Newsweek - How Bush Blew it

ZarathosNY

ZarathosNY

CAGiversary!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/site/newsweek/

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.
The president did not growl this time. He had already decided to return to Washington and hold a meeting of his top advisers on the following day, Wednesday. This would give them a day to get back from their vacations and their staffs to work up some ideas about what to do in the aftermath of the storm. President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
 
With regards to awareness of the world at large, I would imagine that the President is somewhat at the mercy of his staff. I don't imagine that he gets much time, if any, to watch TV, listen to the radio, or read a newspaper. Naturally, that doesn't make him helpless to their whims: if the President feels the need to keep abreast of current events at the "street level" so to speak, I'm sure he wouldn't have to rely upon the self-initiative of an aide to burn DVD's of the nightly news, as mentioned in the article quoted here. And, of course, the quality of the people he chooses to form his staff would play a large role in his awareness of affairs, I would imagine. President Bush seems to have surrounded himself with like-minded yesmen, rather than highly competent advisers.

[Yes, that's very insightful, U2K. There is a tendency for people to get carried away and pile all the blame on the President. However, I think this case is a far cry from such unreasonable expectations. He was unaware of the scope of a national disaster, by the time everyday Joes already knew of it. I don't think it unreasonable to expect him to keep abreast of current events...particularly those which effect so many American lives....and deaths.]
 
More topics on blaming bush huh? Yall wake up one day and understand that bush is not GOD, thus the man can not save everyone, unlike GOD which can.
 
[quote name='U2K Tha Greate$t']More topics on blaming bush huh? Yall wake up one day and understand that bush is not GOD, thus the man can not save everyone, unlike GOD which can.[/QUOTE]

Walt Disney called, he wants his fairy tales back.
 
[quote name='U2K Tha Greate$t']More topics on blaming bush huh? Yall wake up one day and understand that bush is not GOD, thus the man can not save everyone, unlike GOD which can.[/QUOTE]

No, this is about Bush's incompetence. Bush was briefed by the National Hurricane Center on how bad the storm was going to be when it hit, and yet he couldn't be bothered to find out what the damage was after the storm hit. There was plenty of things that Bush could have done to get ready for the aftermath of the storm, but he
didn't. I don't think it's too much to ask that the president do his job instead of staying on vacation while a national disaster is going on. Hell, the Navy had the USS Bataan sitting off the coast of NO right after the storm ended, and they had 600 hospital beds and the capacity to make 100,000 gallons of water a day, and no one ordered them in to help.
 
And no one can order federal troops to take an active hand in a state outside the front gates of a military installation without a governor's request. In this case troops would also be sailors.

Calling Governor Blanco! Governor Blanco red courtesy telephone!
 
[quote name='U2K Tha Greate$t']More topics on blaming bush huh? Yall wake up one day and understand that bush is not GOD, thus the man can not save everyone, unlike GOD which can.[/QUOTE]

He can also kill everyone. Reading scriptures, he seems to prefer that course of action.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']And no one can order federal troops to take an active hand in a state outside the front gates of a military installation without a governor's request. In this case troops would also be sailors.

Calling Governor Blanco! Governor Blanco red courtesy telephone![/QUOTE]

Quick!!! Spin Spin Spin....blame local officals!!!!!! With the Nations response plan Bush could have sent them in. It doesn't matter, since Blanco asked for everything Bush could give her BEFORE the storm hit.
 
Keep running against a guy that will never be up for election again!

What are you going to do in 2008 when you can't run on agenda of "HATE BUSH"!?

Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting
White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A01

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.

President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.

Authorities reported progress in restoring order and electricity and repairing levees, as a hospital ship arrived and cruise ships were sent to provide temporary housing for victims. As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.

But there remained an overwhelming display of human misery on the streets of New Orleans, where the last 1,500 people were being evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care.

About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by Saturday afternoon, with roughly the same number remaining, city officials said. Search-and-rescue efforts continued in flooded areas of the city, where an unknown number of people wait in their homes, on rooftops or in makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding -- 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.
EXCERPT: Link
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Keep running against a guy that will never be up for election again!

What are you going to do in 2008 when you can't run on agenda of "HATE BUSH"!?

[/QUOTE]

Well, I suppose we could start mentioning that he screwed all this up so royally under the watchful eye of a Republican-led Congress, thus tarnishing the reputations of any Republican Senator or Representative who is interested in running in 2008.

They've been Bush's rubber stamp, avoiding any sort of oversight that might have improved anything. After all, policies that are questioned usually become stronger, like iron being forged into steel. Instead, they've rubber stamped his policies while larding on the pork as heavy as they can, doing their part to run up the deficit that's crippling this country.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']At least I can be comforted by the fact that when a Republican wins in 2008 you'll run away again for another 10 months dennis.[/QUOTE]

And again PAD changes the subject, rather than addressing an uncomfortable point.

Keep spinnin', PAD, keep spinnin'.....
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Keep running against a guy that will never be up for election again!

What are you going to do in 2008 when you can't run on agenda of "HATE BUSH"!?



Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.[/b]
EXCERPT: Link [/QUOTE]

Yeah, and the Washington post issued a retraction of this story because Blanco declared a state of emergency on Aug 26.
http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973

Followed by Bush declaring a state of emergency for Louisiana on the 27th.

The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167240,00.html




This has nothing to do with running against Bush, but to hold him accountable for the terrible job he has done. Do you get tired of being proven wrong time and time again?
 
Owned!!!

EDIT: And let's post some stuff about Blanco getting more National Guard troops, shall we?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509080001

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.
Click to expand...
 
Let's give PAD the link to the Post article. Not that I expect him to pay attention, because god knows he's too much of a pussy to admit he's dead wrong.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html

I'll even quote it for the chickenshit.

Correction to This Article
A Sept. 4 article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina incorrectly said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) had not declared a state of emergency. She declared an emergency on Aug. 26.
Click to expand...

I dare you to not admit you're wrong, chickenshit.

EDIT: The link in my post is the same as the link in PAD's post!!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
Out of curiousity, how many of you think that Mayor Nagin bears some of this responsibility as well? Obviously Bush's response has been less-than-ideal, to put it politically. But is he the only one who failed? I'm interested to know other opinions.
 
[quote name='Quillion']Out of curiousity, how many of you think that Mayor Nagin bears some of this responsibility as well? Obviously Bush's response has been less-than-ideal, to put it politically. But is he the only one who failed? I'm interested to know other opinions.[/QUOTE]

Of course there is plenty of blame to go around. Nagin and Blanco deserve blame for not planning better ahead of time. The plan to evacuate NO does mention that there could be as many as 100,000 people who have no way of evacuating on their own, but doesn't offer a solution to that problem. Of course, there is more blame for the feg govt because NO is a major port and a big piece of our economy, so money should have been invested to protect it. Also, once Katrina hit, it was obvious that LA
did not have the resources to handle the aftermath, so they should of received help from the feds. I mean it is a HUGE disgrace that while people were drowning and starving in NO, Bush and his cabinet were on vacation. You had Cheney house shopping in Wyoming, Rice attending Spamelot and shopping for shoes, and Rumsfeld at a Padres game.
 
[quote name='Quillion']Out of curiousity, how many of you think that Mayor Nagin bears some of this responsibility as well? Obviously Bush's response has been less-than-ideal, to put it politically. But is he the only one who failed? I'm interested to know other opinions.[/QUOTE]

Given that most everybody but the impoverished split town with ample time, it seems that NO was well prepared to help people *avoid* disaster. It did not seem amply prepared to evacuate people in the event of a levee break, which is disappointing considering the number of people who mentioned a levee break over the years as a catastrophic possibility.

I won't go on some talking point tanget about "school buses," because that's just absurd. Nagin and Blanco did a good job evacuating all but the most poor (and a few stubborn) from NO and the surrounding parishes. If they hadn't, we'd be speculating far greater deaths that could be the case currently.

The problem with the Bush administration, and the remarkable disappointment, is that the US citizens voted him back into office based upon the perception that he is tough on national security, he is quick to seize the opportunity to be a leader in times of crisis, and that he genuinely cares about the well being of the people. Most importantly, the citizens genuinely believed that he was going to fix the bureacratic nightmare that had become our intelligence network. He set up the DHS to coordinate with FEMA, FBI, and the CIA, among other organizations, to make sure everyone was on the same page, so to speak.

Katrina is a resounding spectacle that displays how poorly he failed in doing what most perceived him to be of importance for. FEMA was headed by the most disgustingly unqualified of cronies, and his seeming indifference (the vacationing of the top three federal officials just made it appear worse) are damning indictments that show, more than anything else, Bush is unable to keep this country secure from another crisis. He has failed in the one thing that kept him alive politically.

Like I said, Nagin and Blanco, in the absence of help from the federal government, helped evacuate all but a large proportion of the poorest from the hardest hit areas. It is certainly their liability when they call for a mandatory evacuation and do not use all the resources to help those people discriminated against because of class. That is unfortunate; on the other hand, Bush failed, in catastrophic fashion, at the one mission the US people counted on him to be able to do.
 
GWB-Hear-the-ocean.jpg
 
[quote name='niceguyshawne']Hey Rush, what exactly does this add to the debate?[/QUOTE]

Nothing. Once PAD has shown to be wrong, he follows up with posts like this, or he starts calling people names.
 
[quote name='niceguyshawne']Hey Rush, what exactly does this add to the debate?[/QUOTE]

Debate? DEBATE?

There is no debate on this board. It's "Blame Bush" 24/7. Doesn't matter the issue. Doesn't matter the topic. Doesn't matter the country or people involved.

The only response from anyone here is "Blame Bush".

That's all these people have. It's what they live for, to "Blame Bush".

They offer nothing positive, they may vote but their candidates can't win, they can't offer any solution to anything, they live in absolute boiling red anger that George Bush is President. They wake up hating, they go through their day incensed, before they go to bed they curse God's name because George W. Bush is President.

Gas prices high? Blame Bush. Forget the fact that environmentalists haven't allowed a new refinery to be built in 25 years. Forget the fact that liberals refuse to allow development of known oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, California coast, ANWAR and absolutely decry the possibility of collecting oil shale out of federal lands in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah that may have as much as three times the amount of oil under Saudi Arabia.

Dammit.... they have to BLAME BUSH!

Debate.

PSSSSH Like anything like that ever goes on here. You want to fit in assign this phrase to a hot key "BLAME BUSH" and you'll be loved and admired.
 
Bush and people who take their marching orders from him run this country right now.

Who do you should get the blame the Amish?
 
We should be like PAD and blame the looting n****** and their state leaders for the entire mess.

Hey PAD, who should we blame for the appointment of Brownie?
 
[quote name='Quillion']Out of curiousity, how many of you think that Mayor Nagin bears some of this responsibility as well? Obviously Bush's response has been less-than-ideal, to put it politically. But is he the only one who failed? I'm interested to know other opinions.[/QUOTE]

Afterward no, not sure about before. New orleans is the 9th poorest city in the country (meaning they can't do what places like new york, boston, los angeles etc. could do), and a hurricane was coming that the surrounding areas didn't take seriously. Even if (and a big if) he had been able to get everyone out who wanted out, I find it unlikely he would have found a place to put them.

People seem to forget the other half of it, when you get them out of the city, you have to know where to put them.
 
[quote name='niceguyshawne']We should be like PAD and blame the looting n****** and their state leaders for the entire mess.

Hey PAD, who should we blame for the appointment of Brownie?[/QUOTE]

No one, Brownie did everything right! Helluva job!

[quote name='Funny this sounds familiar...']They offer nothing positive, they may vote but their candidates can't win, they can't offer any solution to anything, they live in absolute boiling red anger that Bill Clinton is President. They wake up hating, they go through their day incensed, before they go to bed they curse God's name because Bill Clinton is President.[/quote]

I blame PAD posting here on Cheney.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Debate? DEBATE?

There is no debate on this board. It's "Blame Bush" 24/7. Doesn't matter the issue. Doesn't matter the topic. Doesn't matter the country or people involved.

The only response from anyone here is "Blame Bush".

That's all these people have. It's what they live for, to "Blame Bush".

They offer nothing positive, they may vote but their candidates can't win, they can't offer any solution to anything, they live in absolute boiling red anger that George Bush is President. They wake up hating, they go through their day incensed, before they go to bed they curse God's name because George W. Bush is President.

Gas prices high? Blame Bush. Forget the fact that environmentalists haven't allowed a new refinery to be built in 25 years. Forget the fact that liberals refuse to allow development of known oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, California coast, ANWAR and absolutely decry the possibility of collecting oil shale out of federal lands in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah that may have as much as three times the amount of oil under Saudi Arabia.

Dammit.... they have to BLAME BUSH!

Debate.

PSSSSH Like anything like that ever goes on here. You want to fit in assign this phrase to a hot key "BLAME BUSH" and you'll be loved and admired.[/QUOTE]


Riiiight.....Enviormentalists blocked oil refinerines. How about oil companies didn't want to build them since they didn't need them, and they aren't going to build them now because as oil gets more and more scarce, there's going to be less oil to refine. Oil refineries represnt a huge investment that oil companies don't want to make now.
We critize Bush for the mistakes and screw-ups he makes. No matter how you spin it, staying on vacation while people starved and drowned is not the mark of competence.

Drilling in ANWAR isn't going to help our energy problems, especially since it only contains six months of oil.

YOU are the one who doesn't debate. Once your error filled screeches are pointed out to be false, you either start calling people names or go off sulking in a corner.
You're the one who goes cryng that everything is the fault of liberals, regardless of facts.
 
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