The New Orleans deputy police commander, W.S. Riley stated that the National Guard rolled in to New Orleans and went to sleep. That they were playing cards while police, firefighters and private citizens were rescuing people and battling the armed criminal element. When asked about this allegation, Lieutenant General Steven Blum said, “The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans.”
More incompetence, assumptions and excuses. Is planing for the best possible scenario the right choice? Hmm…I can’t remember. How did that strategy work in Iraq?
Riley: “We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance,” he told AFP in an interview.”
“We have been fired on with automatic weapons. We still have some thugs around. My biggest disappointment is with the federal government and the National Guard.”
“The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep.”
“For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have.”
Accentuate something positive Chris please. We can find fault later and I know that you will, but for now pull together!
The only way to get these people to do anything is to shame them into it, which necesitates emphasizing their shortcomings.
In addition, Chris did try to accenuate some of the horoic acts of people stuck in the situation, and in those cases we learned certain people cannot be heroes.
He could talk about the Coast Guard rescuing some 10,000 people off of their rooftops in New Orleans, perhaps.
Or, if he wants to stay on the negative, he could talk about the good folks in New Orleans who shot at the National Guard helicopter, and caused a halt in the rescue efforts.
Repmom:
Maybe that is why the right is having such a problem with this event. It really is not a black and white issue. People did good things and bad things, kind of like life in general.
Nightline just had few positive stories of people who are stuck in New Orleans taking care of eachother, their really are some good people there takng care of eachother.
I think that organizations like the Army and Coast Guard are full of people who, once they’re given direction, will do a better job than anyone else could. There’s a difference though, between grunts and the top dogs.
When there’s a failure of the magnitude we saw in the first three days, it’s not about the grunts.
Leaders who lack the ability to live up to their job title will play politics and wrap themselves up in the flag…it’s been a signature trait of the Bush administration since day one.
Of course the grunts are doing some amazing things down there.
I take pride in being an American, and when something isn’t done as well as it could be – something of this magnitude – I don’t think patriotism has anything to do with demanding better. For political reasons some will excuse ANY failure.
Chris,
You are such a little bastard with these POVs. The military has been rescuing people on a continuous basis since GWB pledged more support.
In Los Angeles we have been recieving refugees on an hourly basis. If you can’t at least shut up and let constructive people be constructive, at least go there and blog about shit you see.
Delete this truthful post if you wish, but you are lost in retarded thought that people can handle this, RIGHT NOW, any better than they can RIGHT NOW>
I don’t excuse any failures that have occured in New Orleans, but now is the time to help those people who are suffering – not bitch and moan. People want food , water and shelter and some normalcy in their lives at the moment not pundit talk!
Paul – I know what you’re saying, but it’s everywhere – print media, Meet the Press, etc.
In years past we’ve seen failures on high levels ignored or rewarded by this President (Rumsfeld, Tenet, Wolfowicz, Rice) – so the tragedies they helped to usher in weren’t accentuated well enough to provoke Bush to hold anyone accountable. What the public did after the 9/11 hearings, after the evidence to go to war in Iraq was proven false, and after the country fell to chaos (Iraq) following our invasion – what we in the public did to express our displeasure or outrage wasn’t sufficient.
This time it’s not going down that way without consequences. This President caught a lot of free passes on past failures to be reelected, but has painted this dishonest picture of things every day since.
The downward turn was marked in part with his speech at Fort Bragg. It was then that a lot of people who still held out hope realized that this guy wasn’t familiar with reality at all. I don’t think he ever has been…not a single moment of his life. He’s been able to take so much for granted…been able to make mistakes without having to pay a price for so long, that it’s too late to get better apparantly.
What’s at stake is the next time he messes up after this, and the time after that. I’ve had enough of it. Enough of this phoney script they keep reading from that doesn’t match up with what’s actually going on.
You are right, DI, it is everywhere in the media. It started immediately after Katrina hit. That doesn’t make it right for you to join in, especially this racial crap issue you have wrapped yourself in.
The finger pointing starts at the top
From talkingpointsmemo.com
As noted, the Washington Post got burned today by a “senior Bush official” who told them that Gov. Blanco of Louisiana had never declared a state of emergency in the site — a claim the Post printed as fact. Yet the claim was demonstrably false and by late afternoon the Post had been compelled to print a correction.
This week’s Newsweek contains the same false claim — and though their recital of the anecdote is unsourced, common sense suggests that someone or some operation fed them both the same line, which neither organization checked out before running.
Monday’s Times, not surprisingly, confirms that the White House damage control operation is being run by Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett.
Add it up.
If Rove and co were not worried about being held accountable I doubt anything would have happened. The only reason that the government is helping at all is that certain higher ups realized their was a political cost to doing nothing. The only way to get them to act is to point out thier flaws.
Keep up the good work Chris
This ‘racial crap’ is exactally how I see it, and has been since I wrote that first post on the topic.
Repmom – I forgot to respond to your pointing out that I’m so critical of Fox News, yet quoted them in my last piece…I think we can all agree that Fox News is the most likely to take the President at his word on a story. Am I wrong in saying that? I think that’s a safe statement to make.
That the studio people (O’Reiley) mainly as he’s the one I saw the most of were right in line, doing their thing, conceeding small points while saying ‘C’man!’ on the bigger ones, basically playing the game of compromise they’ve perfected over the past decade…but wait!
There’s one of their own down there, Shepherd Smith, and he’s not following the program. O’Reiley tries to follow up a couple of his segments with ‘damage control’ disclaimer – but Smith snaps at a point and calls him out. From there O’Reiley gives poverty a plug and goes to commercial. When he comes back, it’s Natalee Hollaway time.
Now when FoxNews has one of their people bucking the formula like Smith did, and the spin parade of Hannity, Hume all continue on with it like nothing happened – it’s clear to me that the story is bigger than the package they have to wrap it in.
The thing that makes this so is what Smith described exactally – ‘on day one they needed food and water…on day five they finally got some food and water’ – when he describes the lack of direction those people had been given, then you see who they were…poor and black.
The census has it like this:
2000 – 109,960 blacks – out of 37,216 households in poverty – 21,787 had no car.
National news – cable news especially – they don’t care about murders in Baltimore, Forth Worth, Gary, Atlanta…but they jump all over each other the second a photogenic white kid gets kidnapped or killed. I’m sick of the disparity in attention given to whites compared with every other race living in this country today.
Because this is what it leads to…a government that would like to ignore these people, and a complicit media that’s more than happy to help them do just that. That’s how you have a plan like, ‘just herd them into the Superdome without food, cots or water’ – and that’s how you have a President who takes his time responding.
If anyone thinks for a second that if white faces had been seen on that overpass, it would have taken as long as it did – you’re lying to yourselves.
What happened to heroin and cocaine? They’re still driving the employment opportunity ‘index’ in ghettos across our country. Now that methamphetamine has been killing white people for a good number of years now, you’ll be hearing more about it. Just like when Oxycontin blew up, when it started killing surburban white kids in junior high school.
Obviously the news stations put on what the demographics want to see…and at some point in the past few years, they figured out that we were sick of hearing about gun violence, gangs, drugs and poverty…so now we’re spared such images from our ever appearing on our screens.
And when this disparity plays out in real time right in front of our eyes, people choose to belive that their eyes decieve them. The establishment pulls it’s ‘Jedi mind trick’ and says, “there is no racial issue here”.
The reason it works is those in poverty stricken communities are surrounded by more crime and drugs, poorer education, and therefore are less likely to watch that news program, vote or give a damn about anything. When it blows up, it’s a sin for all of us to ignore.
These are the people that Christians across the country are supposed to be sticking their necks out for. We’ve got a Christian in the White House, yet poverty is on the rise.
“In years past we’ve seen failures on high levels ignored or rewarded by this President (Rumsfeld, Tenet, Wolfowicz, Rice) – so the tragedies they helped to usher in weren’t accentuated well enough to provoke Bush to hold anyone accountable. What the public did after the 9/11 hearings, after the evidence to go to war in Iraq was proven false, and after the country fell to chaos (Iraq) following our invasion – what we in the public did to express our displeasure or outrage wasn’t sufficient.
This time it’s not going down that way without consequences. This President caught a lot of free passes on past failures to be reelected, but has painted this dishonest picture of things every day since.
The downward turn was marked in part with his speech at Fort Bragg. It was then that a lot of people who still held out hope realized that this guy wasn’t familiar with reality at all. I don’t think he ever has been…not a single moment of his life. He’s been able to take so much for granted…been able to make mistakes without having to pay a price for so long, that it’s too late to get better apparantly.
What’s at stake is the next time he messes up after this, and the time after that. I’ve had enough of it. Enough of this phoney script they keep reading from that doesn’t match up with what’s actually going on.”
================================
Hi Chris..
I think the one soon to be rewarded by the President,will have a Name similar to Michael Chertoff !
I do understand that you are fed up with the incompetant situation(s) in the Bush administration, and i´m hoping more people in america will realise that they have been lied to for a long time by the Bush admin.
And i cant understand why no one asks any questions? But i guess the are afraid of what will happen if they ask “serious” questions.
Questions that Bush choose to ignore…..like 9/11.
There must be an end to the “Empire_Boy”
Ill be leaving with a Qoute i stumbled on the other day,that i probably be flamed for…but i´ll be back to defend it(and be flamed) 🙂
Hey Ho Let´s go…
“A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, and who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it’s going to get.”