Condi Rice: The Wounds of Katrina: My trip home to heal a racially charged disaster

CONDI, on “The Wounds of Katrina: My trip home to heal a racially charged disaster”: “I didn’t think much about the dire warnings of an approaching hurricane called Katrina. … I attended a Homeland Security principals meeting on Thursday, August 30, and returned to the State Department to check once more on plans for securing our offices in the Gulf of Mexico. Then I flew to New York. That evening, upon arriving at the Palace Hotel, I flipped on the television. Indeed, the hurricane had hit New Orleans. … I called Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff , inquiring if there was anything I could do. ‘It’s pretty bad,’ he said. We discussed the question of foreign help briefly, but Mike was clearly in a hurry. He said he’d call if he needed me. I hung up, got dressed, and went to see Spamalot.

“The next morning, I went shopping at the Ferragamo shoe store down the block from my hotel, returned to the Palace … and again turned on the television. The airwaves were filled with devastating pictures from New Orleans. And the faces of most of the people in distress were black. I knew right away that I should never have left Washington. I called my chief of staff , Brian Gunderson. ‘I’m coming home,’ I said. ‘Yeah. You’d better do that,’ he answered. Then I called the President. “Mr. President, I’m coming back. I don’t know how much I can do, but we clearly have a race problem,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Why don’t you come on back?’ he answered. I actually hadn’t expected that from the President. That’s odd, I thought. He’d been so insistent that I go and get some rest. He’s really worried. ‘Maybe I can go to Houston to represent you,’ I said. ‘Well, just come on back, and we can talk about it then,’ he replied.

“A few minutes later, my senior advisor, Jim Wilkinson, walked into my suite. ‘Boss, I should have seen this coming,’ he said. He showed me the day’s Drudge Report headline on the Web: ‘Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it up at “Spamalot” while Gulf Coast lays in tatters.’ ‘Get a plane up here to take me home,’ I said. I … sat there kicking myself for having been so tone-deaf. I wasn’t just the secretary of state with responsibility for foreign affairs; I was the highest-ranking black in the administration and a key advisor to the President. What had I been thinking? … Later, the administration would … reach out to Donna Brazile, an influential Democratic activist, who was a native of New Orleans and who to this day acknowledges the President’s generosity toward her hometown. We ultimately decided that I’d go to Mobile in my home state of Alabama instead of Houston. It was a Sunday, so I’d have to go to church before visiting the victims of the hurricane. …

“In retrospect, the hurricane’s aftermath was the first in a spiral of negative events that would almost engulf the Bush presidency. Clearly the response of the federal government was slower than the President himself wanted it to be, and there were many missteps, both in perception and in reality. I’m still mad at myself for only belatedly understanding my own role and responsibilities in the crisis. Yet for me the lingering wound of Katrina is that some used the explosive ‘race card’ to paint the President as a prejudiced, uncaring man. It was so unfair, cynical, and irresponsible. At the end of my visit to Mobile, I told the press, ‘Nobody, especially the President, would have left people unattended on the basis of race.’ I am to this day appalled that it was necessary to say it.”

http://www.politico.com/playbook/

No one could imagine that Condi Rice would be perceived as a narcissistic arrogant asshole for playing out her elitist tendencies to the hilt while thousands died in NOLA and along the Gulf. Keep telling yourself that.... What BS. :eyes:

....of the afflicted, their lack of access to power, and the potential for developers to gentrify the land eventually.

(rude hand gesture)

That's what blacks are to the Party of the Rich, a hood
ornament on the big white Cadillac of the GOP establishment.

I was with the red cross in those days, and I was on the ground in the city of Biloxi, and the search unit I was attached to found many dead. The storm surge in the city was very likely near or over 30 feet. It was the most tragic event in my life. It was so hard removing the bodies and placing them in body bags. There were even whole families that died together. There was no formal evacuation plan for poor people who couldn't afford to get out, the sick, the elderly.

I generally don't think Bush and Cheney hated black people, but their apathy towards the poor and their devotion to corporate power on Wall Street and war profits proved fatal for too many people. The wealthiest nation on earth, with a response to a disaster that was hardly better than a banana republic or some goddamn third world dictatorship hellhole. All of this because they wanted to devote resources elsewhere.

Money for domestic spying. Yeah, we can never be too trusting of the people, lest they betray us and rebel against the rich. Money for war. Yeah, it's a money making racket after all and a grab for resources. Tax cuts for the rich. Yeah, we gotta pay back the banker/industrialist scum fucks that bought us the White House, nearly all the Republicans, and a third of the Democrats. Money to help evacuate people from an impending hurricane. NO NO NO NO NO NO!

with a group from my church.

People told me that they were sure the death toll was higher than reported, because they all had friends or neighbors who had simply disappeared and presumably been washed out to sea.

Many in our group were clearing properties with damaged houses, because FEMA wouldn't given anyone a trailer until their property was clear of debris. The only help the state or county provided was to haul away any debris that was piled up at the side of the road.

I came down with a whopping cold shortly after arrival, so the relief center authorities told me to stay in the camp and hand out supplies. People were still living in their cars (if their cars had survived) or doubling up with relatives or even sleeping under their neighbors' car port, so we were still providing bottled water.

Most of the job providers in the area (resorts, restaurants, fishing cooperatives, even a WalMart) had been destroyed.

All the focus was on New Orleans, but the Mississippi coast was even harder hit, and some of the local people I talked to felt that they had been forgotten with all the publicity about New Orleans, even though they sympathized.

After our volunteer stint was over, we drove to the Gulfport airport along the coast. The homes of the affluent were either repaired or being repaired. Little else was. All along the coast we saw clothing, bedding, and other cloth items in trees, even furniture stuck in tree branches, and lots of wrecked cars and boats.

Meanwhile, our federal government, which is supposed to help out in disasters like this, was spending hundreds of millions PER DAY in Iraq and Afghanistan.

like you say, they might not be racists (the jury is still out on that one for me), but they certainly hate the poor.

...this isn't going to help her find it.

we never go back and deal with things from then, because "the nation wouldn't survive it".

Can't think of a damned thing you did for those people.

And how much it hurt her that she was attacked for seeing a Broadway show and making sure she had shoes, so that she could make it through the tragedy in good spirits and not be shoeless.

attached and silly me assuming she was touting "all she had done" for the poor people of New Orleans. I should have known she was the victim in her version.

Katrina didn't hit on a Friday.

all repukes do, it helps them sleep at night.

About the only one that wouldn't get deleted here is self-serving.

"I called Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff , inquiring if there was anything I could do. ‘It’s pretty bad,’ he said. We discussed the question of foreign help briefly, but Mike was clearly in a hurry. He said he’d call if he needed me. I hung up, got dressed, and went to see Spamalot."

-you know, the very first thing I think of when I hear of a national disaster is broadway tunes.

what a fucking petulant self serving pile of shit she is.

as I have long labeled her, "condi, I have never had an original thought in my life ever, rice", it still stands.

she is a loathsome creature.

:cry:

What a callous, cold-hearted woman.

9/11 happened on her watch...after she got warnings no less...from everyone in the business to know..

yet, she let Nation go on without warnings to anyone...

Now she wants to "clean" her act???

Fuck that...

She will go down in History as the most fucked up NSA to the President....an utter FAIL

We already knew all about that.

I guess you are the only "no one" who couldn't anticipate your lack of qualifications for that job would get lead you to said negligence. That's cutting a hell of a lot of slack.

Of course, she conveniently leaves out that she was confronted by someone asking how she could be shopping while people were dying from Katrina, and how Queen Condi ordered that the woman be kicked out of the store, which she was. Fscking nazi elitist.

http://www.american-buddha.com/katrina.assouthdrownsricesoaks.htm

This article says she attended Spamalot on Wednesday

On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at "Spamalot!," the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.

In the OP Condi says she was in DC on Thursday and NYC Thurs night when she saw Spamalot.

I attended a Homeland Security principals meeting on Thursday, August 30, and returned to the State Department to check once more on plans for securing our offices in the Gulf of Mexico. Then I flew to New York.

It reads like a cocktail party spiel by the boorish relative who always ruins the event.

but Louisiana doesn't have crocodiles, only alligators.

I'm pretty sure keeping holy the Sabbath might have included helping those in need, rather than showing up at church.

Very much
:puke:

So, where's the understanding that comes with an appreciation for sophisticated humor?