Rememeber this?
USATODAY.com – On Deadline: Archives — Hey I hate to be seen as a Bush basher. But honesty does not seem to come easily to this administration.
The story the Associated Press moved Wednesday evening about the video that shows top officials warning President Bush that New Orleans’ levees might not withstand Hurricane Katrina is top news everywhere today. Here’s how various media and blogs from both sides of the political aisle are playing it:
– At The Swamp, a blog from the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau, the video’s called “a stunning piece of bad news for the White House.” Why? Because
“it directly contradicts his by now famous statement on the Good Morning America television show days after the hurricane. ‘I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.’ ”
Then they have to spin it again. Note this:
MSNBC notes that “administration officials denied there was anything new” in the video.
Of course there is nothing new. It’s an OLD tape. Talk about spin. It wasn’t new by any means, it was unknown to the public, that’s all. Nice try with the doubletalk. This sort of thing is very galling. Can these folks ever apologize instead of acting like weasels?
Related link:
Actual video linked here
“This sort of thing is very galling. Can these folks ever apologize instead of acting like weasels?”
This is just like when the judge asked the man why did he bludgeoned his wife with a hammer and the man said: “The doctor said she needed more iron in her diet.”
And his G cord is on the wrong fret!!!!
I went to Ash Wednesday service last night and the Priest managed to make it both political and personal.He told about a 70 year old man who was in N.O.during Katrina.The man was on a ledge in water up to his knees for 3 days.After the man told his story he started to cry and the Dr. listening said”I’m sorry,so sorry”The old man said back”All they have to do is say they’re sorry”The priest then said”and in this time of Lent all we have to do is say we are sorry and promise to do better”.If Pres.Bush would show a little sorrow in the way he has messed up in the last 4 years maybe we would all think better of him.At least Clinton apoligized for his lies and lust.
John, you shouldn’t as a weasel to be anything other than a weasel. It’s kind of pointless. All we need do is survive two more years until we get our next disaster of a president.
This guy really thinks he has God on his side. People in that frame of mind feel no need to apologize.
Dan, that’s funny as hell. I would have busted up laughing at that crackpot.
Yeah Bush has his problems, BUT he could jump off the podium at a press conference and start eating one of the reporters and he’d still be a better president than Kerry would have been.
Me: Thank you for following the standard Republican Response Protocol, Section III: A screw up too big to deny, i.e. a city underwater. You chose Response B, Kerry/Democrats would be worse. A masterful choice, as the other two, A – Clinton did it too, and C – 9/11 changed everything, don’t quite apply. We sincerely thank you for your efforts. Without them the cognitive dissonance may lead some people to believe that the Democrats would actually be better at something than the Republicans. We certainly wouldn’t want that to happen.
“Yeah Bush has his problems, BUT he could jump off the podium at a press conference and start eating one of the reporters and he’d still be a better president than Kerry would have been.”
This quote show how far we have fallen in with the two party system. In the last presidential election, many, if not most people voted for “not Bush” or “not Kerry.” People were voting for the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately, the lesser of two evils is still evil.
From various comments left in the USAToday article:
When Andrew hit, it took Clintons FEMA 27 days to respond. Clintons FEMA director went on Jessie Jackson’s CNN show and said, “its really hard getting in there…the ground is still wet. but you’ll see some real action here in the next few weeks.”
Jessie nodded as if that explanation was sufficient. Guess Jessie just doesnt like white people.
Bush’s FEMA had caravans of trucks lined up in Baton Rouge (photgraphs prove it)ready to respond BEFORE the hurrican hit. They warned the state to issue evacuation orders three days prior. They requested permission from the democrat gov of LA to respond and move in and were denied (proven). When they could finally move in they were in place in less than 3 days, despite the mangled highways.
Greg M.
and
Bush took the blame, where was Nagin with all those buses he could have used? Where was Landru authorizing National guard troops to enter her state before things went bad? Did they admit to making mistakes? NO.
Pete
Could not have said it better myself.
“Yeah Bush has his problems, BUT he could jump off the podium at a press conference and start eating one of the reporters and he’d still be a better president than Kerry would have been.”
Wow. Kerry jabs. We will never know because a bunch of people got scared gay people are going to take over showed up to vote.
I guess the blame it on Clinton thing got old. Things sure seemed better under Clinton. Where is the impeachment over Iraq? Does a president have to get a BJ to be impeached these days?
I hate to sound like I’m defending Bush, here, but this is really a whole lot of nothing. In all the coverage I remember before the hurricane, focus was on water OVERFLOWING the top of the levees, and the subsequent problem of pumping out the water.
A BREACH of the levee is a different issue. So how does a clip of one guy talking about OVERFLOW, somehow show they expected BREACHES.
All this video shows to me, is the utter lack of preparation from the local government, all the way up to the federal level. It isn’t anything new, it’s the same old story.
I do have to admit I voted against Bush far more than for Kerry. I came to like Kerry over the course of the campaign, but he definitely wasn’t my first choice. Stupid people voting for who they think is the most electable in the primaries instead of who they actually like the best.
“Did they admit to making mistakes? NO.”
Um, yeah, actually they did. Nagin told, I believe Nightline, that he had made several mistakes during the whole thing. Bush’s team seem to be in this rut of “deny first, no matter what” then when they get caught they deny it again. Then usually after everyone’s really still pissed off, they’ll say something that almost sounds like an apology, then everyone drops it.
I seriously don’t get it. Even IF Bush and team were in the clear on Katrina, there are at least a dozen OTHER things that they’ve done that everyone seems to just blindly forget. Remember Iraq and the Downing Street Memos? Now it seems like everyone has forgotten that he got us into this war on false charges. Remember No Child Left Behind? Not effective. Remember Perscription Drug Program? Going to cost us more than they imagined, and won’t cover what a lot of people need. Remember Social Security Reform? Poof – where’d the hell that go? I thought it was an imminent problem? Why is it that the American people and Congress will stand up against a problem 30 years away, but not an unjustified WAR that is killing people every day, and threatens to completely destabilize an entire region far worse than an idiot dictator ever did?
At this point, I don’t even care anymore, I just want the nightmare to end and a real POTUS to take over. I don’t even care if they are republican, if they actually pay attention to the public and the rest of the world, and have half the ineptitude of this administration. Crap – Quayle even looks good at this point…
The biggest lie that Bush told (in facial expressions–not words) was on 9/11 when someone whispered into his ear (when he was reading the Pet Goat) that a second plane had hit the Twin Towers. EVERYONE I ever asked said they KNEW we were being attacked the second they heard about the second plane. Bush’s reaction was nervousness in being conscious of his reaction. You know, we can call Bush stupid if we want but the man is not fucking retarded. HE KNEW!
To use a video of him in a room listening to people tell him the levees could break is just Anti-American liberal crap and those who are using this video against Bush should just get out of my country.
Ya, don’t you people know that we should all get out of Dubya’s Fourth Reich !!! How was Dubya supposed to know that briefing was for him? It could really been meant for Uncle Dick.
Hey Jim W do you even know when Andrew hit? “When Andrew hit, it took Clintons FEMA 27 days to respond”. Andrew struck South Florida on August 22, 1992 http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s967.htm under Bush 41’s watch. I didn’t know Clinton ran FEMA for Bush SR. I’ve seen this used to blame Clinton before and can’t believe people try to get away with it. I lived in South Florida at the time and still live here. But I’m not going to lay any blame on George Sr. When Andrew hit it was only the 3rd Cat 5 to ever hit the US, and the first since 1969. I can tell you I started preparing my house for Andrew early that morning and every hour watched that storm build from a minor storm to a monster. At 10 PM I was never so scared as I still didn’t believe I had prepared enough to make my family safe, even though we were one of the houses in our area that had shutters. Fortunately the storm went south of us in Ft. Lauderdale and slammed South Dade. I never slept that night as I listened to people call into the the local TV station as the roofs were ripped from their houses. 1992 was very different than today (note I said we were one of the few houses with shutters, now every house built has to have them). The plotting of storms has advanced greatly since then. However, NOAA feels if given the proper funding they could make great advances in the area predicting the power of a storm, which would have helped in Katrina. But the funding has not been there due to “other priorities”. Also, stronger storms have continued to hit year after year. While the response was not immediate Bush Sr. could not have been prepared like his son should have been. But blaming Clinton when he wasn’t even president in an effort to some how make Bush 43 look better, that’s hilarious.
Dale
Thanks for the update. I wasn’t aware about Andrew. Don’t be too hard on Jim though. He watches Bullcrap O’Rielly and listens to Lush Rimjob. Those guys sure know how to invent things. The quote he left doesn’t have a link, but it appears to be signed by Pete. I think it was maybe a letter to the editor. But I noticed some errors in there too.
Jim also doesn’t realize that many of those trucks were Louisiana NG and private relief vehicles sitting in Baton Rouge and other centers. It was FEMA that prevented many of them from entering the devastated area though. It took several days before FEMA hit New Orleans and weeks in other places. Several volunteer Search and Rescue teams from around the U.S. and even from Vancouver Canada were there and working within 72 hours. The NG troops from other states needed Federal approval to move into Louisiana, which took several days to come. The three days warning was first a thought, then a recommendation from NOAA, not FEMA. Those 700 buses the neo-cons like to mention was actually 298, of which only 160 some were useable. Due to insurance and legal reasons, there weren’t any drivers for them.
Apparently Clinton is the standard of excellence for comparison in all things. Interesting.
I have had bowel movements that would have been better presidents than Dubya. This moron (and I apologize to all morons in advance for the unfair comparison) is easily the worst president in the history of the US, if not the world. Incompetent isn’t strong enough a word to describe him. If Clinton had done a single one of the dozens of things that Dubya has inflicted on the US and the world, the Republicans would have strung him up and set him on fire on the White House lawn. But because Dubya is a Republican, he is flawless, infallible and beyond criticism. How many more people have to die, how badly do we have to mortgage our future, how many more people do we have to turn into deadly enemies before his supporters start to question him?
Hey Jim W do you even know when Andrew hit? “When Andrew hit, it took Clintons FEMA 27 days to respond”. Andrew struck South Florida on August 22, 1992.
The question is does Jim W care? About the truth? About anything other than diverting blame from Bush or carrying water for Bush’s adinistration? The answer is a resounding “no.”
The Bush administration are liars, sure. But their apologists are arguably worse. They are enablers with no sense of personal responsibility, integrity, or principles. They ALLOW the Bush administration to get away with massive incompetence, torture, unprecedented govt spending and deficits, unjustified war, lies, and corruption, all the while doing their part to lie, divert blame, and cover up.
Hmm, from what I’ve heard, the FEMA people on that tape were telling the President that none of their models could accurately predict the failure of the dikes in NO. If the models from the experts weren’t accurate, then, how could the President be a better judge? Sometimes people forget that just being president does not make the person an expert in everything all the time.
Before the fact, should the President have done anything different given the information he was presented – perhaps. Should the Governor and the Mayor of the city done anything different – absolutely! Especially when the Governor and Mayor were telling the federal officials to stay out, we’ve got it under control. Was it Bush’s fault that all of those school buses were left sitting around instead of evacuating more people – no.
Me,
did you mean “eat” in a sexual way?
Why does everyone blame Bush for the Katrina? It wasn’t his fault. It was an act of nature. The people most responsible for what happen to them are the individuals themselves. If you count on the Government to save your ass then you screwed. I don’t care who is in charge. The government is almost always reactive and not proactive. When they are proactive their usually violating someone right to free choice. The next in line is the local Government should have plan in place to deal with this type of thing. Then it goes up the line County than State. The last and least responsible is the Federal Government.
Did the Feds screw up? Yes, Bush has even said so a number of times that, they could have handled it better. But the state and locals screwed up more. Florida learned from Andrew and is better prepared but this is the State. FEMA did get a little better. Florida also knows how to work with FEMA and to expect from them, Blanco didn’t.
I for one am not in favor for rebuilding New Orleans. My reason they are in a flood plain. Here, on the Ohio river we had a flood and one town is no more. The Feds gave them a one time buyout of their home because they would most likely will flood again. Can New Orleans rebuild itself if they want to yes. Should they be able to get Federal Loans to do it? Yes, but only if they pay it back and improve the Levee systems (Feds can help here too) to protect them selves in the future.
About the tape there is one with Blanco saying the Levees were in tacked hours after the Weather Service issued Flood warning.
After your drive by reporting, you should report that now it is admitted by the networks that they received this video on August 28, and have had it all this time. That means it’s not new. They will continue to fling crap like monkeys until something sticks, but it won’t. You can’t just make things up, like Bush let people die. No matter what he would have done, there would be flack from liberal weenies. If he had stormed in there and took charge, the democrats WHO WERE IN CHARGE would have cried that he was ursurping their power because they were democrats. All of them screwed up, but Bush is far from the biggest in that group.
Jetfire
Blanco is reported to have said “She thinks” the levees are intact. She acknowledged that there were several reports of water flowing over the levees. The same report stated:
She sounds uncertain about the reliability of her information and cautioned that the situation “could change.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030300227.html
FYI, The weather service, NOAA, has the same boss as does FEMA. Dubya. Didn’t they tell their own people that the levee had failed?
The Ap has posted a correction. Any chance you will do the same?
Anyone that blames Bush for the Katrina fiasco is seriously out of touch with reality. Bush is the absolute LAST person Katrina victims should be blaming. Why was New Orleans and indeed Louisiana in general a cesspool for so many years? How could they squander millions in government money designed to improve infrastructure and do so little improvement? Why hasn’t the city and state done more to help people be self-sufficient and get out of poverty? Why was the city and state so poorly prepared for this disaster?
The elephant in the living room that no one wants to admit is that the people of New Orleans and Louisiana failed themselves by continually electing corrupt politicians that did not prepare their city for a real disaster.
On a related note, to blame Bush for this disaster instead of having a reasonable discussion about the actual contributing factors to the problem mollifies your credibility. It seems as if it is not possible to have a reasoned debate with the left about any issue because it all ends with ungrounded, acrimonious ranting about Bush. I am not at all saying that Bush is beyond criticism. But when I read stuff like “Bush is the worst President” or “Bush lied about 9/11” or “Bush knew about Katrina” or “Dubya’s Fourth Reich”, I, along with everyone else not on the far left, flip the bozo bit and everything else from that person is treated as caustic dribble.
Used to be, Thomas, that presidents not only took responsibility for what happened on their watch — they had the integrity to be in charge of the fools they appointed and listened to as advisors.
You’re just whitewashing the Federal portion of an event where the federal government by definition had to assume a great deal of responsibility. That’s what FEMA used to be about.
We all expect those who excuse all the other crap to excuse this as well.
AMEN Thomas