Kudos to Think Progress on this one! Tax cuts for the wealthy leads to the scene down in New Orleans…
Yesterday, President Bush said “I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously.” He’s not one of them. Bush has sought to slash funds that would help New Orleans prepare for a major hurricane. From the 6/6/05 New Orleans CityBusiness:
In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding…The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.
[snip]
Landrieu said the Bush administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority. “I think it’s extremely shortsighted,” Landrieu said. “When the Corps of Engineers’ budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana.”
The US is starting to look more and more like a third world country with no infrastructure.
The lack of leadership for the last 5 years is starting to show.
just a thought on Sheehan, seems like the reason people are paying attention to her is that she is saying something that people were starting to figure out for themselves. The right wants to blame her for the erosion of public support for the war. But losing the war is why people don’t support it, not the other way around.
Exactally! The right is determined to morph this into a, ‘we would have won if it weren’t for the protestors’…just like Vietnam.
GWB didn’t cause the hurricane and New Orleans has always been ripe for such destruction due to its location and being below sea level. That said New Orleans and the Gulf Coast needs all the help it can get. This isn’t the time to make political hay of people’s misery Chris. By the way Karl tell me how we are losing the war?
Paul – the nation requires funding from our taxes for many things that are eroding while we’re fighting the war in Iraq. The one thing that pisses me off more than anything is how straped states have become in the area of social services. Social workers (I’m friends with one who quit within the past year) have double the caseloads, and as result, foster kids aren’t getting the support they deserve.
I could go on for a while when it comes to the lack of federal funds making it to the states, but this project to protect the coast from a hurricane like this one is something that has to get done. From what I understand, two levies busted, causing the flood that has continued to rise even after the hurricane has passed.
How about the Louisianna National Guard? The National Guard’s mission being to protect the Nation…over three thousand of them are in Iraq right now.
Political ground shouldn’t be grasped on the heels of a tragedy, but we’re all adults here and when we fail to save for a rainy day, accountability has to fall on someone’s doorstep. Those people stuck in the Superdome right now deserved better than this. Measures could have been taken to prevent this from taking such a toll, but they weren’t.
Where would you rather have the federal funds have gone? Engineering in LA or Iraq?
The levies in Louisiana are the responsibility of Louisianans, just as are the fire house in every different city. It is a force for protection of your city, the mayor of New Orleans, is responsible for unkept levies, and if the levies were going to be overcome, no matter what, it is Katrina’s fault for being a FREAKING CAT 5, moron. I like Drumwaster’s characterization, justify your F the President bumper sticker. In your next post you should explain how you would reduce the deficit you so dispise, while not cutting anything…go for it genius boy. Some people will sink to any low…you are as easy to please as a diabetic with sugar for lips, damn it taste good, but now you have to take a shot. And for those of you who didn’t get my off hand joke…point is Bush is damned if he did, damned if he didn’t and you won’t hear one dem admit that fact.
Micheal:
At you your job I am sure you plan what to do if something goes wrong. People who like and care about their job generally are pro-active. The Problem with the current admin is that they never seem to know what to do if things don’t go as planned. Iraq has gone south because they did not know what to do in the event of an insurgency, and now hurricane aid is not working out because these guys never thought what to do in an event like this.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/index.html
What events like this show is that we need to be preapared for them, and maybe that means that we need higher taxes, or maybe it just means that Haliburton should lower their profit margin in Iraq. Right now government spending is at an all time high, we should at least get something for that money.
One more thought.
Of course disaster preparedness is getting neglected when the leaders are spending most their time debating Terri Schiavo and other issues that belong on Springer.
This ‘stop picking on poor Bush’ cop-out is very old at this point. Planning, execution and progress…
1. Planning – There was no contingency plan in place for what we’d do if General Shinsecki was right about required troop strength when invading Iraq. There WAS a contingency plan in place in terms of what could be done to protect the Big Easy should a Cat-5 hit the coast, but it went unfunded (I’ll get to your question of where the money comes from in a bit).
2. Execution – Where is Bush right now? Anywhere near the disaster? The ex-mayor of New Orleans and news reports have said that he’s going to get there on Friday. He’s the Commander in Chief, and the battlefield is in Louisianna – NOT Texas or DC. If a resupply hasn’t shown up, if capacity in one shelter is full and authority is needed to quarantene space or equipment or anything for that matter…a leader in a situation like this LEADS…he doesn’t dilly-dally and pretend that the thing will take care of itself.
3. Progress – This is something that is always measurable…I don’t care if it’s disaster recovery, quality of an operation’s output, war or public policy. There is always a way to measure progress or the opposite, analyze data and redirect policy based on what is learned. The operation moves in a positive trend or something is fundamentally wrong with the organization carrying out the work.
In Iraq it’s clear that the will to perform this type of analysis, nor the logistical means necessary to act on what was discovered (whether manpower or supplies, ie: body armor, Humvee armor). Progress has been to this President, nothing but a series of arbitrary due-dates concerning the Iraqi government. Pressure to fill the uniforms and make those dates has led to:
-recruiters going crazy trying to make numbers, breaking the rules, high divorce rate, alcohol abuse, etc.
-Islam as the governing force in the new Iraq
Lives destroyed, and a response to 9/11 of creating another nation governed by Islam in the heart of the Middle East. Why? Because there was no planning, and without that you can’t have effective execution, then unless you are honest with yourself about the first two, there will be no progress.
I see the same thing here in Louisiana. Droping the blame on the Governor as Michael did for political reasons is absolutely ridiculous! When funding can be signed into law by this President for:
$1.79 million – berry research in Alaska
$3.97 million – shrimp aquaculture research
$18.7 million – Alaska Seals and Stellar Sea Lions
$27.2 million – Alaska Land Mobile Radio
$22 million – Allen Army Airfield upgrades
4.25 million – Norton Air Force Base (closed by BRAC, had ceased most of it’s military operations by ’92)
The list goes on and on, and while Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton would send bills back to the Senate if there was too much pork – BUSH HASN’T VETOED A SINGLE BILL! Politically he needed some victories at the end of this past session, so it was a free-for-all. The energy and highway bills were insults to taxpayers, and Bush doesn’t give a damn about who’s getting squeezed at the state level.
Michael, THAT is where the money could come from! He could have done his job and represented the public’s interest when it came to all this ridiculous spending, and funded the engineering projects in LA.
HOMELAND SECURITY!!!! Heard of it? Or are the people in America on their own as long as there are some seals in Alaska we can study? This is what happens when you don’t save for a rainy day…when you don’t plan effectively.
I bash Bush because he’s an empty suit. Pull the string and he spits out a talking point at a rally full of people who have been screened beforehand. Expect results…and you’ve got the wrong guy! All of us should know that by now. He’s counting the days until he’s done.
This is too much – Bush hasn’t even got there yet!
Source
This ’stop picking on poor Bush’ cop-out is very old at this point.
I agree but Dems refuse to work with anyone who isn’t liberal. Why does the Fed have to bail out the states everytime there is a problem they didn’t prepare for? THe Fed was never intended to be this huge, bloated wellfare institution that it has become.
Well, if you weren’t so dense as to see, this isn’t a time to make a political bed of hay you can roll around in wearing only your underwear. There are things that can, must, and will be done. None of which should include blaming any one for what was done by God.
You are turning your arguement from, Bush caused the hurricane into, Bush hadn’t built the Levies well enough, he must not have enjoyed building levies as much as he enjoys cutting trees. He sure did slack off on those levies when he was building them didn’t he? Now your argument is, the president should be the head of FEMA, as well as apparently the top general in charge of Allied soldiers in Iraq. Whether General Shinseki is right is a subjective matter, I don’t believe he was or is, the invasion was excellent, the post invasion is a test of Iraqi’s more than us, will they stand up for their own liberty, and overwelmingly they have, to point out the ‘damned if you do damned if you don’t’ quality in your statement, what would you say if 300 thousand troops were in Iraq? You would say we are occuping them, and need to make less of a ‘footprint’ on thier democratic transformation, let them create thier own democracy.
There you go, Bush is at fault because…umm…he’s not the director of FEMA, or the mayor of NO, or governer of LA. People are leading, the president needs to make a strong statment against the looters, and to the general public about how this nation is supposed to work in tragedies…and you are acting in just the opposit way, blaming some one, anyone, doesn’t matter if it is Bush or God, isn’t going to make life better for anyone, it politicals at its worst. Send food, water, ice or money…offer you house to refuges get your church signed up to house them…these are the things people should be doing, not pointing fingers. This is why you guys lost the election, you can point at something and say its wrong, but you can’t come up with any ideas to fix it, just sit around holding your finger in someones face, hoping someone will think that declaring the absence of a good idea, will make you look like you have a good idea. Sorry bud, it won’t.
[snipped]
Reqouting myself, “do you not read good?”
“It is a force for protection of your city, the mayor of New Orleans, is responsible for unkept levies, and if the levies were going to be overcome, no matter what, it is Katrina’s fault for being a FREAKING CAT 5, moron.”
The mayor of new york is responsible for whether or not the levies are stuctrually sound, and if they are, then its Katrina’s fault. No blame was placed by me on any government employee for the destruction, preparedness, or response to the disaster.
There you go pointing your finger thinking that if you point to the absences of a good idea, it might make people believe that you have a good idea. When in fact you would struggle to write down how much money did actually go to the army corps of engineers, and your ignorance makes you think that this problem would have been solved by money, it is a problem of imagination, just like Sept. 11, we didn’t imagine a CAT 5 or even a CAT 4 hitting New Orleans. Not to mention the levies were never intended to withstand more than a CAT 3, this was the design, and no one was calling for any changes, although people will say they feared it for decades. This is why perparedness has suffered, preparing for that which you can’t imagine is politically impossible.
[snipped the DNC talking points]
Ohh…you brought back your crystal ball!! So tell me now what the public’s interests were before the hurricane? What are they now? Genius boy, you’ve got a lot of learning to do. People have many interests, alot of which don’t involve a Catagory 5 hurricane…until one appears.
BTW, what engineering projects do you know of that were pending, discussed, or drafted for LA? I mean since you got your crystal ball out, why don’t you tell me how your going to blame Bush for Los Angelas falling into the ocean, you know, 20 years after Bush is out of office.
Yea, and last i checked Bush wasn’t the head of homeland security, and if you were thinking he was, you have just insulted Chertoff.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the seal study was one of your Dem’s pet projects. Save the seals, sure sounds like a bleeding heart liberal.
As are all politicians, and this is a national emergency, so do something pro-active, you’ve got all these great ideas, or atleast your pointing at the absence of a good idea makes you seem like you have a good idea. America is not about its president, it is about its people, we are one, no matter who the president is, and we need to come together and help those in need, and leave political fights on the sideline for now, their will be plenty of time for that after every refuge is fed and housed.
Chris: This ’stop picking on poor Bush’ cop-out is very old at this point. Planning, execution and progress…
Well, if you weren’t so dense as to see, this isn’t a time to make a political bed of hay you can roll around in wearing only your underwear. There are things that can, must, and will be done. None of which should include blaming any one for what was done by God.
Chris: 1. Planning – There was no contingency plan in place for what we’d do if General Shinsecki was right about required troop strength when invading Iraq. There WAS a contingency plan in place in terms of what could be done to protect the Big Easy should a Cat-5 hit the coast, but it went unfunded (I’ll get to your question of where the money comes from in a bit).
You are turning your arguement from, Bush caused the hurricane into, Bush hadn’t built the Levies well enough. He must not have enjoyed building levies as much as he enjoys cutting trees. He sure did slack off on those levies when he was building them wasn’t he? Now your argument is, the president should be the head of FEMA, as well as apparently the top general in charge of Allied soldiers in Iraq. Whether General Shinseki is right is a subjective matter, I don’t believe he was or is, the invasion was excellent, the post invasion is a test of Iraqi’s more than us, will they stand up for their own liberty, and overwelmingly they have, to point out the ‘damned if you do damned if you don’t’ quality in your statement, what would you say if 300 thousand troops were in Iraq? You would say we are occuping them, and need to make less of a ‘footprint’ on thier democratic transformation, let them create thier own democracy.
Chris: 2. Execution – Where is Bush right now? Anywhere near the disaster? The ex-mayor of New Orleans and news reports have said that he’s going to get there on Friday. He’s the Commander in Chief, and the battlefield is in Louisianna – NOT Texas or DC. If a resupply hasn’t shown up, if capacity in one shelter is full and authority is needed to quarantene space or equipment or anything for that matter…a leader in a situation like this LEADS…he doesn’t dilly-dally and pretend that the thing will take care of itself.
There you go, Bush is at fault because…umm…he’s not the director of FEMA, or the mayor of NO, or governer of LA. People are leading, the president needs to make a strong statment against the looters, and to the general public about how this nation is supposed to work in tragedies…and you are acting in just the opposite way, blaming someone, anyone, doesn’t matter if it is Bush or God, isn’t going to make life better for anyone, it politicals at its worst. Send food, water, ice or money…offer you house to refugees get your church signed up to house them…these are the things people should be doing, not pointing fingers. This is why you guys lost the election, you can point at something and say its wrong, but you can’t come up with any ideas to fix it, just sit around holding your finger in someones face, hoping someone will think that declaring the absence of a good idea, will make you look like you have a good idea. Sorry bud, it won’t.
[snipped]
Chris: I see the same thing here in Louisiana. Droping the blame on the Governor as Michael did for political reasons is absolutely ridiculous!
Reqouting myself, “do you not read good?”
Levies, like police stations and fire stations, are “a force for protection of your city, the mayor of New Orleans, is responsible for unkept levies, and IF THE LEVIES WERE GOING TO BE OVERCOME, NO MATTER WHAT, ITS KATRINA’S FAULT FOR BEING A CAT 5, MORON!”
The mayor of new orleans is responsible for whether or not the levies are stucturally sound, and if they are, then its Katrina’s fault. No blame was placed by me on any government official for the destruction, preparedness, or response to the disaster.
Chris: When funding can be signed into law by this President for:
$1.79 million – berry research in Alaska
$3.97 million – shrimp aquaculture research
$18.7 million – Alaska Seals and Stellar Sea Lions
$27.2 million – Alaska Land Mobile Radio
$22 million – Allen Army Airfield upgrades
4.25 million – Norton Air Force Base (closed by BRAC, had ceased most of it’s military operations by ‘92)
There you go pointing your finger, thinking that if you point to the absences of a good idea, it might make people believe that you have a good idea. When in fact you would struggle to write down how much money did actually go to the army corps of engineers, and your ignorance makes you think that this problem would have been solved by money, it is a problem of imagination, just like Sept. 11, we didn’t imagine a CAT 5 or even a CAT 4 hitting New Orleans. Not to mention the levies were never intended to withstand more than a CAT 3, this was the design, and no one was calling for any changes, although people will say they feared it for decades. This is why perparedness has suffered, preparing for that which you can’t imagine is impossible.
[snipped the DNC talking points]
Chris: Michael, THAT is where the money could come from! He could have done his job and represented the public’s interest when it came to all this ridiculous spending, and funded the engineering projects in LA.
Ohh…you brought out your crystal ball!! So tell me what the public’s interests were before the hurricane? What are they now? Genius boy, you’ve got a lot of learning to do. People have many interests, alot of which don’t involve a Catagory 5 hurricane…until one appears.
BTW, what engineering projects do you know of that were pending, discussed, or drafted for LA? I mean since you got your crystal ball out and all. Why don’t you tell me how your going to blame Bush for Los Angelas falling into the ocean, you know, 20 years after Bush is out of office.
Chris: HOMELAND SECURITY!!!! Heard of it? Or are the people in America on their own as long as there are some seals in Alaska we can study? This is what happens when you don’t save for a rainy day…when you don’t plan effectively.
Yea, and last i checked Bush wasn’t the head of homeland security, and if you were thinking he was, you have just insulted Chertoff, he’s much smarter than Bush. You should be jumping for joy that Bush depends on people smarter than himself…i know i am.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the seal study was one of your Dem’s pet projects. Save the seals, sure sounds like a bleeding heart liberal.
Chris: I bash Bush because he’s an empty suit. Pull the string and he spits out a talking point at a rally full of people who have been screened beforehand. Expect results…and you’ve got the wrong guy! All of us should know that by now. He’s counting the days until he’s done.
As are all politicians, your bias is all that determines which you call out on it. This is a national emergency, so do something pro-active, you’ve got all these great ideas, or atleast your pointing at the absence of a good idea makes you seem like you have a good idea. America is not about its president, it is about its people, we are one, no matter who the president is, and we need to come together and help those in need, and leave political fights on the sideline for now, their will be plenty of time for that after every refugee is fed and housed.
The buck has to stop with the man in charge at some point.
9/11 not bush’s fault
Iraq loss not bush’s fault
No funding for FEMA not bush’s fault
Its called leadership and at some point leaders take responsibility and make hard choices.
Bush does have a chance, the remainder of his presidency is going to be defined by how he responds to this crisis, I hope he does well. But he is going to have to consider raising taxes to pay for what could be, in terms of dollars, the bigeest public works project ever if he really want to rebuild New Orleans. He is also going to have to hire contractors that can do the job, not just ones that have contributed to him in the past.
It would be great to look back at the Bush years and say he really did a good job after the hurricane, but he will have to do things differentely than he has up to this point.
Its called leadership and at some point leaders take responsibility and make hard choices.
What makes you think that he’s not making choices or decisions? I do believe he has access to cellular phones and I remember him being the leader of some sort of large government, or something. Maybe he has a guy or two who he “deligates” tasks to or whose job it is to be in charge of certain things, like the director of FEMA for example.
9/11 not bush’s fault
Iraq loss not bush’s fault
No funding for FEMA not bush’s fault
That’s because:
It’s not
It’s not and
It’s not.
The buck has to stop with the man in charge at some point.
The hurricane was what, 2 days ago? At what time and on what day did the buck stop? How many hours, in your opinion, does Bush have to completely rescue everyone in the South and rebuild all the cities? Five, maybe six hours? How about nine hours? You tell me.
Bush does have a chance, the remainder of his presidency is going to be defined by how he responds to this crisis, I hope he does well.
Bush doesn’t need to be defined by this crisis, he’s done so well so far and will probably go down in history as the President who held the tide against the liberal onslaught. Dems pulled out all the stops, fraud, lies, deception, false witness, and a bunch of other stuff and he’s going strong.
But he is going to have to consider raising taxes to pay for what could be, in terms of dollars, the bigeest public works project ever if he really want to rebuild New Orleans.
I think the insurance companies have something to say about that, it is their territory after all.
It would be great to look back at the Bush years and say he really did a good job after the hurricane, but he will have to do things differentely than he has up to this point.
What do you remember about Clinton’s handling of hurricane Andrew? I don’t remember him ever even going to Florida.
For the record, Bush senior was still president when Hurricane Andrew took place (August 24, 1992). Clinton didn’t take office until January 2003.
Clinton didn’t take office until January 2003.
Sorry, I block out things having to do with Clinton, it’s a defense mechanism.
What did the 9/11 comission say about the leadup to the attacks? That the intelligence agencies hadn’t communicated with each other and if the right thing had been done, the attack could have been prevented. Well…if the engineering upgrades had been carried out, perhaps the leavies wouldn’t have given out. The federal government had other priorities, no?
Never said Bush caused the hurricane.
If you need an operation, you go see a doctor. If you need to fight a war, you go to the Army. When the Army tells you something you don’t want to hear…
Considering what went wrong following our invasion, a list you’d have to be blind not to recognize, the diagnosis of Shinsecki was in fact ‘dead on balls accurate’ (what’s that from? trivia). You can choose not to agree with him, but quite a lot of what he said would go wrong with too few troops sent in to secure the country – has.
Hey – by the same token, you guys never think the buck stops anywhere but below the chief somewhere. This is important enough for the top dog to be on site. Things aren’t going right down there, not as well as they should be. Bush’s job description does go beyond the role of cheerleader and model…besides giving the same stump speech 100 times in a row and posing for pictures, he’s got to do something. Basically New Orleans is like a modern day Pompeii, only water instead of fire.
Who can crack the whip with more authority than the President?
A Category 5 hurricane wasn’t predicted? Scientists weren’t aware of the ocean temperature having risen?
Check out this:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm
The initial post indicates where the funding was cut.
Those that don’t die of hunger, dehydration or a bullet from an AK-47. The people will shoulder the biggest load, as we always do. The suits will smile and shake hands.
Not the public land, the levies, municipalities.
I take back every bad thing I have ever said about right-thinking
http://right-thinking.com/index.php/weblog/comments/10589/
karl – copy/paste, i’m banned
Chris:
I will try to get the post later as the site seems to be down, or maybe I have been banned as well, cyber shunning is rough.
Essentially he was pointing out the fiasco of Bush investigating his own performance during this dissaster, the man is funny, I keep thinking a fat version of Dennis Leary.
I saw a post somewhere that explains the problem with conservative government. Essentially conservatives don’t think that government can do anything so even when they see a clear problem they don’t try to fix it. This makes sense if you look back to 9/11 everyone said a terrorist attack was coming, but this crew didn’t have a clue how to stop it. It is sort of like the abstinence only people saying condoms don’t work, so why use one. Of course research shows that the only thing abstinence education leads to is more STD’s and pregnancies. Sometimes it seems that the current administration and their backers want to make the situation worse.
Here is the post from tpmcafe.com the one about conservatives and government.
The guy says it better than I did:
In the annals of political one-liners, few bombed worse than Michael Dukakis’ mantra during the 1988 race that the election was about “competence, not ideology.” Besides underscoring the Duke’s uninspiring blandness, the phrase backfired on him as he proceeded to wage a campaign that was utterly incompetent.
But a much more pointed argument can be made now after nearly five years of rule by conservative ideologues: conservatism in action produces incompetent government. Paul Krugman broached this idea yesterday when he wrote about the Katrina response that, “for 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. But why should we be surprised that when we need a government solution, it wasn’t forthcoming?” Krugman’s insight can be extended to the core tenets of conservative ideology, which have proven to be fiascoes when carried out in the real world
But why should we be surprised that when we need a government solution, it wasn’t forthcoming?”
That is a great question shince the people in charge of disaster planning and recovery are a Democrat Governor and a Democrat Mayor, both of whom contributed more to the problem than the solution.
If Republican Guilliani from NY was the mayor of New Orleans, the damage and loss of life would have been half at least.
A cut and paste for the banned.
This is not the article I was talking about but he does seem to be off the reservation on this one.
Thumb Up Ass
Here’s some more of that federal government organization that I’ve been so impressed with lately.
While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underutilized and waiting for a larger role in the effort.
The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch U.S. Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It can also make its own water – up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore.
The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents.
But today the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven’t been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship.
“Could we do more?” said Capt. Nora Tyson, commander of the Bataan. “Sure. I’ve got sailors who could be on the beach plucking through garbage or distributing water and food and stuff. But I can’t force myself on people.
“We’re doing everything we can to contribute right now, and we’re ready. If someone says you need to take on people, we’re ready. If they say hospitals on the beach can’t handle it … if they need to send the overflow out here, we’re ready. We’ve got lots of room.”
Now call me crazy, but the last time I checked neither the governor of Louisiana nor the mayor of New Orleans were responsible for ordering US Navy combat ships into duty. I’ll let you guys do the math yourselves, I wouldn’t want to be accused of unnecessarily bashing our federal government leadership or anything.
Now call me crazy, but the last time I checked neither the governor of Louisiana nor the mayor of New Orleans were responsible for ordering US Navy combat ships into duty.
You are crazy. The governor at the helm of disaster relief and can request the ship and any other Federal aid available, IF THEY JUST ASK. What are these idiots waiting for? Are they so dependent on the federal government to run their lives that they are completely incapable of governing a state of a city?
Why even have a governor???
The fact that Bush has started pointing fingers during this disaster shows what he is made of. the Mayor and Governor have work to do while the feds play the blame game.