Honestly, now that Obama is the nominee........

[gldstwmn]

Well, you should learn your history then before lecturing someone else.
I wasn't lecturing you. I was trying to tell you to keep an open mind.


The US did not go in to Iraw unilaterally in 1991. We had a UN mandate and the authority to assassinate Saddam. The US also DOES go around assassinating leaders. Remember Nuremberg? In fact, there is a current civil suit against Henry Kissinger right now because of an action he took as part of the Nixon administration to assassinate the leader of a South American country and the family of the interpreter sued Kissinger because he died in the process. Back to your original point, if we had assassinated Saddam in 1991 and set up a government (as we had a UN authorization) when the Iraqi's were more willing, we would have done the job. We didn't do that. Even Former President Bush has admitted on a Nightline interview 5 years ago that he wished he had assassinated Saddam. Apparently, you don't know your history. Don't underestimate me either.

Getting a bit defensive are we? Nuremberg was a series of military tribunal trials. Not sure what your point is there.
As far as Kissinger goes, you reap what you sow with that piece of ****. I'm not talking about whatever covet ops he was mixed up in. And I'm sure there were plenty. Show me any one document that says the United States government condones the assasination of any foreign head of state. I submit you cannot.
Also I'd like to get furhter into why the United States did not march into Baghdad in '91. But I'm a bit pressed for time.

[gldstwmn]

Most people hate him because they don't know what the president actually does or is supposed to do. .

He stole the presidency. Is that constitutional?

[gldstwmn]

You forget that the Republicans passed the 1964 Civil Rights bill,

Hilarious. Where'd you get that one from?

[strandinthewind]

. . . Then take a look at the human debris left behind after Katrina. People with a survival instinct left. Those without did not, and there was quite a bit of publicity about the fact that a lot of them stayed because they were waiting for welfare checks. These people stayed poor because we made it easy to be poor and encouraged them to stay on welfare because human nature always follows the path of least resistance. If the choice was starvation or improving one's self, they would do it . . . .

Honestly, if you are not going to research anything before stating, this is going to become tedious.

1. I agree New Orleans was a ridiculous welfare state. But, I helped some of those kids get out of that.

2. If you could not get out of the city, you were to go to the Superdome and ride out the storm. This was the plan in place for many a year.

3. I relaize many could have gotten out if they had tried. I am not talking about htem. But, many (some say a majority) of the people who did not leave could not leave. Many were poor and elderly with no family to go to and no transportation to get them there. Many were younger but had no funds to go anywhere.

4. If W had gotten off of his a$$ and Rove had quit trying to wrangle control of the state from Gov. Blanco, help would have arrived at least a day earlier. But, the R's wanted it to be there show. Notice how Haley Barbour, the R gov. of Mississippi, was not asked to give up control of his state before help could be provided. Hmmm - wonder why :rolleyes:

5. That you refer to them as human debris demonstrates a maturity level unfit for my dialogue.

Here is an article demonstrating how Rove played politics while people died. I know people died because I knew some of them. My brother rescued people as well and saw people die. Whatever.

How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
Hurricane Katrina posed a huge test to Bush's administration. But instead of bailing out Louisiana, Karl Rove played Blame the Democrats.
By Paul Alexander

Jun. 06, 2008 | On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. Based on what she had been told by her advisers and what she knew from being a native Louisianan, she understood that Katrina, creeping gradually toward land with sustained winds of a strength rarely seen in a hurricane, could prove to be catastrophic for Louisiana, and particularly for New Orleans.

Over the weekend, Blanco and her staff monitored the storm from an emergency headquarters in Baton Rouge. As the storm was hitting on Monday morning, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, met with the governor and her staff. Brown had arrived in Louisiana the night before, supposedly ready to deal with the disaster. When he got to the headquarters that morning, Brown told Blanco he was prepared to help. "He showed up Monday morning," says Bob Mann, a senior aide to Blanco, "and gave us the feeling we would have everything we wanted and needed. He was nothing if not an effective bull****ter." Specifically, there was talk of FEMA buses. "Michael Brown told me he had 500 buses," Blanco says. "They were staged and ready to roll in."

Meanwhile, as a deadly storm of historic proportions ripped into three Gulf Coast states that Monday, Bush, on a working vacation at his ranch in Crawford, stuck to his schedule for the day. He traveled to Arizona, where he gave a stay-the-course speech about the war in Iraq. He even made himself available for a photo op after the speech, posing with a guitar next to someone wearing a sombrero, seemingly unaware that the Gulf Coast of the United States was in the throes of a horrific natural disaster perhaps unparalleled in the nation's history. For a president who often seemed to care more about developments in Iraq than those at home, here was a singular moment. Never had Bush appeared to be so out of sync, at least when it came to events unfolding in the homeland. To make matters worse, in this case the disaster was not happening on the other side of the world or even the other side of the country, but in a state next door to Texas.

On Tuesday, Bush was still out of touch with what was happening and seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the events unfolding on the Gulf Coast, especially in New Orleans. A major American city had filled up with water, but Bush had not departed from his planned schedule. In Coronado, California, at a naval base near the USS Ronald Reagan, Bush delivered a speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. But Bush used the occasion, as he had repeatedly of late, to give yet another stay-the-course speech about Iraq. On this day, he compared the ongoing military action in Iraq to the allied struggle against German fascism and Japanese imperialism in terms of its moral significance. "The terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century," Bush said. "They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees." It was not terrorists who had brought three states in the American South to their knees, but an act of nature that, judging from his actions on Monday and Tuesday, had not fully engaged the attention of the president.

As it turned out, the federal government's attempts to respond to the storm and flooding appeared frozen by inadequacy and ineptitude. Thousands of people were stranded in their homes, unable to make a better escape than to their rooftops to wave for help and hope emergency personnel in helicopters might rescue them. Tens of thousands of refugees were holed up downtown in the Convention Center and the Superdome, yet FEMA was unable to bring in even food, water, or ice, not to mention buses to evacuate them. Touring the Superdome on Tuesday night, Blanco was disturbed by what she witnessed: in short, no federal assistance whatsoever. All she saw was the Louisiana National Guard and the Louisiana State Police -- certainly not enough of a law enforcement presence to be able to maintain order without additional guardsmen and troops.

If Bush had not seen what was taking place by Tuesday, Karl Rove had. The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."

Despite his expertise being politics, the administration had made Rove a central player in the handling of the disaster. "A light switch in the White House didn't get turned on without going through Rove," says Adam Sharp, an aide to Landrieu. "It was clear that Rove was the point person for the White House on this disaster."

That fact was proven precisely by what Vitter had done and said at the press conference. "As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials," Landrieu says, "he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.' We weren't going to blame anyone. We weren't going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove."

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.

Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.

Rove and Nagin were communicating through e-mail. "I heard Nagin was bragging about being in touch with The Man," Blanco says. "Nagin took the position that they were the people who could help the most to do what he wanted. People get highly complimented when they have contact with the White House." In this case the trade-off for Nagin was his willingness to cooperate with Rove. "I knew Ray Nagin could be easily manipulated," Landrieu says. "I could feel it. We were all working together in a relatively small building. We were in close proximity. But I could see where Rove was going. Blame Blanco. Blame the levee board. Blame the corruption in New Orleans. 'The reason the city is going underwater is because the city is corrupt,' Rove was saying. 'But don't blame the Republicans or George W. Bush or David Vitter. We are the white guys in shining armor, and we are going to come in and save the city from years of corruption.' That was their story and they sold it very well."

Rove sold the story, as he had in the past, through the media. On Wednesday, while Blanco was trying to get help from the White House, her staff began receiving calls from reporters questioning her handling of the disaster, almost all of them citing as their sources unnamed senior White House officials.

"One story," Blanco aide Mann recalls, "would say the governor was so incompetent she had not even gotten around to declaring a state of emergency when she had actually done so three days before the storm. It was obvious to us who was behind this attack based on inaccurate information that was being shoveled to Washington reporters who were identifying their sources as senior Bush administration officials." Blanco adds, "People at Newsweek told me the White House called them to say I had delayed signing the disaster declaration. The assumption was that their source was the political director -- Karl Rove." Not only was the attack on Blanco in print, it was also on television. "All of a sudden," Blanco says, "a whole lot of talking heads showed up on television repeating the misinformation over and over, making it the truth."

On Wednesday afternoon, Blanco called Bush and told him she needed "everything you've got." Since Bush promised to help, Blanco believed that assistance was arriving in the person of Army lieutenant general Russel Honore, who met with the governor. After a long and cordial discussion, Blanco asked Honore how many troops he had brought with him to Louisiana at the order of the president. "Just a handful of staffers," Blanco heard him say, much to her amazement. "I am here in an advisory capacity."

On Thursday, as New Orleans remained underwater, with countless thousands of people stranded in their homes, on their rooftops, or at the Convention Center or Superdome, there was still no federal help. What continued unabated, though, was the assault on Blanco, questioning her handling of the disaster. "We were in life-and-death mode and every minute counted," Blanco says. "I found my staff having to do public relations in the middle of the most disastrous days Louisiana has ever experienced. The talking heads had been turned on. My staff was saying, 'My God, governor, they are crucifying you politically.' I finally pulled all of my staff together and said, 'We are wasting our energy. We do not have a stable of talking heads. We cannot control the national media. We have lifesaving missions to accomplish, so let's do it.' My staff was upset with me."

Blanco sought out Michael Chertoff. She found him in one of the emergency headquarters trailers. "Turn off the talking heads," she told him point-blank. "People are dying while you people are playing politics. Turn them off." It was Thursday, and so far the FEMA buses had still not arrived to help evacuate people from the Convention Center and Superdome, nor had Bush sent any federal troops, who were desperately needed in the search-and-rescue efforts. Instead of sending help, the administration had come up with a ploy. "I was on a conference call with the White House," Adam Sharp says, "where they were saying: If you want any help, you have to turn over all control of your state to the president. We won't help until you give us control of your National Guard and your law enforcement agencies, until Louisiana becomes a federal territory. They were using this as the excuse for their delaying on the issues. They kept trying to put it on Blanco. But no governor would ever give control of her state to the president."

On Friday, Bush finally traveled south. His first stop was Mobile, Alabama, where he met with Bob Riley, the Republican governor whose associates were engaged in a collaboration with Karl Rove to politically destroy Don Siegelman, the Democratic former governor. During the stop in Mobile, Bush went out of his way to congratulate Michael Brown, saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Bush was willing to make such a public statement in support of Brown, carefully staged in a holding area for a national press corps that included a wall of television cameras.

It was especially perplexing that he would make this statement now because the day before Bush had read a news report, handed to him by an aide, that contained information about events on the ground in New Orleans that Michael Chertoff had not shared with him that very morning in his briefing. Chertoff himself had been briefed by Brown. Worse still, Brown had at first been unaware that 25,000 people had gathered at the Convention Center -- a fact so disturbing that some Republicans had begun to call for his firing, a move Bush seemed unable to make. "Mr. Brown," the New York Times later reported, "had become a symbol of President Bush's own hesitant response."

From Alabama, it was on to Mississippi for Bush. There, he met with an old friend, Haley Barbour, the Republican governor. Significantly, Bush had nothing but praise for Riley and Barbour, neither of whom he asked to consider federalizing their National Guard troops. Finally, Bush traveled to Louisiana, still in the throes of disaster five days into the crisis -- and still receiving no help from the federal government. In New Orleans, Bush met with Nagin and Blanco, along with other officials, aboard Air Force One at the Louis Armstrong international airport. The events aboard Air Force One began with a meeting of several officials, including Landrieu, Vitter, Nagin, and Blanco, as well as selected congressmen and staff members. Rove was onboard, too, "lurking," as Blanco would put it, "around the halls." In the meeting Nagin, extremely agitated, kept insisting, "Do something! Do something!" It was not clear exactly what he wanted done or who he wanted to do it, nor was it evident whether Nagin had any idea that his clandestine e-mail communications with Rove during the week may have contributed to the Bush administration's lack of response. They certainly had not helped. Finally, Bush asked to meet with Blanco alone in his office on Air Force One.

"Kathleen," Bush said in their meeting, which was attended by Joe Hagen from Bush's staff but no one from Blanco's staff -- a fact that troubled Blanco -- "I'm going to need you to sign a waiver that the Louisiana National Guard needs to be turned over to the federal government. I can't take them from you but I'm going to need you to federalize them."

Blanco had no intention of signing a waiver. She was concerned about a variety of legal ramifications that could result from her signing over her National Guard, but her main fear was that, without the leverage Blanco had as a free agent in what had now turned into a protracted negotiation with the administration, she would have no means to force Bush to provide any assistance at all. Blanco told Bush she would not sign a waiver. "You need to give General Honore some soldiers," Blanco told Bush. "Where has the federal government been for five days? If I sign this, it's going to look like I've been wrong."

Bush appeared to be confused by what Blanco was saying.

"Well, I have no intention of turning over my National Guard to you," Blanco said. "Anyway, the evacuation of the Superdome is now well underway and after that we will begin finishing the evacuation of the Convention Center." This was true. While the administration had bickered over politics, Blanco had expanded the size of her National Guard by accepting deployments of guardsmen from all of the other 49 states.

By federalizing her guardsmen, Blanco would have been admitting that it was the state that was unable to handle the disaster, not the federal government. The Bush administration could have argued that they had had to save the day for Blanco because she was not up to the task. However, if Blanco did not take the bait, the scheme was dead. Blanco wondered about Bush's confusion. Was he really confused or just trying to get her to sign the waiver?

It didn't matter. Not only did Blanco refuse to sign, she gave Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster -- troops, buses, supplies, money, and more. It would not be until several days later, when Blanco's aides released the letter to the press and got frantic phone calls from Rove's aide Maggie Grant, that it became clear that Bush had taken the letter Blanco had personally handed to him -- and lost it.

Finally, that day on Air Force One, when it became apparent that Bush would not be able to manipulate Blanco, he ended the meeting. Then, he took a private meeting with Nagin, who had taken his first shower since the storm hit on Air Force One. Afterward, Bush was taken on a tour of the city by helicopter, which included a visit to the 17th Street Canal. Blanco accompanied Bush in his helicopter, along with Nagin. Landrieu, Vitter, and Rove had followed in a second helicopter. Behind them in a third was a pool of reporters from the national press corps.

"We landed at the 17th Street Canal," Landrieu says. "The story that day Karl Rove was feeding was: 'The president is on the job, the president has taken control, the president is going to rebuild, and despite the fact that the government and all these babbling fools down here can't do anything, the Corps of Engineers is on the job.' So we landed at the canal, five minutes from my house. I was so excited because they were finally doing something. The Corps of Engineers was there, and they had dump trucks and sandbags. All the cameras were there for the president, who was doing one of his famous press conferences about how he was going to do everything. So I thought, 'At least the guy is doing something, so show your manners and be good and smile.'"

On Saturday in the Rose Garden, Bush announced the deployment of federal troops to Louisiana -- without the benefit of Blanco signing a waiver. He also tried to backtrack to explain why his administration had botched the rescue effort so badly. "The magnitude," Bush said as Rove and Cheney stood nearby watching, "of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

While Blanco and her aides watched the federal government do little, they completed the rescues of thousands of people stranded at the Convention Center and the Superdome on their own by commandeering buses from around the state and transporting people from downtown New Orleans to various surrounding cities -- using only the National Guard under Blanco's command. When the federal troops finally did start arriving over the weekend, the refugees had been cleared out. The troops made a show for the media, but they were too late. The damage had been done.

After one of the most agonizing weeks in American history, with Bush and his key department secretaries embarrassed on national television, the blame, despite Rove's efforts to the contrary, ended up being placed firmly on the federal government. The administration, not Blanco and the state of Louisiana, took the hit, especially Michael Brown, who became a poster boy for ineptitude and was forced to resign from his job. Following Katrina, Bush's approval rating began to slip even more. "In the middle of the worst disaster in American history," Adam Sharp says, "the president was nowhere to be found and was still clearing brush on the ranch, when the previous iconic image people had of him was standing in the still-smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center 24 hours after the attacks and saying, 'I can hear you.' People were asking, 'Where is that moment here?'"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of all of the stories and subplots, there would be one that, in many ways, symbolized the whole of Katrina, what it revealed about the Bush administration, and how it would affect the lives of so many people. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. "Then, on Saturday," Landrieu says, "George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, 'George, I'm tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what's going on down here.' He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, 'We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I'll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It's awful what's happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can't understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can't get into the Superdome to help. They can't get out. People are drowning in their homes.'

"So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, 'George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can't send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.' So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there -- people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it." There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.

"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."

Copyright © 2008 by Paul Alexander. Reprinted by permission of Modern Times/Rodale Inc. All rights reserved.


-- By Paul Alexander

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/print.html

And Nero played his violen . . .

[strandinthewind]

Hilarious. Where'd you get that one from?

Sean Hannity :laugh:

[ajmccarrell]

Honestly, if you are not going to research anything before stating, this is going to become tedious.

1. I agree New Orleans was a ridiculous welfare state. But, I helped some of those kids get out of that.

2. If you could not get out of the city, you were to go to the Superdome and ride out the storm. This was the plan in place for many a year.

3. I relaize many could have gotten out if they had tried. I am not talking about htem. But, many (some say a majority) of the people who did not leave could not leave. Many were poor and elderly with no family to go to and no transportation to get them there. Many were younger but had no funds to go anywhere.

4. If W had gotten off of his a$$ and Rove had quit trying to wrangle control of the state from Gov. Blanco, help would have arrived at least a day earlier. But, the R's wanted it to be there show. Notice how Haley Barbour, the R gov. of Mississippi, was not asked to give up control of his state before help could be provided. Hmmm - wonder why :rolleyes:

5. That you refer to them as human debris demonstrates a maturity level unfit for my dialogue.

Here is an article demonstrating how Rove played politics while people died. I know people died because I knew some of them. My brother rescued people as well and saw people die. Whatever.

How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
Hurricane Katrina posed a huge test to Bush's administration. But instead of bailing out Louisiana, Karl Rove played Blame the Democrats.
By Paul Alexander

Jun. 06, 2008 | On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. Based on what she had been told by her advisers and what she knew from being a native Louisianan, she understood that Katrina, creeping gradually toward land with sustained winds of a strength rarely seen in a hurricane, could prove to be catastrophic for Louisiana, and particularly for New Orleans.

Over the weekend, Blanco and her staff monitored the storm from an emergency headquarters in Baton Rouge. As the storm was hitting on Monday morning, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, met with the governor and her staff. Brown had arrived in Louisiana the night before, supposedly ready to deal with the disaster. When he got to the headquarters that morning, Brown told Blanco he was prepared to help. "He showed up Monday morning," says Bob Mann, a senior aide to Blanco, "and gave us the feeling we would have everything we wanted and needed. He was nothing if not an effective bull****ter." Specifically, there was talk of FEMA buses. "Michael Brown told me he had 500 buses," Blanco says. "They were staged and ready to roll in."

Meanwhile, as a deadly storm of historic proportions ripped into three Gulf Coast states that Monday, Bush, on a working vacation at his ranch in Crawford, stuck to his schedule for the day. He traveled to Arizona, where he gave a stay-the-course speech about the war in Iraq. He even made himself available for a photo op after the speech, posing with a guitar next to someone wearing a sombrero, seemingly unaware that the Gulf Coast of the United States was in the throes of a horrific natural disaster perhaps unparalleled in the nation's history. For a president who often seemed to care more about developments in Iraq than those at home, here was a singular moment. Never had Bush appeared to be so out of sync, at least when it came to events unfolding in the homeland. To make matters worse, in this case the disaster was not happening on the other side of the world or even the other side of the country, but in a state next door to Texas.

On Tuesday, Bush was still out of touch with what was happening and seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the events unfolding on the Gulf Coast, especially in New Orleans. A major American city had filled up with water, but Bush had not departed from his planned schedule. In Coronado, California, at a naval base near the USS Ronald Reagan, Bush delivered a speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. But Bush used the occasion, as he had repeatedly of late, to give yet another stay-the-course speech about Iraq. On this day, he compared the ongoing military action in Iraq to the allied struggle against German fascism and Japanese imperialism in terms of its moral significance. "The terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century," Bush said. "They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees." It was not terrorists who had brought three states in the American South to their knees, but an act of nature that, judging from his actions on Monday and Tuesday, had not fully engaged the attention of the president.

As it turned out, the federal government's attempts to respond to the storm and flooding appeared frozen by inadequacy and ineptitude. Thousands of people were stranded in their homes, unable to make a better escape than to their rooftops to wave for help and hope emergency personnel in helicopters might rescue them. Tens of thousands of refugees were holed up downtown in the Convention Center and the Superdome, yet FEMA was unable to bring in even food, water, or ice, not to mention buses to evacuate them. Touring the Superdome on Tuesday night, Blanco was disturbed by what she witnessed: in short, no federal assistance whatsoever. All she saw was the Louisiana National Guard and the Louisiana State Police -- certainly not enough of a law enforcement presence to be able to maintain order without additional guardsmen and troops.

If Bush had not seen what was taking place by Tuesday, Karl Rove had. The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."

Despite his expertise being politics, the administration had made Rove a central player in the handling of the disaster. "A light switch in the White House didn't get turned on without going through Rove," says Adam Sharp, an aide to Landrieu. "It was clear that Rove was the point person for the White House on this disaster."

That fact was proven precisely by what Vitter had done and said at the press conference. "As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials," Landrieu says, "he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.' We weren't going to blame anyone. We weren't going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove."

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.

Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.

Rove and Nagin were communicating through e-mail. "I heard Nagin was bragging about being in touch with The Man," Blanco says. "Nagin took the position that they were the people who could help the most to do what he wanted. People get highly complimented when they have contact with the White House." In this case the trade-off for Nagin was his willingness to cooperate with Rove. "I knew Ray Nagin could be easily manipulated," Landrieu says. "I could feel it. We were all working together in a relatively small building. We were in close proximity. But I could see where Rove was going. Blame Blanco. Blame the levee board. Blame the corruption in New Orleans. 'The reason the city is going underwater is because the city is corrupt,' Rove was saying. 'But don't blame the Republicans or George W. Bush or David Vitter. We are the white guys in shining armor, and we are going to come in and save the city from years of corruption.' That was their story and they sold it very well."

Rove sold the story, as he had in the past, through the media. On Wednesday, while Blanco was trying to get help from the White House, her staff began receiving calls from reporters questioning her handling of the disaster, almost all of them citing as their sources unnamed senior White House officials.

"One story," Blanco aide Mann recalls, "would say the governor was so incompetent she had not even gotten around to declaring a state of emergency when she had actually done so three days before the storm. It was obvious to us who was behind this attack based on inaccurate information that was being shoveled to Washington reporters who were identifying their sources as senior Bush administration officials." Blanco adds, "People at Newsweek told me the White House called them to say I had delayed signing the disaster declaration. The assumption was that their source was the political director -- Karl Rove." Not only was the attack on Blanco in print, it was also on television. "All of a sudden," Blanco says, "a whole lot of talking heads showed up on television repeating the misinformation over and over, making it the truth."

On Wednesday afternoon, Blanco called Bush and told him she needed "everything you've got." Since Bush promised to help, Blanco believed that assistance was arriving in the person of Army lieutenant general Russel Honore, who met with the governor. After a long and cordial discussion, Blanco asked Honore how many troops he had brought with him to Louisiana at the order of the president. "Just a handful of staffers," Blanco heard him say, much to her amazement. "I am here in an advisory capacity."

On Thursday, as New Orleans remained underwater, with countless thousands of people stranded in their homes, on their rooftops, or at the Convention Center or Superdome, there was still no federal help. What continued unabated, though, was the assault on Blanco, questioning her handling of the disaster. "We were in life-and-death mode and every minute counted," Blanco says. "I found my staff having to do public relations in the middle of the most disastrous days Louisiana has ever experienced. The talking heads had been turned on. My staff was saying, 'My God, governor, they are crucifying you politically.' I finally pulled all of my staff together and said, 'We are wasting our energy. We do not have a stable of talking heads. We cannot control the national media. We have lifesaving missions to accomplish, so let's do it.' My staff was upset with me."

Blanco sought out Michael Chertoff. She found him in one of the emergency headquarters trailers. "Turn off the talking heads," she told him point-blank. "People are dying while you people are playing politics. Turn them off." It was Thursday, and so far the FEMA buses had still not arrived to help evacuate people from the Convention Center and Superdome, nor had Bush sent any federal troops, who were desperately needed in the search-and-rescue efforts. Instead of sending help, the administration had come up with a ploy. "I was on a conference call with the White House," Adam Sharp says, "where they were saying: If you want any help, you have to turn over all control of your state to the president. We won't help until you give us control of your National Guard and your law enforcement agencies, until Louisiana becomes a federal territory. They were using this as the excuse for their delaying on the issues. They kept trying to put it on Blanco. But no governor would ever give control of her state to the president."

On Friday, Bush finally traveled south. His first stop was Mobile, Alabama, where he met with Bob Riley, the Republican governor whose associates were engaged in a collaboration with Karl Rove to politically destroy Don Siegelman, the Democratic former governor. During the stop in Mobile, Bush went out of his way to congratulate Michael Brown, saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Bush was willing to make such a public statement in support of Brown, carefully staged in a holding area for a national press corps that included a wall of television cameras.

It was especially perplexing that he would make this statement now because the day before Bush had read a news report, handed to him by an aide, that contained information about events on the ground in New Orleans that Michael Chertoff had not shared with him that very morning in his briefing. Chertoff himself had been briefed by Brown. Worse still, Brown had at first been unaware that 25,000 people had gathered at the Convention Center -- a fact so disturbing that some Republicans had begun to call for his firing, a move Bush seemed unable to make. "Mr. Brown," the New York Times later reported, "had become a symbol of President Bush's own hesitant response."

From Alabama, it was on to Mississippi for Bush. There, he met with an old friend, Haley Barbour, the Republican governor. Significantly, Bush had nothing but praise for Riley and Barbour, neither of whom he asked to consider federalizing their National Guard troops. Finally, Bush traveled to Louisiana, still in the throes of disaster five days into the crisis -- and still receiving no help from the federal government. In New Orleans, Bush met with Nagin and Blanco, along with other officials, aboard Air Force One at the Louis Armstrong international airport. The events aboard Air Force One began with a meeting of several officials, including Landrieu, Vitter, Nagin, and Blanco, as well as selected congressmen and staff members. Rove was onboard, too, "lurking," as Blanco would put it, "around the halls." In the meeting Nagin, extremely agitated, kept insisting, "Do something! Do something!" It was not clear exactly what he wanted done or who he wanted to do it, nor was it evident whether Nagin had any idea that his clandestine e-mail communications with Rove during the week may have contributed to the Bush administration's lack of response. They certainly had not helped. Finally, Bush asked to meet with Blanco alone in his office on Air Force One.

"Kathleen," Bush said in their meeting, which was attended by Joe Hagen from Bush's staff but no one from Blanco's staff -- a fact that troubled Blanco -- "I'm going to need you to sign a waiver that the Louisiana National Guard needs to be turned over to the federal government. I can't take them from you but I'm going to need you to federalize them."

Blanco had no intention of signing a waiver. She was concerned about a variety of legal ramifications that could result from her signing over her National Guard, but her main fear was that, without the leverage Blanco had as a free agent in what had now turned into a protracted negotiation with the administration, she would have no means to force Bush to provide any assistance at all. Blanco told Bush she would not sign a waiver. "You need to give General Honore some soldiers," Blanco told Bush. "Where has the federal government been for five days? If I sign this, it's going to look like I've been wrong."

Bush appeared to be confused by what Blanco was saying.

"Well, I have no intention of turning over my National Guard to you," Blanco said. "Anyway, the evacuation of the Superdome is now well underway and after that we will begin finishing the evacuation of the Convention Center." This was true. While the administration had bickered over politics, Blanco had expanded the size of her National Guard by accepting deployments of guardsmen from all of the other 49 states.

By federalizing her guardsmen, Blanco would have been admitting that it was the state that was unable to handle the disaster, not the federal government. The Bush administration could have argued that they had had to save the day for Blanco because she was not up to the task. However, if Blanco did not take the bait, the scheme was dead. Blanco wondered about Bush's confusion. Was he really confused or just trying to get her to sign the waiver?

It didn't matter. Not only did Blanco refuse to sign, she gave Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster -- troops, buses, supplies, money, and more. It would not be until several days later, when Blanco's aides released the letter to the press and got frantic phone calls from Rove's aide Maggie Grant, that it became clear that Bush had taken the letter Blanco had personally handed to him -- and lost it.

Finally, that day on Air Force One, when it became apparent that Bush would not be able to manipulate Blanco, he ended the meeting. Then, he took a private meeting with Nagin, who had taken his first shower since the storm hit on Air Force One. Afterward, Bush was taken on a tour of the city by helicopter, which included a visit to the 17th Street Canal. Blanco accompanied Bush in his helicopter, along with Nagin. Landrieu, Vitter, and Rove had followed in a second helicopter. Behind them in a third was a pool of reporters from the national press corps.

"We landed at the 17th Street Canal," Landrieu says. "The story that day Karl Rove was feeding was: 'The president is on the job, the president has taken control, the president is going to rebuild, and despite the fact that the government and all these babbling fools down here can't do anything, the Corps of Engineers is on the job.' So we landed at the canal, five minutes from my house. I was so excited because they were finally doing something. The Corps of Engineers was there, and they had dump trucks and sandbags. All the cameras were there for the president, who was doing one of his famous press conferences about how he was going to do everything. So I thought, 'At least the guy is doing something, so show your manners and be good and smile.'"

On Saturday in the Rose Garden, Bush announced the deployment of federal troops to Louisiana -- without the benefit of Blanco signing a waiver. He also tried to backtrack to explain why his administration had botched the rescue effort so badly. "The magnitude," Bush said as Rove and Cheney stood nearby watching, "of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

While Blanco and her aides watched the federal government do little, they completed the rescues of thousands of people stranded at the Convention Center and the Superdome on their own by commandeering buses from around the state and transporting people from downtown New Orleans to various surrounding cities -- using only the National Guard under Blanco's command. When the federal troops finally did start arriving over the weekend, the refugees had been cleared out. The troops made a show for the media, but they were too late. The damage had been done.

After one of the most agonizing weeks in American history, with Bush and his key department secretaries embarrassed on national television, the blame, despite Rove's efforts to the contrary, ended up being placed firmly on the federal government. The administration, not Blanco and the state of Louisiana, took the hit, especially Michael Brown, who became a poster boy for ineptitude and was forced to resign from his job. Following Katrina, Bush's approval rating began to slip even more. "In the middle of the worst disaster in American history," Adam Sharp says, "the president was nowhere to be found and was still clearing brush on the ranch, when the previous iconic image people had of him was standing in the still-smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center 24 hours after the attacks and saying, 'I can hear you.' People were asking, 'Where is that moment here?'"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of all of the stories and subplots, there would be one that, in many ways, symbolized the whole of Katrina, what it revealed about the Bush administration, and how it would affect the lives of so many people. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. "Then, on Saturday," Landrieu says, "George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, 'George, I'm tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what's going on down here.' He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, 'We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I'll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It's awful what's happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can't understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can't get into the Superdome to help. They can't get out. People are drowning in their homes.'

"So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, 'George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can't send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.' So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there -- people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it." There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.

"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."

Copyright © 2008 by Paul Alexander. Reprinted by permission of Modern Times/Rodale Inc. All rights reserved.


-- By Paul Alexander

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/print.html

And Nero played his violen . . .

I didn't bother reading the rest, but Nero played a Lyre. The violin was not yet invented.

[ajmccarrell]

Just because some rights are conferred by some states (which the R, not D, party overwhelmingly opposes in every way possible mind you) - that does not make it any better in the long run. That is like asking the cop that is beating you to slow down instead of asking him to stop :shrug: In the end, without Federal protection, gays will continue to be discrimminated against because the current R party uses them as scapegoats. Look at McCain's "gays should never adopt" BS. There is no empirical evidence to support this law no matter how many times McCain says it. So, we see more religious BS.


Gays tend to be economically better off, generall smarter than their counterparts, more successful, etc. If that is discrimination, sign me up! Again, I disagree with McCain here, but it isn't as big an issue as the economic climate with which to raise my own family. Well, marriage by definition is a religious institution. Why are you complaining about it, when in reality you are the one trying to get the Federal government to redefine a religious institution. Why not take marriage out of the hands of government and put in back in churches where it belongs. There is something I can get behind. Even a major Conservative like Fred Thompson agrees with that idea.

[strandinthewind]

I didn't bother reading the rest, but Nero played a Lyre. The violin was not yet invented.

Actually, he played neither http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/rome.htm

I knew that, but was using the image from the allegory to illustrate the lack of care of the current R party.

Once again, you are wrong :rolleyes:

[ajmccarrell]

Actually, I think most hate him because around 5,000 of our soldiers are dead and many times that wounded - and all for a war he lied to get us into. That was all him - no one else, save for Cheney.

A lie involves intent. Bill Clinton, the Russians, the British, and many other countries all believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam said he did his level best to convince everyone that he did. Saddam's own generals believed he had weapons of mass destruction.

Mistake? Yes. Lie? No.

At the beginning of the war, NBC was reporting that 50,000 casualties were possible and likely. We're at a tenth of that. Not that casualties aren't important, but it is quite a feat to march into a country and only lose 5,000 soldiers. My brother-in-law was wounded twice in Iraq and he still believes in the mission. Before she married me, my wife was engaged to a soldier killed by a road-side bomb. She never blamed Bush for that, she blamed the terrorists he was fighting. She was even a democrat then. The point is that most of our soldiers believe in their mission. So, why should you have a bigger problem than they do? Why make the deaths in vain, especially when even your candidate had to back off of his withdrawal stance because of the overwhelming success of the surge? Anything I've heard him suggest, tough sanctions against Iran, diplomatic talks, etc have been tried to death. He said he would withdraw the troops, then bring them back if the killing resumed. Our commanders believe that the killing will get worse when we leave, if we left now. So, how is Obama any better? All you'd get is a much worse situation after he pulls out, then a redeployment to an even bigger mess.

You can't stick your head in the sand and pretend the mess doesn't exist. Again, more racism from the Democratic party; Harry Reid saying that the Iraqi's are not worth a single American life. I'm disgusted.

[ajmccarrell]

I think the reasons behind Affirmative Action have run the course. I do not think anyone under the age of 50 needs to be paid back through a leg up for the wrongs of the past.

I think Affirmative Action should stay in place (with better safeguards) but be based on poverty alone. I think more people are better served that way.

I could possibly agree with that, as long as the protections are only applied when racism is actually found. One thing I do like about Obama is his call to the black community to take responsibility. I think that would help. He obviously took responsibility for his life and he is a good role model for blacks to go to college.

[strandinthewind]

. . . Mistake? Yes. Lie? No. . . .

Do you ever read the newspaper - seriously?

[ajmccarrell]

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Yes. I watched it on the news every night. I don't think there's a single person here who would tell you they weren't glad that clusterfukc was over. There are always going to be consequences.

The quote was taken way out of context. He meant he wouldn't leave until the mission was done. I don't think he was really committing the 100 years and anyone who thinks he actually meant that must believe that people actually kick buckets when they die.

[ajmccarrell]

I wasn't lecturing you. I was trying to tell you to keep an open mind.



Getting a bit defensive are we? Nuremberg was a series of military tribunal trials. Not sure what your point is there.
As far as Kissinger goes, you reap what you sow with that piece of ****. I'm not talking about whatever covet ops he was mixed up in. And I'm sure there were plenty. Show me any one document that says the United States government condones the assasination of any foreign head of state. I submit you cannot.
Also I'd like to get furhter into why the United States did not march into Baghdad in '91. But I'm a bit pressed for time.


My point about Nuremberg was that we did kill a series of leaders from other countries when we had allies with us. Technically, we really had no right to do that under your statement that the US doesn't execute leaders. My point is that the reason why we don't execute foreign leaders right now is by executive order, which I believe was signed by Ford. Any president can void that order and resume killing enemy leaders. I'd be all for it, anyway.

Of course the US isn't officially going to execute or assassinate anyone. We usually subcontract those things out, like with the Saddam execution. We don't admit it, but we do kill enemy leaders.

[ajmccarrell]

He stole the presidency. Is that constitutional?


LOL! Despite more than two independent recounts, you still believe that line? :D

[strandinthewind]

My point about Nuremberg was that we did kill a series of leaders from other countries when we had allies with us. Technically, we really had no right to do that under your statement that the US doesn't execute leaders. My point is that the reason why we don't execute foreign leaders right now is by executive order, which I believe was signed by Ford. Any president can void that order and resume killing enemy leaders. I'd be all for it, anyway.

Of course the US isn't officially going to execute or assassinate anyone. We usually subcontract those things out, like with the Saddam execution. We don't admit it, but we do kill enemy leaders.

Do you ever research anything?

Creation of the courts

At the meetings in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), the three major wartime powers, the United States, Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, agreed on the format of punishment for those responsible for war-crimes during World War II. France was also awarded a place on the tribunal.

The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter, issued on August 8, 1945, which restricted the trial to "punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries". Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany, political authority for Germany had been transferred to the Allied Control Council, which having sovereign power over Germany could choose to punish violations of international law and the laws of war. Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war, it did not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place before the outbreak of war on September 3, 1939.

The war crimes tribunal tried and punished personnel only from Axis countries. Accusations arose claiming victor's justice, since Allied war crimes could not be tried. It is, however, usual that the armed forces of a civilised country issue their forces with detailed guidance on what is and is not permitted under their military code. These are drafted to include any international treaty obligations and the customary laws of war. For example, at the trial of Otto Skorzeny, his defence was in part based on the Field Manual published by the War Department of the United States Army, on 1 October 1940, and the American Soldiers' Handbook. If a member of the armed forces breaks their own military code then they can expect to face a court martial. When members of the Allied armed forces broke their military codes, they could be and were tried, as, for example, at the Biscari Massacre trials. The unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. Usually, international wars end conditionally and the treatment of suspected war criminals makes up part of the peace treaty. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes – as happened to some Finns at the end of the concurrent Finnish-Soviet Continuation War. In restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.

______________________________________________

This painstaking establishment of authority is wildly different than marching on to Bagdad and shooting SH in the head without a trial. That is an assasination, which is not what the N. trials were :shrug:

You do realize you have yet to prove a point in this thread :shrug:

[strandinthewind]

LOL! Despite more than two independent recounts, you still believe that line? :D

Once again (emphasis supplied) :

Results

Protestors surrounded the site of the Palm Beach County recount. The media reported the results of the study during the week after November 12, 2001. The results of the study showed that had the limited county by county recounts requested by the Gore team been completed, Bush would still have been the winner of the election. The recount also showed that had there been a full statewide recount of all counties, Al Gore would have received more votes than Bush. However, neither campaign requested such a total statewide recount, and it was never formally carried out . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount#Results

___________________________________________________

Bless your heart :laugh:

Here's another one:

consortiumnews.com

Gore's Victory

By Robert Parry
November 12, 2001

So Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters -- whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

Gore won even if one doesn’t count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls.

Gore won even if there’s no adjustment for George W. Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida’s voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide. [For more details on studies of the election, see Consortiumnews.com stories of May 12, June 2 and July 16.]

The Spin

Yet, possibly for reasons of “patriotism” in this time of crisis, the news organizations that financed the Florida ballot study structured their stories on the ballot review to indicate that Bush was the legitimate winner, with headlines such as “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush” [Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2001].

Post media critic Howard Kurtz took the spin one cycle further with a story headlined, “George W. Bush, Now More Than Ever,” in which Kurtz ridiculed as “conspiracy theorists” those who thought Gore had won.

“The conspiracy theorists have been out in force, convinced that the media were covering up the Florida election results to protect President Bush,” Kurtz wrote. “That gets put to rest today, with the finding by eight news organizations that Bush would have beaten Gore under both of the recount plans being considered at the time.”

Kurtz also mocked those who believed that winning an election fairly, based on the will of the voters, was important in a democracy. “Now the question is: How many people still care about the election deadlock that last fall felt like the story of the century – and now faintly echoes like some distant Civil War battle?” he wrote.

In other words, the elite media’s judgment is in: "Bush won, get over it." Only "Gore partisans" – as both the Washington Post and the New York Times called critics of the official Florida election tallies – would insist on looking at the fine print.

The Actual Findings

While that was the tone of coverage in these leading news outlets, it’s still a bit jarring to go outside the articles and read the actual results of the statewide review of 175,010 disputed ballots.

“Full Review Favors Gore,” the Washington Post said in a box on page 10, showing that under all standards applied to the ballots, Gore came out on top. The New York Times' graphic revealed the same outcome.

Earlier, less comprehensive ballot studies by the Miami Herald and USA Today had found that Bush and Gore split the four categories of disputed ballots depending on what standard was applied to assessing the ballots – punched-through chads, hanging chads, etc. Bush won under two standards and Gore under two standards.

The new, fuller study found that Gore won regardless of which standard was applied and even when varying county judgments were factored in. Counting fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots, Gore won by 115 votes. With any dimple or optical mark, Gore won by 107 votes. With one corner of a chad detached or any optical mark, Gore won by 60 votes. Applying the standards set by each county, Gore won by 171 votes.

This core finding of Gore’s Florida victory in the unofficial ballot recount might surprise many readers who skimmed only the headlines and the top paragraphs of the articles. The headlines and leads highlighted hypothetical, partial recounts that supposedly favored Bush.

Buried deeper in the stories or referenced in subheads was the fact that the new recount determined that Gore was the winner statewide, even ignoring the “butterfly ballot” and other irregularities that cost him thousands of ballots.

The news organizations opted for the pro-Bush leads by focusing on two partial recounts that were proposed – but not completed – in the chaotic, often ugly environment of last November and December.

The new articles make much of Gore’s decision to seek recounts in only four counties and the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to examine only “undervotes,” those rejected by voting machines for supposedly lacking a presidential vote. A recurring undercurrent in the articles is that Gore was to blame for his defeat, even if he may have actually won the election.

"Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to 'count all the votes,'" the New York Times wrote, with a clear suggestion that Gore was hypocritical as well as foolish.

The Washington Post recalled that Gore "did at one point call on Bush to join him in asking for a statewide recount" and accepting the results without further legal challenge, but that Bush rejected the proposal as "a public relations gesture."

The Bush Strategy

Instead of supporting a full and fair recount, Bush chose to cling to his official lead of 537 votes out of some 6 million cast, Bush counted on his brother Jeb’s state officials to ensure the Bush family’s return to national power.

To add some muscle to the legal maneuvering, the Bush campaign dispatched thugs to Florida to intimidate vote counters and jacked up the decibel level in the powerful conservative media, which accused Gore of trying to steal the election and labeled him "Sore Loserman."

With Bush rejecting a full recount and media pundits calling for Gore to concede, Gore opted for recounts in four southern Florida counties where irregularities seemed greatest. Those recounts were opposed by Bush’s supporters, both inside Gov. Jeb Bush’s administration and in the streets by Republican hooligans flown in from Washington. [For more details, see stories from Nov. 24, 2000 and Nov. 27, 2000]

Stymied on that recount front, Gore carried the fight to the state courts, where pro-Bush forces engaged in more delaying tactics, leaving the Florida Supreme Court only days to fashion a recount remedy.

Finally, on Dec. 8, facing an imminent deadline for submitting the presidential election returns, the state Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount of “undervotes.” This tally would have excluded so-called “overvotes” – which were kicked out for supposedly indicating two choices for president.

Bush fought this court-ordered recount, too, sending his lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, five Republican justices stopped the recount on Dec. 9 and gave a sympathetic hearing to Bush’s claim that the varying ballot standards in Florida violated constitutional equal-protection requirements.

At 10 p.m. on Dec. 12, two hours before a deadline to submit voting results, the Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court instructed the state courts to devise a recount method that would apply equal standards, a move that would have included all ballots where the intent of the voter was clear. The hitch was that the U.S. Supreme Court gave the state only two hours to complete this assignment, effectively handing Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the White House to Republican George W. Bush.

A Third Hypothetical

The articles about the new recount tallies make much of the two hypothetical cases in which Bush supposedly would have prevailed: the limited recounts of the four southern Florida counties – by 225 votes – and the state Supreme Court’s order – by 430 votes. Those hypothetical cases dominated the news stories, while Gore’s statewide-recount victory was played down.

Yet, the newspapers made little or nothing of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision represented a third hypothetical. Assuming that a brief extension were granted to permit a full-and-fair Florida recount, the U.S. Supreme Court decision might well have resulted in the same result that the news organizations discovered: a Gore victory.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s proposed standards mirrored the standards applied in the new recount of the disputed ballots. The Post buries this important fact in the 22nd paragraph of its story.

“Ironically, it was Bush’s lawyers who argued that recounting only the undervotes violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. And the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Dec. 12 ruling that ended the dispute, also questioned whether the Florida court should have limited a statewide recount only to undervotes,” the Post wrote. “Had the high court acted on that, and had there been enough time left for the Florida Supreme Court to require yet another statewide recount, Gore’s chances would have been dramatically improved.”

In other words, if the U.S. Supreme Court had given the state enough time to fashion a comprehensive remedy or if Bush had agreed to a full-and-fair recount earlier, the popular will of the American voters – both nationally and in Florida – might well have been respected. Al Gore might well have been inaugurated president of the United States.

Favored Outcome

But this outcome was not the favored hypothetical of the news organizations, which apparently wanted to avoid questions about their patriotism. If they had simply given the American people the unvarnished facts, the reality that the voters of Florida favored Al Gore might have bolstered the belief that Bush indeed did steal the White House. That, in turn, could have undermined his legitimacy during the current crisis over terrorism.

In its coverage of the latest recount numbers, the national news media also showed little regard for the fundamental principle of democracy: that leaders derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, not from legalistic tricks, physical intimidation and public-relations maneuvers.

It is that understanding that is most missing in the news accounts of the latest recount figures.

Presumably, the American people are supposed to accept that everything just turned out right – the Bush dynasty was restored to power, the proper order was back in place. Anyone who begs to differ is a “conspiracy theorist” or a “Gore partisan.”

[ajmccarrell]

Honestly, if you are not going to research anything before stating, this is going to become tedious.

1. I agree New Orleans was a ridiculous welfare state. But, I helped some of those kids get out of that.

2. If you could not get out of the city, you were to go to the Superdome and ride out the storm. This was the plan in place for many a year.

3. I relaize many could have gotten out if they had tried. I am not talking about htem. But, many (some say a majority) of the people who did not leave could not leave. Many were poor and elderly with no family to go to and no transportation to get them there. Many were younger but had no funds to go anywhere.

4. If W had gotten off of his a$$ and Rove had quit trying to wrangle control of the state from Gov. Blanco, help would have arrived at least a day earlier. But, the R's wanted it to be there show. Notice how Haley Barbour, the R gov. of Mississippi, was not asked to give up control of his state before help could be provided. Hmmm - wonder why :rolleyes:

5. That you refer to them as human debris demonstrates a maturity level unfit for my dialogue.

Here is an article demonstrating how Rove played politics while people died. I know people died because I knew some of them. My brother rescued people as well and saw people die. Whatever.

How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
Hurricane Katrina posed a huge test to Bush's administration. But instead of bailing out Louisiana, Karl Rove played Blame the Democrats.
By Paul Alexander

Jun. 06, 2008 | On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. Based on what she had been told by her advisers and what she knew from being a native Louisianan, she understood that Katrina, creeping gradually toward land with sustained winds of a strength rarely seen in a hurricane, could prove to be catastrophic for Louisiana, and particularly for New Orleans.

Over the weekend, Blanco and her staff monitored the storm from an emergency headquarters in Baton Rouge. As the storm was hitting on Monday morning, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, met with the governor and her staff. Brown had arrived in Louisiana the night before, supposedly ready to deal with the disaster. When he got to the headquarters that morning, Brown told Blanco he was prepared to help. "He showed up Monday morning," says Bob Mann, a senior aide to Blanco, "and gave us the feeling we would have everything we wanted and needed. He was nothing if not an effective bull****ter." Specifically, there was talk of FEMA buses. "Michael Brown told me he had 500 buses," Blanco says. "They were staged and ready to roll in."

Meanwhile, as a deadly storm of historic proportions ripped into three Gulf Coast states that Monday, Bush, on a working vacation at his ranch in Crawford, stuck to his schedule for the day. He traveled to Arizona, where he gave a stay-the-course speech about the war in Iraq. He even made himself available for a photo op after the speech, posing with a guitar next to someone wearing a sombrero, seemingly unaware that the Gulf Coast of the United States was in the throes of a horrific natural disaster perhaps unparalleled in the nation's history. For a president who often seemed to care more about developments in Iraq than those at home, here was a singular moment. Never had Bush appeared to be so out of sync, at least when it came to events unfolding in the homeland. To make matters worse, in this case the disaster was not happening on the other side of the world or even the other side of the country, but in a state next door to Texas.

On Tuesday, Bush was still out of touch with what was happening and seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the events unfolding on the Gulf Coast, especially in New Orleans. A major American city had filled up with water, but Bush had not departed from his planned schedule. In Coronado, California, at a naval base near the USS Ronald Reagan, Bush delivered a speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. But Bush used the occasion, as he had repeatedly of late, to give yet another stay-the-course speech about Iraq. On this day, he compared the ongoing military action in Iraq to the allied struggle against German fascism and Japanese imperialism in terms of its moral significance. "The terrorists of our century are making the same mistake that the followers of other totalitarian ideologies made in the last century," Bush said. "They believe that democracies are inherently weak and corrupt and can be brought to their knees." It was not terrorists who had brought three states in the American South to their knees, but an act of nature that, judging from his actions on Monday and Tuesday, had not fully engaged the attention of the president.

As it turned out, the federal government's attempts to respond to the storm and flooding appeared frozen by inadequacy and ineptitude. Thousands of people were stranded in their homes, unable to make a better escape than to their rooftops to wave for help and hope emergency personnel in helicopters might rescue them. Tens of thousands of refugees were holed up downtown in the Convention Center and the Superdome, yet FEMA was unable to bring in even food, water, or ice, not to mention buses to evacuate them. Touring the Superdome on Tuesday night, Blanco was disturbed by what she witnessed: in short, no federal assistance whatsoever. All she saw was the Louisiana National Guard and the Louisiana State Police -- certainly not enough of a law enforcement presence to be able to maintain order without additional guardsmen and troops.

If Bush had not seen what was taking place by Tuesday, Karl Rove had. The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."

Despite his expertise being politics, the administration had made Rove a central player in the handling of the disaster. "A light switch in the White House didn't get turned on without going through Rove," says Adam Sharp, an aide to Landrieu. "It was clear that Rove was the point person for the White House on this disaster."

That fact was proven precisely by what Vitter had done and said at the press conference. "As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials," Landrieu says, "he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.' We weren't going to blame anyone. We weren't going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove."

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.

Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.

Rove and Nagin were communicating through e-mail. "I heard Nagin was bragging about being in touch with The Man," Blanco says. "Nagin took the position that they were the people who could help the most to do what he wanted. People get highly complimented when they have contact with the White House." In this case the trade-off for Nagin was his willingness to cooperate with Rove. "I knew Ray Nagin could be easily manipulated," Landrieu says. "I could feel it. We were all working together in a relatively small building. We were in close proximity. But I could see where Rove was going. Blame Blanco. Blame the levee board. Blame the corruption in New Orleans. 'The reason the city is going underwater is because the city is corrupt,' Rove was saying. 'But don't blame the Republicans or George W. Bush or David Vitter. We are the white guys in shining armor, and we are going to come in and save the city from years of corruption.' That was their story and they sold it very well."

Rove sold the story, as he had in the past, through the media. On Wednesday, while Blanco was trying to get help from the White House, her staff began receiving calls from reporters questioning her handling of the disaster, almost all of them citing as their sources unnamed senior White House officials.

"One story," Blanco aide Mann recalls, "would say the governor was so incompetent she had not even gotten around to declaring a state of emergency when she had actually done so three days before the storm. It was obvious to us who was behind this attack based on inaccurate information that was being shoveled to Washington reporters who were identifying their sources as senior Bush administration officials." Blanco adds, "People at Newsweek told me the White House called them to say I had delayed signing the disaster declaration. The assumption was that their source was the political director -- Karl Rove." Not only was the attack on Blanco in print, it was also on television. "All of a sudden," Blanco says, "a whole lot of talking heads showed up on television repeating the misinformation over and over, making it the truth."

On Wednesday afternoon, Blanco called Bush and told him she needed "everything you've got." Since Bush promised to help, Blanco believed that assistance was arriving in the person of Army lieutenant general Russel Honore, who met with the governor. After a long and cordial discussion, Blanco asked Honore how many troops he had brought with him to Louisiana at the order of the president. "Just a handful of staffers," Blanco heard him say, much to her amazement. "I am here in an advisory capacity."

On Thursday, as New Orleans remained underwater, with countless thousands of people stranded in their homes, on their rooftops, or at the Convention Center or Superdome, there was still no federal help. What continued unabated, though, was the assault on Blanco, questioning her handling of the disaster. "We were in life-and-death mode and every minute counted," Blanco says. "I found my staff having to do public relations in the middle of the most disastrous days Louisiana has ever experienced. The talking heads had been turned on. My staff was saying, 'My God, governor, they are crucifying you politically.' I finally pulled all of my staff together and said, 'We are wasting our energy. We do not have a stable of talking heads. We cannot control the national media. We have lifesaving missions to accomplish, so let's do it.' My staff was upset with me."

Blanco sought out Michael Chertoff. She found him in one of the emergency headquarters trailers. "Turn off the talking heads," she told him point-blank. "People are dying while you people are playing politics. Turn them off." It was Thursday, and so far the FEMA buses had still not arrived to help evacuate people from the Convention Center and Superdome, nor had Bush sent any federal troops, who were desperately needed in the search-and-rescue efforts. Instead of sending help, the administration had come up with a ploy. "I was on a conference call with the White House," Adam Sharp says, "where they were saying: If you want any help, you have to turn over all control of your state to the president. We won't help until you give us control of your National Guard and your law enforcement agencies, until Louisiana becomes a federal territory. They were using this as the excuse for their delaying on the issues. They kept trying to put it on Blanco. But no governor would ever give control of her state to the president."

On Friday, Bush finally traveled south. His first stop was Mobile, Alabama, where he met with Bob Riley, the Republican governor whose associates were engaged in a collaboration with Karl Rove to politically destroy Don Siegelman, the Democratic former governor. During the stop in Mobile, Bush went out of his way to congratulate Michael Brown, saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Bush was willing to make such a public statement in support of Brown, carefully staged in a holding area for a national press corps that included a wall of television cameras.

It was especially perplexing that he would make this statement now because the day before Bush had read a news report, handed to him by an aide, that contained information about events on the ground in New Orleans that Michael Chertoff had not shared with him that very morning in his briefing. Chertoff himself had been briefed by Brown. Worse still, Brown had at first been unaware that 25,000 people had gathered at the Convention Center -- a fact so disturbing that some Republicans had begun to call for his firing, a move Bush seemed unable to make. "Mr. Brown," the New York Times later reported, "had become a symbol of President Bush's own hesitant response."

From Alabama, it was on to Mississippi for Bush. There, he met with an old friend, Haley Barbour, the Republican governor. Significantly, Bush had nothing but praise for Riley and Barbour, neither of whom he asked to consider federalizing their National Guard troops. Finally, Bush traveled to Louisiana, still in the throes of disaster five days into the crisis -- and still receiving no help from the federal government. In New Orleans, Bush met with Nagin and Blanco, along with other officials, aboard Air Force One at the Louis Armstrong international airport. The events aboard Air Force One began with a meeting of several officials, including Landrieu, Vitter, Nagin, and Blanco, as well as selected congressmen and staff members. Rove was onboard, too, "lurking," as Blanco would put it, "around the halls." In the meeting Nagin, extremely agitated, kept insisting, "Do something! Do something!" It was not clear exactly what he wanted done or who he wanted to do it, nor was it evident whether Nagin had any idea that his clandestine e-mail communications with Rove during the week may have contributed to the Bush administration's lack of response. They certainly had not helped. Finally, Bush asked to meet with Blanco alone in his office on Air Force One.

"Kathleen," Bush said in their meeting, which was attended by Joe Hagen from Bush's staff but no one from Blanco's staff -- a fact that troubled Blanco -- "I'm going to need you to sign a waiver that the Louisiana National Guard needs to be turned over to the federal government. I can't take them from you but I'm going to need you to federalize them."

Blanco had no intention of signing a waiver. She was concerned about a variety of legal ramifications that could result from her signing over her National Guard, but her main fear was that, without the leverage Blanco had as a free agent in what had now turned into a protracted negotiation with the administration, she would have no means to force Bush to provide any assistance at all. Blanco told Bush she would not sign a waiver. "You need to give General Honore some soldiers," Blanco told Bush. "Where has the federal government been for five days? If I sign this, it's going to look like I've been wrong."

Bush appeared to be confused by what Blanco was saying.

"Well, I have no intention of turning over my National Guard to you," Blanco said. "Anyway, the evacuation of the Superdome is now well underway and after that we will begin finishing the evacuation of the Convention Center." This was true. While the administration had bickered over politics, Blanco had expanded the size of her National Guard by accepting deployments of guardsmen from all of the other 49 states.

By federalizing her guardsmen, Blanco would have been admitting that it was the state that was unable to handle the disaster, not the federal government. The Bush administration could have argued that they had had to save the day for Blanco because she was not up to the task. However, if Blanco did not take the bait, the scheme was dead. Blanco wondered about Bush's confusion. Was he really confused or just trying to get her to sign the waiver?

It didn't matter. Not only did Blanco refuse to sign, she gave Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster -- troops, buses, supplies, money, and more. It would not be until several days later, when Blanco's aides released the letter to the press and got frantic phone calls from Rove's aide Maggie Grant, that it became clear that Bush had taken the letter Blanco had personally handed to him -- and lost it.

Finally, that day on Air Force One, when it became apparent that Bush would not be able to manipulate Blanco, he ended the meeting. Then, he took a private meeting with Nagin, who had taken his first shower since the storm hit on Air Force One. Afterward, Bush was taken on a tour of the city by helicopter, which included a visit to the 17th Street Canal. Blanco accompanied Bush in his helicopter, along with Nagin. Landrieu, Vitter, and Rove had followed in a second helicopter. Behind them in a third was a pool of reporters from the national press corps.

"We landed at the 17th Street Canal," Landrieu says. "The story that day Karl Rove was feeding was: 'The president is on the job, the president has taken control, the president is going to rebuild, and despite the fact that the government and all these babbling fools down here can't do anything, the Corps of Engineers is on the job.' So we landed at the canal, five minutes from my house. I was so excited because they were finally doing something. The Corps of Engineers was there, and they had dump trucks and sandbags. All the cameras were there for the president, who was doing one of his famous press conferences about how he was going to do everything. So I thought, 'At least the guy is doing something, so show your manners and be good and smile.'"

On Saturday in the Rose Garden, Bush announced the deployment of federal troops to Louisiana -- without the benefit of Blanco signing a waiver. He also tried to backtrack to explain why his administration had botched the rescue effort so badly. "The magnitude," Bush said as Rove and Cheney stood nearby watching, "of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

While Blanco and her aides watched the federal government do little, they completed the rescues of thousands of people stranded at the Convention Center and the Superdome on their own by commandeering buses from around the state and transporting people from downtown New Orleans to various surrounding cities -- using only the National Guard under Blanco's command. When the federal troops finally did start arriving over the weekend, the refugees had been cleared out. The troops made a show for the media, but they were too late. The damage had been done.

After one of the most agonizing weeks in American history, with Bush and his key department secretaries embarrassed on national television, the blame, despite Rove's efforts to the contrary, ended up being placed firmly on the federal government. The administration, not Blanco and the state of Louisiana, took the hit, especially Michael Brown, who became a poster boy for ineptitude and was forced to resign from his job. Following Katrina, Bush's approval rating began to slip even more. "In the middle of the worst disaster in American history," Adam Sharp says, "the president was nowhere to be found and was still clearing brush on the ranch, when the previous iconic image people had of him was standing in the still-smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center 24 hours after the attacks and saying, 'I can hear you.' People were asking, 'Where is that moment here?'"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Of all of the stories and subplots, there would be one that, in many ways, symbolized the whole of Katrina, what it revealed about the Bush administration, and how it would affect the lives of so many people. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. "Then, on Saturday," Landrieu says, "George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, 'George, I'm tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what's going on down here.' He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, 'We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I'll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It's awful what's happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can't understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can't get into the Superdome to help. They can't get out. People are drowning in their homes.'

"So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, 'George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can't send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.' So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there -- people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it." There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.

"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."

Copyright © 2008 by Paul Alexander. Reprinted by permission of Modern Times/Rodale Inc. All rights reserved.


-- By Paul Alexander

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/print.html

And Nero played his violen . . .

Bottom line is that the Federal government is not a first responder. Ray Nagin totally failed in his duties to execute his own evacuation plan to mobilize the school buses to pick up those with no transportation. If someone doesn't have transportation, unless you are disabled, you chose not to have it. Period. You live in a city underwater, plan for a breach?! It's not like no one knew what would happen!

As far as your lefty article goes, why not go a step further and say Rove used dynamite to blow up the levy? If people died, Ray Nagin needs to take the blame first, followed by the governor. Bush called her two days prior to the hurricane and asked her if she needed federal assistance. She said no and continued to do so. If she didn't sign a waiver, she was remiss in not doing so. As far as the people being human debris, an audit of the funds given to survivors revealed money used for strippers, drugs, prostitutes, a sex change operation, a divorce, season football tickets, vacations, and God only knows what else. Does that sound like a bunch of boy-scouts? No, I didn't think so.

This is, of course, more racism. A flood hit Minnesota and caused severe damage as well. There was no news coverage of it, probably because the population was white and largely took care of the problems themselves. White people in distress don't need coverage. I got very sick of watching the news devote time to the people who were sitting tearfully in their easychairs on the sidewalk staring at debris day after day, not doing anything themselves to clean it up, while waiting for FEMA to come and do it for them. The sycophantic media sucking up to make people victims disgusts me. This is the same as the fish hatcheries. People will not do for themselves when they think someone else will do it.

Hey, all of this could have been handled better. However, spread the blame around. People forget that there is a such thing as local government that IS the first responder. FEMA always takes two days to arrive, regardless of what your race is. Sorry Kanye.

[strandinthewind]

^^^

Once again, you are incorrect. W declared it a National Disaster area prior to the storm hitting. Moreover, FEMA is a first respionder. Do you ever look anything up?

But, just answer this -- why did Rove and W ask Blanco to give up control of the state, but did not ask the R Gov. of Miss.?

I think we all know why.

But, as usual, you do not answer the point and instead start talking about other mildly related issues (yes Nagin and Blanco are to blame for other reasons) in an attempt to make the R's look good.

[gldstwmn]

A flood hit Minnesota and caused severe damage as well. There was no news coverage of it, probably because the population was white and largely took care of the problems themselves.

This is bull**** straight out of a rightwing email that circulated in the days after Katrina.

[strandinthewind]

This is bull**** straight out of a rightwing email that circulated in the days after Katrina.

Again, I think we have a Hannity worshipper :eek:

[gldstwmn]

Again, I think we have a Hannity worshipper :eek:

Or someone is on the wrong mailing list. :shrug: :lol:

[strandinthewind]

Or someone is on the wrong mailing list. :shrug: :lol:

It just amazes me that when you show someone the facts, they refuse to see them and then start talking about other people's similar culpability in an attempt to ignore the facts and that they were wrong.

The New Orleans example is a good one. Yes, Nagin and Blanco made huge errors. But, FEMA's was the worst. Moreover, they created stage props and then took them down. How fukced up is that and, to me, that is far worse than any BS Blanco and Nagin did. And, sa what you want about Nagin and his faults, but that man stayed in that city and did everything he could to solve those problems, as opposed to a photo op in front of a staged work scene, which was soon removed :shrug: Finally, "YOU'RE DOIN A HECK OF JOB BROWNIE" -- need more be said?

[iamnotafraid]

It just amazes me that when you show someone the facts, they refuse to see them and then start talking about other people's similar culpability in an attempt to ignore the facts and that they were wrong.

The New Orleans example is a good one. Yes, Nagin and Blanco made huge errors. But, FEMA's was the worst.

What amazes me is that we AMERICANS expect a bailout. I live along the Gulf Coast and no person or government agency could begin to measure the scope of such a disaster as some of the hurricanes we've had. FEMA is not perfect, but they did and still are helping. They helped my family and friends. Are things back to normal..............NO!!!!!!!! But with time it will be.

Some people love to lay the blaim at President Bush's feet, that is insane. And so is blaming FEMA. Mistakes were made, but most people are playing the Monday morning quarterback game.

I'll stop my little rant by just saying that we should appreciate how much our citizens and Government helps.

[gldstwmn]

It's the governement's duty to rebuild the infrastructure. Had the levees not been in such a state of disrepair, things might not have been this bad. NOLA survived the hurricane. The failure of the levees is what did the town in. Bush was playing guitar at a photo op and having birthday cake while all this went down. Don't you think he ought to have had his priorities straight?

[ajmccarrell]

It just amazes me that when you show someone the facts, they refuse to see them and then start talking about other people's similar culpability in an attempt to ignore the facts and that they were wrong.

The New Orleans example is a good one. Yes, Nagin and Blanco made huge errors. But, FEMA's was the worst. Moreover, they created stage props and then took them down. How fukced up is that and, to me, that is far worse than any BS Blanco and Nagin did. And, sa what you want about Nagin and his faults, but that man stayed in that city and did everything he could to solve those problems, as opposed to a photo op in front of a staged work scene, which was soon removed :shrug: Finally, "YOU'RE DOIN A HECK OF JOB BROWNIE" -- need more be said?

You didn't understand what I said. FEMA is a federal department. FEMA is not a first responder, therefore they are not culpable for most of what you think. That covers Blanco and Nagin. They did not respond appropriately and Blanco TURNED DOWN Bush's offer for aid. People are frankly lucky to get anything FEMA gives them. You missed the whole point of what I said because you don't understand what FEMA's role is. I ignored the article from the lefty press entirely. I skimmed through parts of it and it appeared to be a smear job and not a piece of reliable journalism. Why respond to something like that?

[ajmccarrell]

It's the governement's duty to rebuild the infrastructure. Had the levees not been in such a state of disrepair, things might not have been this bad. NOLA survived the hurricane. The failure of the levees is what did the town in. Bush was playing guitar at a photo op and having birthday cake while all this went down. Don't you think he ought to have had his priorities straight?

It is the LOCAL government's job to rebuild infrastructure. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS!! This is what I mean, you people don't understand basic civics of separation of federal and state functions. (shakes head in disgust)

Bush's job is to run the Federal government, not play babysitter to an incompetent governor and a negligent mayor. It is not the federal government's job to clean up local state disasters. The Federal government's job, according to the constitution, is to run the military, run the post office, and preside over matters of taxation and interstate commerce. Solving problems at a local level is not part of the federal government's duties. Bush gets all the blame, when cleaning up the city isn't even his job. The people of New Orleans were damn lucky to get anything at all from the feds.

[ajmccarrell]

Or someone is on the wrong mailing list. :shrug: :lol:

I dislike Sean Hannity intensely, as well as Bill O'Reilly. I think both of them tend to just say stuff without thinking about what it really means. I'm a Michael Medved fan myself. Glen Beck too.

[ajmccarrell]

^^^

Once again, you are incorrect. W declared it a National Disaster area prior to the storm hitting. Moreover, FEMA is a first respionder. Do you ever look anything up?

But, just answer this -- why did Rove and W ask Blanco to give up control of the state, but did not ask the R Gov. of Miss.?

I think we all know why.

But, as usual, you do not answer the point and instead start talking about other mildly related issues (yes Nagin and Blanco are to blame for other reasons) in an attempt to make the R's look good.


I already stated that he had asked the governor and she declined. Do you actually read what I say?

[ajmccarrell]

^^^

Once again, you are incorrect. W declared it a National Disaster area prior to the storm hitting. Moreover, FEMA is a first respionder. Do you ever look anything up?

But, just answer this -- why did Rove and W ask Blanco to give up control of the state, but did not ask the R Gov. of Miss.?

I think we all know why.

But, as usual, you do not answer the point and instead start talking about other mildly related issues (yes Nagin and Blanco are to blame for other reasons) in an attempt to make the R's look good.

Again, Bush did ask her and she turned him down and lied about it later to cover her butt. I heard the taped call that was released.

Here's something from FEMA. Under Brown, FEMA was not a first responder. Check it out: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470

It says they train first responders. I'll ask your own question, do you ever look anything up? :laugh:

[ajmccarrell]

This is bull**** straight out of a rightwing email that circulated in the days after Katrina.

If it was, I never saw it. I tend to ignore chain emails because they're usually wrong.

You have to admit that the Katrina coverage was way over the top because of race. It was mostly minorities that were displaced. We heard about it for a year afterwards, if not more. How many Oprah episodes were devoted to it? We just had worse flooding all over the mid-west and more white people were displaced, but they've already stopped covering it. Not one Oprah episode about it. The media is racist, as is Oprah. I liked a comment the Family Guy made about the coverage, their newscaster commented "8 months after a Katrina, a man's socks are now dry" or something to that effect.

There's an old joke. God tells the major news outlets that the world is ending. Talk radio reports that liberal immorality left God no choice, left wing radio reports that it's all Bush's fault. The mainstream media reports: "World Ending: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit" Given the level of thinking skills around here, it may take you a minute to get that last line.

[gldstwmn]

It is the LOCAL government's job to rebuild infrastructure. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS!! This is what I mean, you people don't understand basic civics of separation of federal and state functions. (shakes head in disgust)

Bush's job is to run the Federal government, not play babysitter to an incompetent governor and a negligent mayor. It is not the federal government's job to clean up local state disasters. The Federal government's job, according to the constitution, is to run the military, run the post office, and preside over matters of taxation and interstate commerce. Solving problems at a local level is not part of the federal government's duties. Bush gets all the blame, when cleaning up the city isn't even his job. The people of New Orleans were damn lucky to get anything at all from the feds.

I thought you might say as much. The Army Corps of Engineers is both federal and military, wouldn't you say?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

In Louisiana, the federal flood protection system in New Orleans failed in more than fifty places. Nearly every levee in metro New Orleans breached as Hurricane Katrina passed east of the city, subsequently flooding 80% of the city and many areas of neighboring parishes for weeks.

At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. The storm is estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion (2005 U.S. dollars) in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The catastrophic failure of the flood protection in New Orleans prompted immediate review of the Army Corps of Engineers, which has, by congressional mandate, sole responsibility for design and construction of the flood protection and levee system.


Thanks for playing. :wavey:

[iamnotafraid]

It's the governement's duty to rebuild the infrastructure. Had the levees not been in such a state of disrepair, things might not have been this bad. NOLA survived the hurricane. The failure of the levees is what did the town in. Bush was playing guitar at a photo op and having birthday cake while all this went down. Don't you think he ought to have had his priorities straight?

The levees should have been improved, but again why blame President Bush? Weren't they under a state of disrepair under many other administrations? And what about the local government, who would know better than them?

Again I live on the coast, we never know where the hurricanes are going to hit until the last hour.

I imagine that if a very powerful earthquake were to happen in California ( I pray not) how much blame would President Bush get for that? We all are in some kind of danger zone, whether it's tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and even fires. We all make our choice where to live and I don't think our President or FEMA decides that for us.

[BombaySapphire3]

The levees should have been improved, but again why blame President Bush? Weren't they under a state of disrepair under many other administrations? And what about the local government, who would know better than them?

Again I live on the coast, we never know where the hurricanes are going to hit until the last hour.

I imagine that if a very powerful earthquake were to happen in California ( I pray not) how much blame would President Bush get for that? We all are in some kind of danger zone, whether it's tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and even fires. We all make our choice where to live and I don't think our President or FEMA decides that for us.
Ok so let's theoretically give the Chimp a pass on his and Brownie's lame response to Katrina .What about the 5,000 American troops who's lives he has cost in Iraqi not to mention the untold thousands of innocent civilians lives there after he mislead and duped many (but not all of us) into a war that should have never been.

[iamnotafraid]

Ok so let's theoretically give the Chimp a pass on his and Brownie's lame response to Katrina .What about the 5,000 American troops who's lives he has cost in Iraqi not to mention the untold thousands of innocent civilians lives there after he mislead and duped many (but not all of us) into a war that should have never been.

The chimp, what a nice name you have for our President. Most liberals like to say how dumb he is, but then at the same time he is this evil genious that duped the whole world. President Bush and the Republicans must be some kind of modern day Jedi's.

What war has not cost us greatly in troops and innocent civilians? And now that the tide has turned even Obama is changing his tune. And what bothers me most is that some Democrats actually want the war to fail just so they will have a better chance at getting into the White House.

[LukeA]

We just had worse flooding all over the mid-west and more white people were displaced, but they've already stopped covering it.

Since when did the floods kill 1300+ people and cause $86 Billion in damage?

Yeah, that's why we're not still talking about it.

[strandinthewind]

What amazes me is that we AMERICANS expect a bailout. I live along the Gulf Coast and no person or government agency could begin to measure the scope of such a disaster as some of the hurricanes we've had. FEMA is not perfect, but they did and still are helping. They helped my family and friends. Are things back to normal..............NO!!!!!!!! But with time it will be.

Some people love to lay the blaim at President Bush's feet, that is insane. And so is blaming FEMA. Mistakes were made, but most people are playing the Monday morning quarterback game.

I'll stop my little rant by just saying that we should appreciate how much our citizens and Government helps.

I agree with you that we are responsible for ourselves. Many of my friends helped each other with the sandbags, moving of furniture upstairs, transportation out of the city, etc. So, I think the vast majority of people did help themselves. But, and again, what is the 80 year old poor and sick woman with no family and no money to go anywhere going to do?

Having said that, government, FEMA in particular, has taken on that role. They are the ones who provide disaster relief. They did not do so in a timely manner in the case of Katrina despite advance warning. That is a proven fact - just look at that article I posted earlier that contains that quote from Michael Brown to Gov. Blanco, that was a lie - not to mention W's declaration of NOLA as a Fed. Disater Area PRIOR to the storm. Then the machinery for the photo ops only and the manipulation of Blanco by Rove -- all while people were dying and in misery. Why is not okay to fault them? I mean if FEMA could bring in the calvary when it did, why couldn't it have done it earlier with just a little preparation, despite the bad acts of Blanco and Nagin, which were many? These are legitimate questions, esp. when the head of FEMA is telling you not to worry.

As for playing the "Monday morning quarterback game" - I remember flying back from Alaska on that Sat. and seeing the storm from the plane (it was that large) -- I remember thinking along the lines of "the govt. better have their shiitte in gear for this one." Sadly, all three did not. However, that W and his cronies played politics on Louisiana (D) but not in Mississippi (R) and that it took FEMA days when it should have and could have taken hours because they were well warned (W declared it an emergency area prior to the storm :shrug: ) -- speaks volumes (read that CNN article about Brown attitude and emails - - it speaks volumes and that Brown treated it as a thing to joke about) . Also, FEMA actually turned away trailers full of water from large stores like Wal Mart because they were waiting to go in en masse. How fukced up is that esp. considering the sheer amount of water available -- it would have been enough for everyone? Then, W had the effrontery to try to spin it by saying "YOU'RE DOIN A HECK OF JOB BROWNIE" when he damn well knew that was not the case. How can you defend that?

Should we be appreciative of the govt.? Yes, we should. In fact, for the most part and though some mistakes have been made, the Feds have been very efficient post Katrina. And, the actions of the Coast Guard and all the other immediate service providers in NOLA and the Gulf Coast was great. The Coast Guard began airlifting people out almost immediately -- KUDOS to them! But, not to cry foul and hold those accountable for the death and misery (even of the "human debris" as the unlearned and mostly bigoted neophyte put it) that could have been prevented with any timely action whatsoever is irresponsible. Mind you, I think if you (generally) could have gotten out and did not, you have no room to bitch about the govt. for any of you misery. In fact, I blame you for the deaths of the people you may have caused by making the Coast Guard waste time by air lifting your able body from your home. You caused that alone and you should be ashamed of yourself. So, I am not all about blaming the govt. I am just pointing out that W and his cronies made a mess of it and the R's are trying to spin it into no blame for them. For goodness sake, Michael Brown was in Baton Rouge having long lunches (unbothered by pesky phone calls) and discussing how his wardrobe read on camera apparently oblivious to the people dying or about to die less than 100 miles away. That was why he was in Louisiana in the first place :shrug:

Again, I am all for blaming Blanco and Nagin as well. But the level of fraud and disconcern by W and his cronies is far more jarring.

[strandinthewind]

You didn't understand what I said. FEMA is a federal department. FEMA is not a first responder, therefore they are not culpable for most of what you think. That covers Blanco and Nagin. They did not respond appropriately and Blanco TURNED DOWN Bush's offer for aid. People are frankly lucky to get anything FEMA gives them. You missed the whole point of what I said because you don't understand what FEMA's role is. I ignored the article from the lefty press entirely. I skimmed through parts of it and it appeared to be a smear job and not a piece of reliable journalism. Why respond to something like that?

When exactly did Blanco turn down the aid. Rather, she requested it in writing and Michael Brown promised it to her prior to the storm.

Also, the city and state officials did respond first. That is not the issue. The issue is (and pay attention) why was Brown so alloof and why did it take FEMA days to respond when Brown had promised immediate reponse and FEMA knew the worst was coming before the storm hit.

Here is the level of attentiveness of Brown -- note these are direct quotes from him (emphasis supplied and links to the actual emails added).

'Can I quit now?' FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged

E-mails give insight into Brown's leadership, attitude

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Louisiana congressman says e-mails written by the government's emergency response chief as Hurricane Katrina raged show a lack of concern for the unfolding tragedy and a failure in leadership.

Rep. Charlie Melancon, whose district south of New Orleans was devastated by the hurricane, posted a sampling of e-mails written by Federal Emergency Management chief Michael Brown on his Web site on Wednesday.

The Democratic lawmaker cited several e-mails that he said show Brown's failures. In one, as employees looked for direction and support on the ravaged Gulf Coast, Brown offered to "tweak" the federal response.

Two days after Katrina hit, Marty Bahamonde, one of the only FEMA employees in New Orleans, wrote to Brown that "the situation is past critical" and listed problems including many people near death and food and water running out at the Superdome.

Brown's entire response was: "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" (http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/images/11/03/brown.emails.pdf)

On September 12 Brown resigned, 10 days after President Bush told him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Brown is still on the federal payroll at his $148,000 annual salary. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, saying Brown's expertise was needed as he investigated what went wrong, agreed to a 30-day extension when Brown resigned. Chertoff renewed that extension in mid-October.

Brown took over FEMA in 2003 with little experience in emergency management. He joined the agency in 2001 as legal counsel to his friend, then-FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who was Bush's 2000 campaign manager. When Allbaugh left FEMA in 2003 Brown assumed the top job.

Before joining the Bush administration, Brown spent a decade as the stewards and judges commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

The e-mails Melancon posted, a sampling of more than 1,000 provided to the House committee now assessing responses to Katrina by all levels of government, also show Brown making flippant remarks about his responsibilities.

"Can I quit now? Can I come home?" Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane.

A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now, please rescue me."

"In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics," including "problems finding a dog-sitter," Melancon said.

Melancon said that on August 26, just days before Katrina made landfall, Brown e-mailed his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?"

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."

On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Taylor, Melancon said. She told him, "You look fabulous," and Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?"

An hour later, Brown added: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god," according to the congressman.

The e-mails came from Chertoff, who oversees FEMA, following a request by Melancon and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Virginia, chairman of a House committee appointed to investigate what went wrong during Katrina, Melancon said.

Brown resigned amid accusations that FEMA acted too slowly after Katrina hammered Louisiana and Mississippi, killing more than 1,200 people. He defended the government's response and blamed leaders in Louisiana for failing to act quickly as the hurricane approached.

He acknowledged he made some mistakes as FEMA's director, but he stressed that the agency "is not a first responder," insisting that role belonged to state and local officials.

Brown could not be reached for comment Wednesday night on the e-mails and Melancon's charges.

Although Chertoff has not turned over all the documents requested by the committee, Melancon charged that the material received so far contradicts testimony by Brown before the committee in which he described himself as an effective leader.

Melancon used an e-mail sent September 2, four days after the hurricane hit, to illustrate his point. On that day, Brown received a message with the subject "medical help." At the time, thousands of patients were being transported to the New Orleans airport, which had been converted to a makeshift hospital. Because of a lack of ventilators, medical personnel had to ventilate patients by hand for as long as 35 hours, according to Melancon.

The text of the e-mail reads: "Mike, Mickey and other medical equipment people have a 42-foot trailer full of beds, wheelchairs, oxygen concentrators, etc. They are wanting to take them where they can be used but need direction.

"Mickey specializes in ventilator patients so can be very helpful with acute care patients. If you could have someone contact him and let him know if he can be of service, he would appreciate it. Know you are busy but they really want to help."

Melancon said Brown didn't respond for four days, when he forwarded the original e-mail to FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler and Deputy Director of Response Michael Lowder.

The text of Brown's e-mail to them read: "Can we use these people?"

Melancon also charged that few of the e-mails from Brown show him assigning specific tasks to employees or responding to pressing problems.

On September 1, FEMA officials exchanged e-mails reporting severe shortages of ice and water in Mississippi. They were to receive 60 trucks of ice and 26 trucks of water the next day, even though they needed 450 trucks of each.

Robert Fenton, a FEMA regional response official, predicted "serious riots" if insufficient supplies arrive.

Brown was forwarded the series of e-mails about the problem, but no response from him is shown in the e-mails provided to the committee, Melancon said.

Katrina came ashore along the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, after being downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 storm. It flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. It was followed about a month later by Hurricane Rita, which caused more damage and flooding.

Melancon and several other Democrats from districts directly affected by Katrina were invited to participate as a ex-officio members of the Katrina investigative committee, though they have no formal role. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi refused to appoint any Democrats to the panel after GOP leaders rebuffed Democratic demands for an independent probe.

This is the second time a congressional committee had dealt with e-mails relating to FEMA's Katrina response. A complete transcript of Brown's e-mail traffic during the Katrina crisis has not been released by the Department of Homeland Security.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/03/brown.fema.emails

_____________________________________________________________________

Finally, your ignorance and lack of wanting to do anything about along with your unwillingness to acknowledge facts and instead spinning it to some other equally culpable D is tedious at best.

[strandinthewind]

The chimp, what a nice name you have for our President. Most liberals like to say how dumb he is, but then at the same time he is this evil genious that duped the whole world. President Bush and the Republicans must be some kind of modern day Jedi's.

What war has not cost us greatly in troops and innocent civilians? And now that the tide has turned even Obama is changing his tune. And what bothers me most is that some Democrats actually want the war to fail just so they will have a better chance at getting into the White House.

I think W is not really an idiot. I think he is just the mouthpeice and is mostly disinterested. Look at the vast failures in his life. Every company he has touched has failed :shrug: I think Cheney is the one pulling the strings and the facts mostly support that.

But, the point is W lied about the exigent threat to scare us into wanting to go to war with Iraq (yellow cake anyone) -- now our troops are dead when they did not have to be. How does that not piss you off instead of making you apparently blindly defend the man who lied and caused their deaths by spinning it to some BS about the D's wanting the US to fail.

If he were your employee and he made this huge "mistake" that cost your company its solvency and then continued to lie to you about it when you knew he was lying, would you fire him, esp. considering he never succeeded in pretty much anything else he did while working for you?

Also, if you look back a few pages, I posted some facts about how the whole Obama is changing his tune is BS made up by the press. He has been consistent.

But, I am curious, when do you think we get out of Iraq? Ignoring the rhetoric and looking at the facts -- the surge has worked pretty well. So, when is it time to declare victory (we met the goals of toppling SH and est. a "free" Iraqi Govt. years ago) -- and begin to let the Iraqi's pay for and take care of themselves -- and get our troops out? I submit that if Bush or Cheney said that exact sentence, you'd be for it :shrug:

Also, where is all the Iraqi oil money that W and his administration promised us would pay for this liberation?

In the end, many people have defected from the Bush camp and told of the lies and manipulation of the American public. Many others in politics, but pretty apolitical like Greenspan, tell a similar story http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/17/iraq.oil -- then, there are the articles about W and his cronies plans for the Iraqi oil just weeks into office http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2007/0925oilgrab.htm

Are they all incorrect and only W and Cheney are correct?

Finally, there is the whole other issue of W ignored the head of counter terrorism's direct warnings about Al-Q, not Iraq, being the threat. Then, Al-Q attacks us on 9/11 and instead of going after Bin Laden balls out -- W invades Afganistan, but, like everything elase in his ADD Presidency, drops the ball and again focuses on not just inspecting (which I and the world through the UN agreed with) -- but invading Iraq, which was then a relatively minor and mostly contained player on the world's terrorism stage by then. There was no exigent need to invade Iraq, esp. while the trail to Bin laden was still warm in Afganistan. Remember, Al-Q (the ones who attacked us) had little to no presence in Iraq until until after we invaded Iraq. These were calculated moves designed to prey on a trigger happy American public and they were wrong and have cost us dearly. Can you not see that?

[strandinthewind]

Since when did the floods kill 1300+ people and cause $86 Billion in damage?

Yeah, that's why we're not still talking about it.

Exactly :shrug:

[strandinthewind]

Here is one about FEMA --

FEMA Faces Intense Scrutiny

For the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose mission is "lead America to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of 'A Nation Prepared,'" Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent flooding that devastated New Orleans in August 2005, has posed the greatest challenge and evoked some of the harshest criticism the agency has ever faced.

Created by President Carter in 1979, elevated to Cabinet level in 1993, and incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, FEMA is charged with guiding the federal response to the nation's disasters -- both natural and man-made.

The agency manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration as well as helps prepare state and local emergency managers by providing first responder and emergency preparedness training. The Department of Homeland Security channels funding to federal operations and provides grants to state and local agencies.

FEMA defers to state and local emergency teams to handle disasters at their level. If a city cannot respond, the county or the state provides help. If the state lacks the resources, the federal government responds, but only at the request of the governor and on the recommendation of the region's FEMA director.

In order to tap into FEMA resources, the state's governor must submit a letter to the president requesting to formally invoke the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. In the letter, the governor estimates what resources would be necessary to assist state and local crews responding to the situation.

The governor's request doesn't go directly to the president; instead, the regional FEMA director makes recommendations to the undersecretary of emergency preparedness and response, also known as the director of FEMA. The undersecretary then makes recommendations to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, who then briefs the president on the situation.

"It's always the state's call. The state tells what kind of help they need. We don't come in and take over," said Philip Clark, spokesman for FEMA's Region III which includes Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. "The Congress assumes responsibility begins at the local level and moves up. Congress didn't mean for FEMA to come in to every disaster."

If the president approves a federal response, he has the power to provide the resources requested from the state but the federal government is not meant to completely take over the situation. The president can, however, authorize executive orders that allow the federal government to assume control of transportation, communication, food resources, and all airports and aircraft.

In the case of a catastrophic disaster, FEMA coordinates emergency food and water, medical supplies and services, search and rescue operations and transportation assistance with the help of 28 federal partners, the Red Cross and local emergency management crews.

"Our role is more of coordination, not dictation," said Clark. "We put together the people that have help to offer with those who need it."

FEMA employs around 2,600 people as part of its permanent staff and has reservists who can be deployed in case of emergency. First responders at the local level, including fireman, policemen and emergency managers, are not employed directly by FEMA but do conduct ongoing exercises with regional FEMA offices.

President Carter created FEMA in 1979 by merging different disaster-related agencies. FEMA's importance grew as it coordinated response to major natural disasters like the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992. By 1993, the agency had become such an important one that President Clinton elevated the organization to Cabinet-level status when he appointed James Lee Witt as the FEMA director. Witt, who had managed emergency response in President Clinton's home state of Arkansas, focused the agency on natural disaster preparedness and mitigation.

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks prompted President Bush to form the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, and in March 2003, FEMA became part of DHS within the Emergency Planning and Response Directorate.

Merging with DHS relegated FEMA from an independent agency to part of the much larger DHS but gave access to a wider range of resources. Under Homeland Security, FEMA would continue to "lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident," according to its Web site.

FEMA is also part of the National Response Plan created in December 2004 by DHS. The plan established a framework for coordination among agencies that respond to domestic incidents, such as major terrorist attacks and natural events.

The delayed federal response to Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast has led many officials, including President Bush, who called the initial response "not acceptable," to question FEMA's preparedness for a natural disaster.

"The obvious fact is that Hurricane Katrina was an enormously powerful and destructive act of nature. It certainly wasn't caused by any government," said Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. "But government failures preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina allowed much more human suffering and property destruction to occur than should have. That is the sad and stunning fact."

As Katrina threatened the Gulf Coast, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco issued a state of emergency on Aug. 26 and on Aug. 28 sent a letter to President Bush requesting a disaster declaration for the state in order to release federal assistance.

"I have determined that this incident will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary," Blanco wrote in her letter.

The letter had to travel through points in FEMA before the federal government could respond. FEMA deployed regional responders before Katrina made landfall, but a major federal response wasn't evident until days later. The hurricane crippled many state and local emergency agencies in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama leaving them unable to respond without federal help.

"What happened was that essentially, the demolishment of that state and local infrastructure, and I think that really caused the cascading series of breakdown," said DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in a New York Times interview.

From the local level, officials complained of communication breakdowns and the lack of leadership from the federal government, particularly from FEMA Director Michael Brown. Reports of FEMA turning down personnel and supplies offered by police forces and emergency crews further drew fire from Congress and others who said the agency failed to respond adequately.

On Sept. 9, 2005, Chertoff pulled Brown from the role of managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Blanco's office blamed bureaucracy and layers of red tape for blocking an effective emergency effort.

"We wanted helicopters, food and water. They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart," Blanco's press secretary Denise Bottcher told the New York Times.

The delayed federal response prompted politicians to question FEMA's organization and leadership.

One critique was that the "all hazards" preparation focused too much on terrorism. The Government Accountability Office found in July 2005 that 31 of 39 first responder departments agreed that training was adequate for terrorist attacks but not natural disasters. The report also found that almost 75 percent of grant dollars awarded by DHS for first responders in 2005 focused predominantly on terrorism training.

Despite the criticism, Brown said no one could have prepared for the extent of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing flooding of New Orleans.

"What we cannot do, and what we did not do immediately after the storm passed and as the levees were breaking, was to be able to bring in rescue workers and urban search-and-rescue teams and the medical teams because they themselves would have then become disaster victims. So we had to come in very carefully and very methodically. And it frustrated me, too because I would rather just have charged in there and done everything we could have," he told the NewsHour on Sept. 1, 2005.

Top congressional Democrats Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California issued statements that FEMA failed miserably and its leadership should be fired. Brown's background is in law, finance, public service and does not have experience with emergency management, they said.

Sens. Hilary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said FEMA should be restored as an independent agency at the Cabinet level to remove one layer of bureaucracy.

Both Congress and President Bush have announced they will launch inquiries into the federal government's response and the future of FEMA.


-- Compiled by Anna Shoup for the Online NewsHour -- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec05/katrina/fema_background.html

[strandinthewind]

Oh why not - here is Gov. Blanco's August 28, 2005 letter to W requesting Federal Aid -- note this was the day before the storm:

La. Governor's August 28 request for assistance
RAW STORY


The following is a letter written to President George W. Bush, and publicly released, by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco on August 27, 2005. On August 28, authorities told residents to leave the city of New Orleans. The next morning, Katrina struck in Louisiana. By August 30, an estimated 80% of the city was underwater. See timeline.

On September 4, The Washington Post claimed that Federal authorities blamed Blanco for failure to react and slow response time, reporting that the Bush Administration had asked the Governor to hand authority over to them on the evening of September 2, five days after people were told to leave New Orleans, and four days after the hurricane hit Louisiana. Accusations of slow response have also come in from pundits (like Bill O'Reilly), and an e-mail that is reportedly calling for the Governor's impeachment.

Text of the Governor's letter, sent August 28, follows.

Advertisement



#
August 28, 2005

The President The White House Washington, D. C.

Through: Regional Director FEMA Region VI 800 North Loop 288 Denton, Texas 76209

Dear Mr. President:

Under the provisions of Section 501 (a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR § 206.35, I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal.

Preliminary estimates of the types and amount of emergency assistance needed under the Stafford Act, and emergency assistance from certain Federal agencies under other statutory authorities are tabulated in Enclosure A.

The following information is furnished on the nature and amount of State and local resources that have been or will be used to alleviate the conditions of this emergency: • Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby. • Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby. • Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters. • Louisiana State Police (LSP): Providing support for the phased evacuation of the coastal areas. • Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Supporting the evacuation of the affected population and preparing for Search and Rescue Missions.

Mr. President Page Two August 28, 2005

• Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Coordinating traffic flow and management of the evacuations routes with local officials and the State of Mississippi.

The following information is furnished on efforts and resources of other Federal agencies, which have been or will be used in responding to this incident:

• FEMA ERT-A Team en-route.

I certify that for this emergency, the State and local governments will assume all applicable non-Federal share of costs required by the Stafford Act.

I request Direct Federal assistance for work and services to save lives and protect property.

(a) List any reasons State and local government cannot perform or contract for performance, (if applicable).

(b) Specify the type of assistance requested.

In accordance with 44 CFR § 206.208, the State of Louisiana agrees that it will, with respect to Direct Federal assistance:

Provide without cost to the United States all lands, easement, and rights-of-ways necessary to accomplish the approved work.

Hold and save the United States free from damages due to the requested work, and shall indemnify the Federal Government against any claims arising from such work;

Provide reimbursement to FEMA for the non-Federal share of the cost of such work in accordance with the provisions of the FEMA-State Agreement; and

Assist the performing Federal agency in all support and local jurisdictional matters.

In addition, I anticipate the need for debris removal, which poses an immediate threat to lives, public health, and safety.

Pursuant to Sections 502 and 407 of the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5192 & 5173, the State agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the United States of America for any claims arising from the removal of debris or wreckage for this disaster. The State agrees that debris removal from public and private property will not occur until the landowner signs an unconditional authorization for the removal of debris.

I have designated Mr. Art Jones as the State Coordinating Officer for this request. He will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in damage assessments and may provide further information or justification on my behalf.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Governor Enclosure

ENCLOSURE A TO EMERGENCY REQUEST

Estimated requirements for other Federal agency programs:

• Department of Social Services (DSS): Opening (3) Special Need Shelters (SNS) and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.

• Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH): Opening (3) Shelters and establishing (3) on Standby. Costs estimated at $500,000 per week for each in operation.

• Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (OHSEP): Providing generators and support staff for SNS and Public Shelters. Costs estimated to range from $250,000-$500,000 to support (6) Shelter generator operations.

• Louisiana State Police (LSP): Costs to support evacuations - $300,000 for a non-direct landfall.

• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (WLF): Costs to support evacuations - $200,000 for a non-direct landfall.

• Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD): Costs to support evacuations - $2,000,000 for a non-direct landfall.

Totals: $ 9,000,000

Estimated Requirements for assistance under the Stafford Act:

Coordination: $0

Technical and advisory assistance: $0

Debris removal: $0

Emergency protective measures: $ 9,000,000

Individuals and Households Program (IHP): $0

Distribution of emergency supplies: $0

Other (specify): $0

Totals: $ 9,000,000

Grand Total: $ 9,000,000

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/La._Governors_August_27_request_for_assista_0906.html


____________________________________________________

Here is a timeline on the Katrina events. It is without spin and a damning indictment on W and FEMA. I mean Brown resigned and even W finally had to take public responsibility to the failure of FEMA. So, apparently FEMA did something wrong, though you all are loathe to admit that and instead point to the other peoples' faults, which I readily acknowledge the factual ones.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php

[gldstwmn]

The chimp, what a nice name you have for our President. Most liberals like to say how dumb he is, but then at the same time he is this evil genious that duped the whole world.

No, that's Cheney.

[BombaySapphire3]

The chimp, what a nice name you have for our President.

Speak for yourself. He is not now nor has he ever beem my President.

[strandinthewind]

Pretty funny

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/16/new-jibjab-video-of-obama_n_113016.html

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