Not so Curious George versus Obama

[malaise]

U.S. President Barack Obama and his family walk to board Air Force One at Cape Cod late on Friday after cutting short by a day their vacation on Martha's Vineyard
Pic from the Daily Mail

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL Bush (R)

[malaise]

2. LOL - I forgot that one

Good morning SpiralHawk :hi:

[SpiralHawk]

3. Morning. Yes, it was so pathetic, Bush off strumming a guitar and smirking his keester off

...while Americans all along our Gulf Coast were suffering massively from Katrina, and George AWOL Bush's emergency Republicon response was re-defining the whole concept of FAIL, and taking it to an unprecedented low.

[IndyPragmatist]

4. You know, 90% of the failures in Katrina were on Louisiana and NO

FEMA is a support agency. States are expected to handle the emergency response in disasters. FEMA provides funding, administrative support, logistical support, and very limited actual emergency response support.

Louisiana decided to not be prepared as a state. Of course, you cannot prepare for something as bad as Katrina, the levees breaking made it unmanageable. However, Louisiana failed their citizens much more than FEMA.

Additionally, everyone had the ability and opportunity to evacuate (there are a few exceptions), and many of them decided to ignore warnings. Many of these people stayed in hopes of looting the city of New Orleans after Katrina passed. And they did that, quite effectively.

Bush was a terrible president and had many failures, but FEMA wasn't the reason why nearly 2,000 people were killed by Katrina. Individual decision and terrible management by the state of Louisiana were 90% to blame.

Misinformation is what is killing this country. This is why so many rednecks think Obama is a Kenyan. This is why people think Reagan was a great president. If you continue to say a lie over and over again, eventually people will believe it. George W Bush was a terrible president, one of our worst, but he was not to blame for Katrina. Please, don't stoop to that level of lying about everything that you don't agree with to make it seem worse, Bush looks bad enough in reality, you don't need to lie to make him seem worse.

[malaise]

6. Huh?

Listen when you appoint your crony, the Arabian horse trainer Brownie, to a critical post like head of FEMA, you are fugging responsible for the mess that was the Katrina disaster.

You can spin as much as a hurricane, but Bush and his cronies fucked up big time.

Sure, go back and check the reasons why the levees failed and which branches of government and agencies failed. Did state and local government folks fail - sure but no one failed more than Bush and his CRONIES

[SpiralHawk]

7. Gotta disagree

Bush and his FEMA fail cannot dodge responsibility.

Dodging responsibility is a core Republicon Family Value, as they demonstrate repreatedly.

But most Americans recognize that the Republicon administration of George AWOL Bush deserves a Massive heap of blame for failing America so pathetically during the crisis of Katrina.

[Motown_Johnny]

8. Federal Emergency Management Agency, not Federal Emergency Support Agency

It took them days just to figure out there were people in locations other than the Superdome.


Someone had to make Shrub a DVD to get it through his head that he had to do something.



The head of FEMA had no experience with disaster relief.




FEMA is the reason that some people did die after the storm. Emergency aid should have arrived sooner.



In an attempt to find common ground I will end with the one statement you made that I agree with "Misinformation is what is killing this country".

[IndyPragmatist]

9. Yes, that is their name, but they have a role

FEMA cannot legally provide any assistance until the President declares it a federal disaster. Which means nothing can be done outside of state and local emergency response until at least 24 hours after the disaster has occurred.

FEMA didn't do a great job with Katrina, there is no questioning that. But the majority of the lives lost were the result of: terrible response from the state emergency management, terrible preparation by the city of New Orleans, and poor decision making/bad intentions of some that decided to ignore the mandatory evacuation order and stay.

Also, FEMA to this day does not have a huge amount of physical resources. FEMA brings in administrative workers to organize things. FEMA is taking over the cost of the response, as well as the lead. They will be still using state and local resources, as well as support units from other states in the region. The problem with Katrina was that there were not nearly enough state resources, so FEMA was forced to bring in supplies and resources from other states. Mississippi and Alabama were using their resources for their own emergency. The transportation from Texas to LA was almost non-existent. And Arkansas isn't a coastal state, so their resources weren't exactly made for this kind of incident.

Here was FEMA's screwup: they didn't realize before Katrina occurred that LA was so woefully underprepared. This was immediately changed after Katrina. The FEMA regions have better oversight of each state and they are now more aware of everything each state has.

The reason it took so long for a proper response was due to the fact that the resources weren't there in Louisiana, and all of the neighboring states were either using their resources, not designed for a hurricane response, or difficult to transport because of the damage from the hurricane.

FEMA learned a lot from Katrina. So did the states. States have realized the importance of keeping a tight line of communication with each other, and having the legal framework to properly respond.

One thing that prevented some emergency workers from other states from going to help was that there was a weird loophole in the law that made the city of New Orleans exempt from their mutual aid agreements. This means that if an EMT from another state went to New Orleans to help, his licenses would not be valid in the city. So he would be just a regular guy in the eyes of the law. If he tried to help someone, and they died, he could be sued for trying to practice medicine without any licencing. There were absolutely some emergency workers that stayed away because of the feat that while trying to do a good deed, their entire career, and potentially their life, could be ruined because of a loophole in the law.

[Riley18]

11. President Truman had a plaque on his desk that said

" The Buck Stops Here" for a reason. The failure of Katrina was and shall forever remain one of the most heinous acts of the Bush Administration. Those people that you spoke of in your post, the ones who "chose" to stay so they could loot, were people who could not afford to evacuate. The took shelter where they could with many of them going to the SuperDome in New Orleans. You could even argue that the reason they could not evacuate was that minimum wage in this country is a disgrace, but the argument that they all stayed so they could "loot" is totally without merit. I suppose by your logic all those little babies and elderly people were staying behind so they could grab a pair of sneakers.

[IndyPragmatist]

14. Where did I say that?

I said some stayed to loot and there is no questioning that. Why did you decide to ignore the entirety of a post to point out one line (inaccurately to boot)? Far too many people stayed behind. That always happens. Many people think they will be okay. They ignore the warnings. This happens in Florida all the time because they have gotten used to minor hurricanes and tropical storms. There are many people in NC, VA, etc right now that ignored the mandatory evacuation order and decided to stay. One surfer was just killed by the waves.

Many people decided on their own to stay. They all had different reasons; looting was one, but it was not the main one. Some people stayed because they thought they could handle it, some stayed because they didn't have the ability to, some stayed for less than honorable reasons.

If Al Gore had won the Presidency in 2000, Katrina would have been no different. This was a historic storm of epic proportions. It breached the levees which was unimaginable. Most changes are made because of bad things happening and learning from mistakes. We learned a lot from Katrina and it is doubtful that the mistakes will ever be repeated.

But what is the point of wrongly pulling out one part of a long post and making a ridiculous statement based on that?

[Zax2me]

16. Buck stops here?

So I guess you are not okay with the unemployment excuse, "We inherited this mess'

[hedgehog]

13. Yeah - all those people who stayed to loot deserved everything they got!

[stellanoir]

5. "heck of a job" posting seminally appropriate pics as ever mister hawk.

:hi:

[Whisp]

10. forked viper tongue and all in that pic.

[glowing]

12. OMG, those girls are getting so big.. The oldest is seriously taller than me already.

[RB TexLa]

15. If this storm were hitting Louisiana, President Obama would have no more concern than Bush did.

[Zax2me]

17. Not a good vacation for Obama. Economic news bad, storm.

Earthquake.
Had to cut it short....
Not a good vacation but maybe he had some fun and relax time.