New Orleans - The beginning of the end?

[Dawn Meredith]

Dawn wrote:

Listen to that video clip I supplied yesterday Mr Gratz and tell me why FEMA would behave in this murdrerous manner.

I found this comment interesting. As we know, many of the Cuban exiles thought JFK guilty of murder because of mistakes made re the Bay of Pigs. I certainly agree, however, that it is a tragedy when innocent people suffer and die because of mistakes made by bureaucrats, mistakes often made in comfortable offices in faraway places,

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Only Tim Gratz could twist that Tim Russert video clip into a discussion of blaming BOP on JFK.....the "loigic" just defies anything I see in "real life" , (vs cyberlife here). )

Let's try this again Tim: FEMA PREVENTED ASSISTANCE. Turned away Walmart and their water, turned away Coast Guard and their fuel, cut the lines at the sherrif's ofiice. FEMA DID THIS. I have since seen this sherrif on tv who was being quoted in this clip and he backs all of this up.

What the frig does BOB have to do with this????

RE Andy's comments regarding Carrie and why she left. I do agree with you ANdy, but sometimes some of us need to leave for awhile because the disinformation one finds on forums becomes too overwhelming. It interferes with REAL life.

But I suspect that Carrie left because she could not effectively debate her view that we are in Iraq for any legal or moral purpose, because by now everyone knows the invasion was based 100% on lies.

Ron: I don't think everyone here in the US is "happy" with W. I also don't think he won the election fair and square. His poll numbers are now way down too.

People are beginning to catch on, sadly way too late. I have grave fears for the future of this country with this crew in power another 3 years.

Dawn

[Thomas H. Purvis]

New Orleans flooding & some prominent NO names:

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/history/...Drain_chap3.pdf

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn wrote:

Listen to that video clip I supplied yesterday Mr Gratz and tell me why FEMA would behave in this murdrerous manner.

I replied:

I found this comment interesting. As we know, many of the Cuban exiles thought JFK guilty of murder because of mistakes made re the Bay of Pigs. I certainly agree, however, that it is a tragedy when innocent people suffer and die because of mistakes made by bureaucrats, mistakes often made in comfortable offices in faraway places,

Dawn then responded:

Only Tim Gratz could twist that Tim Russert video clip into a discussion of blaming BOP on JFK.....the "loigic" just defies anything I see in "real life" , (vs cyberlife here). )

It is as simple as this:

Undoubtedly mistakes in preparing for and responding to Katrina were made at all levels of government: the city, the state and the federal level (FEMA). Dawn, however, chose to charcaterize theFEMA mistakes as "murderous" in nature. I simply pointed out that to so attempt to turn bureacratic errors into criminal conduct of the very worst nature reminded me that anti-Castro Cubans and others (including, significantly, Robert Maheu) had attempted to characterize the mistakes made at the BOP as tantamount to murder.

It has not been often, thank goodness, that people have attempted to attach the "murder" tag on government mistakes, regardless of the apparent stupidity of the mistakes and regardless of the fact that the mistakes may have led to the loss of human life.

I believe that Dawn's calling FEMA's actions "murderous" is indeed akin to certain people characterizing the mistakes surrounding the BOP as "murderous". That there were grievous errors or omissions in both cases can hardly be denied; nor that such errors and missions led to loss of human life. But to characterize the mistakes as akin to murder is, in my opinion, simply wrong and elevates the level and temperature of discourse to dangerous levels. Some people believe that in the BOP case, it may have even led to Kennedy's daeth.

[Tim Gratz]

I wrote:

One suspects heads will roll...

Mark Knight replied:

Ain't gonna happen, Tim...at least based upon W's past history in office.

THERE IS NO ACCOUNTABILITY IN THIS ADMINISTRATION.

From Reuters News Service September 13, 2005:

FEMA director Michael Brown, whose work was initially praised by President George W. Bush, resigned on Monday.

I am, of course, way too much of a gentleman to point out to Mark that I told him so.

Edited September 14, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

From the September 13 (or 14?) New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - President Bush said on Tuesday that he bore responsibility for any failures of the federal government in its response to Hurricane Katrina and suggested that he was unsure whether the country was adequately prepared for another catastrophic storm or terrorist attack.

Perhaps the Bush-bashers on the Forum will now see the man in a different light. I think the problem was in the first place created by failures at the local level but from what I am reading the recently resigned FEMA head was too caught up in red tape. I will admit that the POTUS should have realized this sooner than he did and it appears he now understands that as well.

But again the initial response to a natural disaster is always on the local level. Perhaps there ought to be co-ordination between various localities so that, for instance and simply hypothetically, New Orleans could have learned from the hurricane plan of Miami. Although, as pointed out in previous posts, New Orleans did indeed have a plan and the problem may have arisen from the failure of the City to implement its plan as the disaster approached.

[Ron Ecker]

I don't consider Brown's resignation a head rolling. A head rolling is when someone gets fired, as in "have your desk cleared out by noon." Resigning for incompetence despite the fact that your boss has told you that you've done "one heck of a job" simply lets the world know (as if it didn't know already) that your boss is an idiot, xxxx, or both.

[Tim Gratz]

Ron, you surely must know that executives are usually allowed to resign when they are in fact being canned. But certainly Bush spoke too soon when he said that "Brownie" was doing a "heck of a job". (Parenthetically, I don't think too many successful executives would tolerate a nickname like that! When Brown did not protest being called "Brownie" by the POTUS, that should have been Bush's first clue to can the guy!)

I think it is the height of intellectual arrogance for people to call Bush a moron or an idiot. Morons and idiots do not get into and graduate from Ivy League colleges. Morons and idiots do not run successful businesses, as Bush did. And, morons and idiots do not (usually, I would admit) get elected president. I think it highly unlikely that a moron or idiot president would be re-elected.

I seriously doubt that any member of this Forum has an academic record equal to that of President Bush; nor has run a business that was as successful as his was; and certainly none of us have been as politically successful as he has been, first as a state governor and then as the president.

[Tim Gratz]

Ron wrote:

I don't consider Brown's resignation a head rolling.

I can't remember, did JFK "fire" Dulles and Bissell or were they allowed to resign? If the latter, it was of course clear they had been asked to leave by JFK because of the BOP.

[Ron Ecker]

I think it is the height of intellectual arrogance for people to call Bush a moron or an idiot.

Everything is relative. Compared to all past presidents in my memory, Bush is an idiot, though Reagan could probably give him a run for his money.

Morons and idiots do not get into and graduate from Ivy League colleges.

Unless I'm mistaken, Ted Kennedy got into and graduated from an Ivy League college. There are doubtless many other examples of idiots who are able to do this because of who they are. The colleges obviously accommodate this as necessary.

  Morons and idiots do not run successful businesses, as Bush did.

As I recall, Bush's oil company (Arbush or something?) was going nowhere but down until some Arab friends bailed it out. Bush was also the beneficiary of insider trading. That doesn't take intelligence, it just takes being a crook.

I think it highly unlikely that a moron or idiot president would be re-elected.

Bush didn't get re-elected, in my opinion and that of many others. Here's a good link on this forum:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4755

[Tim Gratz]

Well, Ron, I disagree with the premise that Bush did not get re-elected but I would submit that it would also be true that morons and idiots do not successfully "steal" elections either. (I like the part in "Sons and Brothers" where Rosselli was called in to Chicago to help Giancana rig the election for JFK because Rosselli was so good with the numbers.) So however you want to consider it, Bush is serving a second term.

And by the way Reagan was not the way he was often pictured either. I have the book that shows that he personally wrote the radio commentaries that he gave in the late seventies. He was an older man by that time, but he would spend the day working on his ranch and then in the evening he would work on his radio show while he was being driven back to LA. To me that is strong evidence of both his physical and his intellectual prowess. I am twenty years younger than he was then, but if I had spent eight hours doing physical activity on a ranch I seriously doubt that I would be reading and writing on my way back home.

[Mark Knight]

I am, of course, way too much of a gentleman to point out to Mark that I told him so.

No, you're not.

IF you had been keeping up with the news, you would have known that Mike Brown had planned for some time to retire--from a position he'd held but a relatively short time--before the end of 2005. I believe he'll probably end up getting some sort of pension out of this debacle over which he presided...not exactly a case of "heads rolling" if they get to take the "golden parachute" route.

But I will eat a big slice of "I-WAS-WRONG" humble pie over George W. Bush taking responsibility today for what went wrong. With the exception of Carter's mea culpa over the disastrous attempted Iran hostage rescue, I can't recall a president since Kennedy taking responsibility for failures on his watch.

Now, if W had only said something on the order of "Ich ben ein New Orleanian," I might have been able to relate to him a little better. Instead, we got Barbara Bush, First Mom, blaming the refugees...I suppose for being so poor as to not have cars, or so honest as to not have stolen the buses to have made their "getaway" from New Orleans.

[Tim Gratz]

Ron, I don't consider Ted Kennedy a moron or an idiot either. Although his intellectual ability is apparently unrelated to his driving abilities.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark, thank you for your acknowledgement of Bush accepting responsibility. I hope he was sincere in his statement because I do believe he should have been quicker to realize that mistakes were being made on the federal level and I wish he had somehow intervened earlier.

Had he personally intervened earlier, I think he could have come out a hero and reaped some of the same political boost he did in the immediate aftermath of 9-11.

What we need to do is hope and expect that government at all levels will learn from the mistakes so they are not repeated.

I have not often evacuated Key West but one must consider what it would be like here if a calamitous hurricane destroyed even one of the fifty or so bridges into Key West.

By the way, back to the local level, I heard today that Amtrack had offered to use trains to assist in the evacuation but were rebuffed by city officials.

[Mark Knight]

Mark, thank you for your acknowledgement of Bush accepting responsibility.

Tim, that was merely a matter of stating the truth...no more, no less, and certainly no reason to thank me. It's not like that statement from me turned the tide of those who see Bush as an incompetent nincompoop, nor will it change the minds of the faithful who see his presidency as just ever-so-slightly below the second coming of Jesus Christ [i believe you fall into the latter group, Tim].

I contrast Bush's presidency with Kennedy's. Kennedy put the call out for "the best and the brightest," and in many areas got them. Bush's administration, in comparison, appears to be filled with hacks and weasels and assorted vermin, with a few occasional good guys thrown in for their "what about so-and-so" rebuttals that they need to make far too often.

As far as Bush's business acumen, since you brought it up...in baseball, the Cincinnati Reds seem to be managing from the George W. Bush playbook. In the oil business, the ONLY good move he made was selling the business for several times its actual worth, and then to friends of the family [if I had done that, it would have been called "bailing me out."] I don't think you make your case very persuasively. Had Mr. Bush not gone into politics--the "other" family business--extrapolating the results of his business experiences, he would've been just another well-connected loser.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark wrote:

I contrast Bush's presidency with Kennedy's. Kennedy put the call out for "the best and the brightest," and in many areas got them.

You refer, of course, to such people as Robert Strange McNamara? Or are you refering to C. Douglas Dillon? Or perhaps you refer to Dean Rusk? Or perhaps Fred Korth? (In my opinion, the best Cabinent appointment JFK may have made was the one for which he received the most criticism.)

But I do think Bryon White was a great Supreme Court Justice.

Edited September 14, 2005 by Tim Gratz