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Spare us the playpen politics and the foolish purge attempts. If ever the Democratic Party has been united, it is now.
The Bush smear machine is aimed at New Dem stalwarts like Blanco, Nagin, and both of the Landrieus. Your attempt to tie the DLC to Bush is ludicrous and false.
From the DLC home page:
"The national government and its authorities bear the ultimate responsibility for failing to provide an effective national response to a regional catastrophe that obviously overmatched the resources of state and local governments. Those failures must be thoroughly and objectively assessed, preferably in a bipartisan or nonpartisan way, in the weeks ahead (the president's announcement that he will investigate his own administration's response does not meet that test).
"But the unwillingness of politicians to accept responsibility for the past cannot be allowed to effect the present and future.
"That means the president must put the relief and recovery mission in the hands of people more competent that the present leadership of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its overseers in the Department of Homeland Security, who have clearly forfeited public confidence, even if the administration must finally admit a serious mistake. Bush should take a cue from Governor Kathleen Blanco, who late last week hired former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose competence and experience in disaster relief are beyond question.
"That means the relief and recovery plan must be truly comprehensive and forward-looking. We cannot simply evacuate the affected areas, slowly begin the wheels of reconstruction, and let the evacuees and the communities that have accepted them fend for themselves with a pittance of public and private aid. Those whose lives have been torn apart need real direction and hope for the future, which means jobs, permanent shelter, and a realistic assessment of when and whether they can return home.
"And most of all, that means the relief and recovery effort must not repeat the most important moral failing of the disaster preparations and the immediate response: indifference to the plight of those most in need. It's now clear that both the evacuation efforts and the initial disaster response did not take into account the poverty, lack of cash or transportation assets, physical isolation, and health care conditions of hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who were left to sink or swim with their devastated homes. For those who survived, leaving them to their own virtually nonexistent resources now would make a mockery of all our values, civic and religious, as a people."
Ed Kilgore's New Donkey blog:
While Bush hunts high and low for incompetents in his administration, will he leave the most likely suspects in charge of the relief and recovery effort in the Gulf Coast? Is ol' Brownie, dismissed not long ago from his crushing responsibilities as a show horse enforcement official, the indispensable man in the operation? And insofar as Bush himself raised concerns about the implications of the botched recovery for homeland security, does he really want to keep DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in overall direction of the massive project?
This whole thing is incredibly bizarre. The president who has never, ever, in more than four years, admitted a single mistake, and never fired anyone for anything other than the sin of admitting mistakes, is going to investigate his own administration for mistakes that he has yet to admit other than at the highest level of abstraction. Maybe that's the whole idea: he'll find someone who admitted a mistake, and blame the mistakes he won't admit on them. Talking heads will roll.
Last week, Kilgore said:
Watch the conservative blogs and news outlets; we're about to see a big effort to scapegoat Kathleen Blanco, perhaps Ray Nagin, and even the stranded low-income people of New Orleans themselves, for the disaster that's happened over the last few days; there have already been hints of this in so many places that I can't begin to cite or link to them. Maybe that's the price the victims of this nightmare have to pay for real and adequate federal relief, but it should not and will not go unchallenged.
Marshall Wittman's Bull Moose Blog:
Would you entrust your life and the lives of your family to Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff? In view what has happened over the past week, do you believe that these men should continue to be responsible for the safety and security of your family, your community, your country ? Look at your loved ones and contemplate the notion that these two individuals could have your fate in their hands.
Today's Washington Post,
"Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing for the worst, the federal government was not ready when it came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior officials and outside experts."
This has nothing to do with "recriminations." The nation continues to be threatened with both terrorist attacks and natural disasters. We cannot allow a repeat of the events of the past week. These two men have a track record - New Orleans.
Mr. President, ask for their resignations
Also from Bull Moose:
The Moose wonders whether criminal incompetence should constitute grounds for impeachment?
Is Rummy actually in charge of the rescue mission in New Orleans? After all, the Bush Administration seems intent on using the Baghdad model for New Orleans. We could have at least expected that a Republican Administration would be able to restore order in the aftermath of a national disaster. Apparently not.
Where were the troops? Once again, the Bush Administration has approached a national challenge with insufficient resources. It used to be liberals that were characterized as incompetent and soft on crime. No longer - enter the Bush conservatives.
However, if you believe what is coming from the hourly press conferences from the President and his minions, everything is going swell with the federal response. Perhaps today in New Orleans the President will repel down from a Coast Guard helicopter in an orange jumpsuit and declare "Mission Accomplished."
And America weeps.
Given what has happened in New Orleans, why should Americans have any confidence that the federal government is prepared for a major terrorist attack on an American city? This is a monumental dereliction of duty by those we have entrusted to defend and protect us..
But if one listens to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a city is an expendable thing. And conservatives are defenders of tradition?
The magnitude of this disaster is only matched by the incompetence of this Administration. Now we know the meaning of conservative Commissar Norquist's "leave us alone" coalition. Or is this just the highest stage of "compassionate conservatism" as Americans starve or die of thirst on the streets? Maybe, we are just judging the Bushies by the standard of the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
And don't forget - this is the Administration that demands accountability and standards from our educators and students. Parents - don't accept any excuses from your kids for substandard school work but don't leave any incompetent FEMA Director or Secretary of Homeland Security behind!
Conservative governance has produced fiscal irresponsibility, government expansion, unprecedented incompetence and lawlessness. Have they no shame?
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