Team Bush spins the crisis

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343339p-293108c.html

WASHINGTON - The White House worked furiously yesterday to try to convince skeptics it had a grip on unrest in New Orleans and make the case that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina was finally pressing forward with a monumental recovery effort.

<snipping spin>

Still, with critics fuming, Team Bush tried to emphasize some benchmarks, highlighting that the Coast Guard has saved 9,500 victims, evacuated another 25,000 people, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has delivered 6.7 million liters of water and 1.9 million field rations. Amtrak also will soon run four trains a day out of New Orleans.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tried to blame the feds' slow response on the disastrous breaches in levees a day after Katrina hit, even though various officials now claim they'd warned about the weaknesses in the levees for years.

<snip>

Congressional hearings into the response to Katrina are a certainty this fall, as the list of critics - both Republicans and Democrats - who say the feds were a no-show for days want to know what went wrong.

"If a country knows they're going to be attacked whether by Mother Nature or by terrorists, they must be prepared and it's obvious that the federal government was not prepared," Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens) said.

...more...

The media is finally taking off the gloves.

like New Orleans, than artificial ones like Iraq.
And thank goodness Cindy Sheehan is not on the front
page for a change.

Did anyone else notice that we got out August/Vacation
Bush disaster right on time?

and Iraq off the front pages. Boy, that Rove is a genius.

/sarcasm

administration? I'm sure I must be missing your intention.

This disaster is only getting started, there as aspects of this
that are not even being considered (much) yet, and the effects will
drag on for years. The economic effects in particular, but also
in foreign policy, in domestic political chaos, possibly in a
further aggravation of the destruction of the US military as an
effective force.

But various other political weasels are content to have a bit of
distraction, to not have to explain why they support(ed) the boondoggle
in Iraq etc. and even the Bushites are no doubt happy to have Ms
Sheehan off the front pages for a bit. It's an ill wind that blows
nobody good, and it ought to be perfectly clear that very few in
the ruling class are bothered about the fate of the poor in New
Orleans, as such.

... hoping that the double-opening in the Supreme Court would somewhat diminish the Katrina coverage. </tinfoil> :)

The city was in the process of getting the levees up to Category 4 strength when "Team Bush" pulled their funding in 2003. Did they believe that since the city wouldn't have Catergory 4 levees, there COULDN'T be a Category 4 storm?

Read all about it if you haven't already, and tell me if it sounds like people were merely making "claims" to you.

:mad:
rocknation

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Great rant.

I agree that it will get ugly, but I also note that the American people seem to have the attention span of gnats. Many are pissed now but for how long? Until 2006? I wonder. That's a lot of time for the Republican swiftboat machine to totally trash all those who dared to cricize.

THe buck stops here does not apply to these people. THe buck stops on whoever they can stick someone on. Blame it on Clinton? They will do their best to do that. Blame it on the mayor. Blame it on the gays, blame it on the Bossanova. Whatever works.

Mz Pip
:dem:

Too bad it didn't happen in an election year.

Then perhaps, the government would have responded more quickly and lives might have been saved.

Or, at least we could have voted out the creeps.

But, by next year, people will forget Dubya's horrible response, and vote Republican again.

Thoughts like that make me inclined to believe we (the U.S. as a whole) do get the government we deserve.

family member will remember. I suspect those that sat in the convention center and the dome and on their roofs for days will remember.

Its our job to keep this in the public consciousness.

... with a similar level of cynicism. I've been thinking exactly the same thing.

Given that most Dems will probably remain passive, we need to find a fighter who will draw up a case for impeachment, right now!, and publish the case to whomever will listen -- and then run the mid-terms as a 3rd election for Bush. We take back the House and Senate in 2006, and can have Bush permanently vacationing in Crawford by May 2007 -- starting the rebuilding process of the programs and agencies decimated by this miserable failure 2 years sooner than if we have to wait until the 2008 election.

MY APOLOGIES TO THE MODERATOR and the DU forum. To have my 1st post deleted...well, I guess I know now. I do not advocate violence, I have never struck, or berated a woman, (and never will) my Momma taught me well, and having three younger sisters..lets just say she taught me early as well. With that said, I also grew up in E. Oakland, Ca., it was tough being a 10 yr old skinny white boy in 1968. but it taught me, through the years of living here, that racism is absurd, and ignorant. I do admit though I do use profanity, (in two languages) and I'm well versed and creative at times, (when my mom's not present, naturally) so any further posts I'll try to tone it down. Finally.. I do belive however, the realities of human reactions when one is pushed to their "limits", and the percieved "limits" in society. Especially during tramatic events that threaten life personally or in this case collectively, it is foolish for the "powers that be" to underestimate the "limits" of one, or an entire army. Which most civilized people know it as "the Last resort". It is my hope that these punk-assed-batches in our White House, and in our Nations Capitol, KNOW that we're PAST those "limits" and should in the fact that the "other shoe" is gonna' drop!, so they all had better get their affairs in order, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. THANKS for allowing me to vent here, (my heart rate is better) and THANKS to Mz Pip who commented on my previous post. PEACE fairlane500

Finally, and once and for all, we the people have to say enough is enough.

the most incompetent group of looters and they get away with it

They live for those kinds of missions. Airborne units could have secured some of the problems areas --least made a presence. No one lifted a finger until now. Bush's numbers are gonna go down on this one. Meanwhile, what, $2 billion a week in Iraq? Too many things wrong or went wrong this time.

My rants, thanks for reading --I needed to vent.

They are being shipped out with no regard as to where the family members may be. How shameful of our country. No wonder W is thought so poorly of.

We really need to make an effort to keep extended families together. It's one thing to relocate them to different locations initially, but we need to get them back together ASAP.

The Navy announced yesterday that Vice President Cheney's former company, Halliburton, which has handled much of the repair work as well as support services for the U.S. military in Iraq, was hired to restore power and rebuild three naval facilities in Mississippi that were wrecked by Katrina.

I'm mad as hell.

you can spin your wheels all day and you still won't go anywhere.