody say ‘topped’, Bush says ‘breached’ and yokels ask, “What’s the difference?!?!?”
>>Yeah, for what is probably the billionth frigging time, that is the RESPONSIBILITY OF STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS, not the President of the United States.
As is standard for Caruso…he’s not telling the entire story here. From a practical “first responder” standpoint, yes, the locals are the ones who are supposed to be the first line of support. However, we have over 80,000 state, local and federal government agencies in this country. They’re supposed to work together in a crisis.
It’s called intergovernmental cooperation. IMO, was very little of that present before, or after Katrina. The response was fragmented. A few differing viewpoints.
http://governing.com/articles/12disast.htm
http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/intergovernmental92805.html
JK
An example of his lies:
http://hotstory.nationaljournal.com/articles/0302nj1.htm
Where was the mayor of New Orleans, whose power ends at the city limits, supposed to send those buses?
Your answer can be found here.
“It really doesn t matter if the word breaches comes up or not. Any thinking person would call Noone could have anticipated& . a lie.”
It most certainly does, because the big controversy is whether bush lied on that point. Either it was said or it wasn’t. In the grand scheme of things of course you’re right, but on that specific point, we have not seen evidence that he “lied”. Based on what we’ve seen so far, and as incurious and uninformed as he clearly is, it’s entirely possible that he was never told about the breaching and he never read the numerous newspaper articles warning of this possibility, and therefore had no idea that anyone would have known about this. That is enough for impeachment in my mind, but not because he “lied”. He has lied so many times about so many different things, why are we grasping at straws here?
I’m not saying this to defend him, it only makes him look worse, but on this limited “breach” issue, many liberals are guilty of the thing we blame rush and hannity for doing.
This point is incorrect. Can you provide any links to articles that warn of possible levee failure rather than overtopping? I did some research into this months ago after news reports kept claiming this fact but only quoted people predicting overtopping due to storm surge rather than breaches.
Uh, Al?!? They were built before Clinton arrived too. Some date back to the 19th Century.
you can also look up that those levees were built before Jan 2001.
BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE CLENIS
Five years after leaving office, Clinton is really the one responsible for Katrina.
BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE CLENIS
Ok. Yeah we all know about the buses etc. I am also not saying that more couldn’t be done to evacuate more people. The state and local authorities dropped the ball on that one. I think anyone can pretty much see that. However, my question still stands. Being that the situation was the breakdown of local authorities ability respond after the hurricane hit and they were for all intents and purposes just as stranded, screwed and scared as the “regular” folks doesn’t it go to say the Feds could have picked up the pace? It was obvious that on a local level enough wasn’t done. Was it ok for the feds (FEMA) to not react quicker knowing what they unrefutably knew about what was happening? I don’t think so. If they had reacted quicker I am sure more people would being laying the bulk of the burden of failure on the local governments. As it stands now though FEMA shares the bulk of the blame because their only purpose is to react to disasters. Local goverments don’t just do disaster planning.
If FEMA had reacted quicker and exercised the knowledge the obviously had and our president and his administration had acted swiftly and confidently you can be sure people would be squarely pointing the finger at the Gulf Coast local authorities and saying you screwed up. This was a complete failure from city governments all the way to the white house and there is no defensible position any of them can take. If it’s nobodies fault and nobodies problem then what the hell are we worried about?
Have we all forgotten about this, and be honest to yourself about how you would have reacted if this had happened under Clinton and you found out about this story:
http://usliberals.about.com/od/theeconomyjobs/a/TimesPicayune.htm
Time for next lift
It’s time now for the next lifts in a number of places that have sunk 2 to 4 feet from their design elevations….
The subsidence is expected.
What’s new, said Morehiser and Naomi, is that the agency has run out of money for the next round of lifts. Naomi said this is the first time a lack of money has stopped major corps work on the levees since the project began in 1967.
“I can’t tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm,” Naomi said. “It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.
“But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were raised, . . . and I think it’s important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects.”
Levees on the east bank of New Orleans, as well as some in eastern St. Bernard Parish, are among the area’s oldest and have had several lifts. Corps engineers said the next lift might be the last they need. But the levees on the east bank of St. Charles and Jefferson parishes are much younger, and most stretches have had only one or two lifts.
“This project isn’t expected to end for another 13 to 15 years,” Morehiser said. “They aren’t really finished levees at this point. We don’t even turn them over to their local sponsors until we consider them stable, which is years from now.”…
“When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they’re more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them,” Naomi said….
Bush budget falls short
The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration’s $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.
Impor, you can also look up that those levees were built before Jan 2001.
Uh, I think the levees were built to Cat 3 specs by the Army Corps of Engineers which I believe is part of the Federal government under GW. You could look it up….
Oh brother. Now we’re back to the “Bush defunded the levees!!” nonsense. You guys have come full circle. Congaratulations.
Jay, did he not?
Oops
There’s plenty of criticism to go around. While the response to the disaster should have been better, there is a lot of evidence that the bureaucratic processes in place before the hurricane did not help prevent much of the disaster from occurring.
Politicians rarely design systems to run efficiently or quickly.
1) Care to guess where a lot of that money went?
2) The breached areas had been recently upgraded, so more funding would not have solved this particular problem.
He did not underfund the levees that failed. Those levees had recently been upgraded. You can’t blame Bush for that one.
Katrina Blogs
Then, we tackled the tricky issue of sorting through all the back and forth bickering that’s going on between conservative and liberal bloggers over the issue. It’s getting really petty at times.
Man…..it must really suck having to defend this clown every single day due to his own stupidity, inattention, and general “I don’t want to know about the details” demeanor. In this case, it may have contributed to over 1,000 deaths.
It’s not like it’s one single moment, or event. Each day reveals a new depth to Bush’s ignorance on an issue, or topic of importance.
The Bush administration’s incompetence has indirectly or directly contributed to, or caused the deaths of at least 3,000 people. (2,000 of them in uniform who sacrificed their lives in Iraq.)
But you guys keep defending him. It’s like you’re not human anymore. Just words on a screen. Buttons to be pushed in defense of the indefensible. You have lost your humanity.
What the heck is your deal? We keep hearing the word “cult-like.” I don’t think that’s far off.
JK
Yes, SF, this time you are correct. They were built before 2001, otherwise there would have been no New Orleans and we could all argue about something else, but there’s this thing called maintainence….
He did not underfund the levees that failed. Those levees had recently been upgraded. You can t blame Bush for that one.
Looks like we’ve caught JK lying again.
From Editor&Publisher:
My emphasis added.
Looks like Jadegold is burned again…twice.
1) You quoted me, JWG. (Reading comprehension…remember?)
2) From the NYTimes:
Ouch.
uh…bicker bicker point fingers – bush still – after all this – sucks big fat green donkey D*&%s
Eewww. Why are they green?
Too bad we can’t build levees out of Jay Caruso.
His tireless – and successful – efforts to to hold back the flood waters of reality and public opinion that threaten to overwhelm the President prove that he is made of such inpenetrable stuff that can neither be breached nor topped.
In fact, I think if the National Academy of Sciences rounded up the 35% that would support Bush – even if if he were taped robbing a bank while having sex with a minor – they would find the secret to the densest AND most indestructible material known to the universe: Political Ideology.
John, do you actually have any evidence to add, or do you only have ad hominem attacks at your disposal?
JWG-
You need to learn what an ad hominem attack is. Calling a female dog a bitch does not rise to task, and since I am not attempting to discredit or refute Jay’s comments with a personal attack, your bleating on the matter is rather desultory.
Ad Hominem: a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself.
What you wrote:
Examples of Jay C’s errors in reasoning or fact: ZERO
In other words, all you did was provide comments attacking Jay C’s perceptions and ideology. You provided nothing to challenge the comments he made about definitions and responsibility of state vs federal agencies.
I see. Claiming he is unable to view “reality” correctly without explaining what he “misunderstands” is not an attack against the person rather than the specifics of his argument. Interesting view of “reality” you have.
For education’s sake, let me be a little more specific.
You have a lot of time on your hands there.
Unfortunately, this message board does not constitute any type of forum where any of the logic you have discovered has been applied. Jay hadn’t really made any such argument that I could attempt to brand as fallacious. Rather, he mostly snarked about commenters being in second grade or being an ingnorant yokel.
Examples of Jay C s reasoning or facts: ZERO
Anyway, to go to such lengths to defend another commenter…like I said, you have a lot of time on your hands there.
Gosh, this took a whole 30 seconds…
Wrong again, John!
You could redeem yourself by spending some time following up with rebuttal in the following areas:
1) Has Oliver been more critical of state and local officials than Jay C claims?
2) Does the federal government have any legal or moral responsibilities to evacuate people before a hurricane?
3) Is there really any important difference between overtopping and breaching?
Or maybe you could spend some time brushing up on logical fallacies before you challenge someone else for not knowing what an ad hominem argument is.
Good luck.
[...] e of tens of millions of dollars – would be illegal under our campaign finance laws. When I said the Republican mantra nowadays boils down to Leader [...]
JWG-
I know you’re a last word freak, but seriously, you need to learn the difference between facts and opinions. I have little faith in your ability to do so, but please give it the old college try.
Here are some hints:
The first ‘fact’ you blockquoted by Jay C. is little more than unsubstantiated opinion, the second is an opinion that only covers the primary legal responsibility of evacuation and the third is merely snark.
Likewise, of the three ‘gotcha’ questions you pose, the answer to the first would merely be an opinion, the response to the second would likewise be an opinion – particularly on the morality issue – and the third leads way to an awful lot of conjecture as to the usage of syntax coupled with a great deal of parsing. Not one of them involves the inerjection of factual responses, although facts may be used to bolster one’s argument as to the validity of the opinions they formulate.
Statement of Opinion: Oliver has not criticized state and local officials enough.
Statement of Fact: Oliver has only criticized state and local officials by saying they “weren’t perfect.”
If Jay C got the fact wrong…then demonstrate it.