Al Gore to the rescue

Ikohn4ever

Ikohn4ever

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Gore airlifts Katrina victims out of New Orleans
Former vice president chartered 2 private aircraft


KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of the former vice president's son.

Gore criticized the Bush administration's slow response to Katrina in a speech Friday in San Francisco, but refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew on Sept. 3 and 4.

However, Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and accompanied him on the flights, said: "Gore told me he wanted to do this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."

An account of the flights was posted this week on a Democratic Party Web page. It was written by Greg Simon, president of the Washington-based activist group FasterCures. Simon, who helped put together the mission, also declined an interview.

On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

"The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute -- food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.

Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.

"None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews," Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."

He also recruited two doctors, Spickard and Gore's cousin, retired Col. Dar LaFon, a specialist in internal medicine who once ran the military hospital in Baghdad.

Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape, personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in New Orleans.

About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on Sept. 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/09/katrina.gore.ap/index.html
 
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Yeah Gore is not everyone idea of an ideal politician but at least he saved those people.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I'm particularly excited to see PAD blunder in here, and what he has to say.[/QUOTE]

Most likely dismiss it as a publicity stunt. I also heard on NPR that Wal-Mart acted quite handsomely shortly after Katrina passed through Louisiana. Several of their tractor trailers full of supplies---which they had collected & loaded onto trailers, ready to go on a moment's notice--pulled into the city and helped out a lot of people.

Any act can be interpreted as sincere or Machiavellian, depending on how you feel about the person/institution.
 
The thing is many other companies did the same thing as Wal-Mart but wal-mart makes a better story.

But I agree Gore wouldn't have done "as good as" Bush. He would have done much much better. Bush's is not exactly a high standard.
 
[quote name='RBM']
Any act can be interpreted as sincere or Machiavellian, depending on how you feel about the person/institution.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say that, most acts by major corporations have more than one reason behind them. Machiavellian authoritarianism doesn't allow for that.
 
[quote name='zionoverfire']I wouldn't say that, most acts by major corporations have more than one reason behind them. Machiavellian authoritarianism doesn't allow for that.[/QUOTE]

Now, perhaps I have a limited understanding of this, but perhaps you could elaborate on why only one reason exists. IIRC, Machiavellian explanations separate true motives (what we would accuse Wal-Mart or Gore of doing) from perceived motives (what W-M and Gore claim to be the reason).
 
If Al Gore were President, Katrina's deadly aftermath would never have happened. He would actually listen to the scientists' concerns rather than sliencing them one by one like Bush have.
 
[quote name='mingglf']If Al Gore were President, Katrina's deadly aftermath would never have happened. He would actually listen to the scientists' concerns rather than sliencing them one by one like Bush have.[/QUOTE]

Doubt that. He may has kept the level of funding there, or somewhat increased, but it's very unlikely he would have ever put the funding needed, especially to get it all done in 5 years. Now, if someone wants to dig up information showing he had long focused on this danger, then I'd like to see it.

Basically, with clinton (if possible) or gore in power, the damge probably would be somewhat less, but still would have occured.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Doubt that. He may has kept the level of funding there, or somewhat increased, but it's very unlikely he would have ever put the funding needed, especially to get it all done in 5 years. Now, if someone wants to dig up information showing he had long focused on this danger, then I'd like to see it.

Basically, with clinton (if possible) or gore in power, the damge probably would be somewhat less, but still would have occured.[/QUOTE]


yes but he would have acted on it instead of cutting cake and getting a guitar, and possibly put somone in FEMA who knew what they were doing and not just his frat bros.


futurama222kc.jpg
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Doubt that. He may has kept the level of funding there, or somewhat increased, but it's very unlikely he would have ever put the funding needed, especially to get it all done in 5 years. Now, if someone wants to dig up information showing he had long focused on this danger, then I'd like to see it.

Basically, with clinton (if possible) or gore in power, the damge probably would be somewhat less, but still would have occured.[/QUOTE]

at least Al would've cut his vacation short

and actually landed on the ground to press the flesh in the first few days, rather than just flying over and going 'hmmm.. looks like total devastation. what's for lunch?'
 
He probably wouldn't have been on vacation in the first place. Bush has set new records for presidential vacations. The previous record-holder was Reagan, by a wide margin over any other president. Bush has already been on vacation longer in 5 years than Reagan was in 8. (rough numbers: Reagan took about 320 vacation days over 8 years. Clinton took 152 vacation days. Bush is at 330 and counting with 3 years to go.)

Extrapolating out, we can see that Bush will take approximately 3 times as many vacation days as Clinton did. If we assume that Gore's vacationing habits are roughly equal to Clintons (Gore is actually somewhat known as a workaholic - he probably would have taken fewer days of vacation than Clinton would have), we see that there probably would have only been about a 30-40% chance that Gore would have been on vacation at all when this disaster struck. And I would bet any amount of money that he would have been back in Washington the day before it even struck...

Regarding levies, it still would have been a rather bad disaster. However, the key levy that failed, causing the most destruction, was one that was scheduled to be repaired last year, but wasn't due to budget cuts. Would that levy have held had it been in full repair? Its impossible to say for sure. What can be said for sure, though, is that it was in a damaged condition, and that most definitely made it far, far, far more likely to fail. Even if it had broken, the failure probably wouldn't have been as bad. Full funding wouldn't have preventing the failure of the levies entirely, but the situation almost certainly wouldn't have been as bad.
 
[quote name='Drocket']He probably wouldn't have been on vacation in the first place. Bush has set new records for presidential vacations. The previous record-holder was Reagan, by a wide margin over any other president. Bush has already been on vacation longer in 5 years than Reagan was in 8. (rough numbers: Reagan took about 320 vacation days over 8 years. Clinton took 152 vacation days. Bush is at 330 and counting with 3 years to go.)

Extrapolating out, we can see that Bush will take approximately 3 times as many vacation days as Clinton did. If we assume that Gore's vacationing habits are roughly equal to Clintons (Gore is actually somewhat known as a workaholic - he probably would have taken fewer days of vacation than Clinton would have), we see that there probably would have only been about a 30-40% chance that Gore would have been on vacation at all when this disaster struck. And I would bet any amount of money that he would have been back in Washington the day before it even struck...

Regarding levies, it still would have been a rather bad disaster. However, the key levy that failed, causing the most destruction, was one that was scheduled to be repaired last year, but wasn't due to budget cuts. Would that levy have held had it been in full repair? Its impossible to say for sure. What can be said for sure, though, is that it was in a damaged condition, and that most definitely made it far, far, far more likely to fail. Even if it had broken, the failure probably wouldn't have been as bad. Full funding wouldn't have preventing the failure of the levies entirely, but the situation almost certainly wouldn't have been as bad.[/QUOTE]


The damage probabaly would have been the same, but the loss of life and suffering of those stranded in NO would have been much less. No way those ppl would have been stuck without food and water for days under Gore.
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever']yes but he would have acted on it instead of cutting cake and getting a guitar, and possibly put somone in FEMA who knew what they were doing and not just his frat bros. [/QUOTE]
Tommy Lee Jones was Gore's college roommate and he would make a kickass FEMA director. :)
 
How the world would be a much better place if Al Gore were President. Good old Al Gore, the brainchild behind the Clinton administration.
 
[quote name='mingglf']How the world would be a much better place if Al Gore were President. Good old Al Gore, the brainchild behind the Clinton administration.[/QUOTE]

Because then we would have someone competent running the country instead of W.
 
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