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September 02, 2005

Call the Louisiana State/Local Government Response What It Was

Pathetic. Incompetent. Ineffectual. Woefully unprepared. Sorry, weak ass, finger pointing losers.

MSM is seeing a chance to whack away at the Bush administration, while ignoring the responsibilities the Mayor of New Orleans and Governor of LA had to their citizens. Major Dad just fired off an email to ABCNews in the middle of a Prime Time slap at the U.S. military and the Federal government in general. I see Mark in Mexico has found another instance.

Barbour: I really don't. And I think it's very unfair for the federal government, for you to say we knew this was a great powerful storm. This was a category 1 hurricane when it hit Florida. Now that's the truth.

O'Brien: Governor, it was a category 5 storm.

Barbour: The federal government ...

O'Brien: A category 5 storm when it was ...

Barbour: No, it was a category 1 - it was a category 1 storm when it hit Florida. It was a category 5 storm a few hours before it came ashore.

O'Brien: No, no, Governor Barbour...


The National Guard, whatever it's title, is under the control of the Governor. Not the President. The governor. For all Bush haters directing all this twisted, wasted energy at Washington, the square fact of the matter is that the complete responsibility for prepositioning Guard troops and law enforcement, and the first response in the immediate aftermath of the disaster rests solely with the local and state authorities. As should the blame, if prior planning and proper precautions/predispositioning were not taken. In the case of Louisiana, it is most abundantly clear they were not.

File this under: The Mayor Belied, The Governor Cried, People Died. And no, sir. YOU are the disgrace.

City official laments 'national disgrace'
Meantime, Terry Ebbert, head of the city’s emergency operations, warned that the evacuation at the Superdome had become an “incredibly explosive situation,” and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.

“This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,” he said. “FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control.

You were charged with the care and protection of your people. Now, get out of the way. There's a job to do and better people than you and yours to do it.
UPDATE:
"They don't have a clue what's going on down there," Mayor Ray Nagin told WWL-AM Thursday night.
Excuse me, but you haven't had a clue from the beginning. Does this man ever show his face anymore? Has anyone seen the mayor of New Orleans in New Orleans?

Barbour: The federal government has been a tremendous partner in this. They have helped ...

O'Brien: Governor Barbour, surely there was enough knowledge in advance that this was a huge killer storm a matter of days, not hours, before it ever struck landfall. And it seems to me the military ...

Barbour: Now, Miles, if this is an interview or an argument, I don't care. But if you want to let me tell you what I think, I will.

O'Brien: OK, go ahead.

Barbour: And what I think is this storm strengthened in the Gulf. We begged the people to leave, and thousands of people left. Thousands of people left New Orleans. The federal government came in here from the first minute - in fact, in advance. They have been tremendously helpful, whether it's the Coast Guard, the Corps of Engineers, FEMA.

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: I don't think it's at all fair ...

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: ... and I'm not going to agree to that, because I don't believe it's true.

O'Brien: But conspicuously absent from that short list you just gave us was the military, the Pentagon. This is a type of situation that cries out for the kind of support, the kind of logistics, the kind of coordination the military is ideally suited for. Why weren't more military assets prepositioned and ready for the possibility here?

Barbour: We prepositioned more than 1,000 National Guard, 175 on the coastal counties, 1,000 more 60 miles inland, so that they wouldn't be swept away in the storm. And as soon as it became clear where the storm was going to hit, even Alabama had sent us National Guard. Pennsylvania has offered us and is sending us 2,500 National Guard.

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: Would I have liked to have had 5,000 National Guard on the ground on Tuesday morning? Yes, that's not - other states are not going to give up their National Guard until they see what's happening to them. I don't blame them.

O'Brien: But I'm talking about assets, like, you know, amphibious vehicles that the Navy has. It has helicopter support, hospital support, the ability to generate power, that sort of thing. We haven't seen that kind of thing, the kind of thing we saw, incidentally, in the wake of the tsunami.

Barbour: Well, I'm not going to be critical of what the federal government has done. We're very grateful for it. You know, it's easy to go back and pick the bones, but we feel like they have tried very hard.

This is the worst natural disaster that's ever struck the United States. Everybody down here is trying hard. Everybody is tired and fractious. So, I don't want to argue with you about it. But a lot of people from all over the country are helping us, and we really appreciate them, because we're making progress. And we're going to recover from what has been a grievous blow to our state, not just the coast. And we're going to rebuild, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever. But we're not going to do it by nitpicking.

O'Brien: Governor Haley Barbour, Mississippi. Thank you for your time, sir.

Barbour: Thank you, Miles.

Posted by tree hugging sister at September 2, 2005 12:35 AM

Comments

Ugh...Miles O'Brien makes me think Peter Jennings must be turning in his grave, and he's not even cold yet.

Posted by: Dave J at September 2, 2005 01:11 AM

Ohmigod, could you not have KILLED Elizabeth Vargas last night? Mary Landrieu was not giving her the answers she wanted, and Ms. Vargas just about threw a HISSY. I was so furious I turned over to Will and Grace for God's sake.

And are we going to talk about former mayor Mark Whatshisname and that dude from the NCAAP with their allegations that the Fed Gov't would be down their full force if the victims were WHITE?! But since they're black, Bush is just saying Fuck you.

I was SHAKING with rage. Assholes. Everyone of them.

Posted by: Lisa at September 2, 2005 08:48 AM

Lisa, man am I GLAD someone else saw the same thing we did. SHAKING almost covers it. Major Dad's little puddies were burning up the keys, he was so pissed. I was just expostulating like the madwoman I am so proud of being, not that the TV could hear me.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at September 2, 2005 09:42 AM

We just had a huge office discussion on this very topic. What annoys me, continually, is how much the "educated, wise and worldly" (that's officers and senior enlisted) just eat up everything the media show them.

Marines, retired Marines; not unintelligent individuals, but sitting around my office arguing about how the government isn't doing enough or how we're just leaving them to suffer. Blaming the president. I had to educate them about how that executive power rests with the Mayor to coordinate activities within his city.

I cannot believe how little these folks realized how this stuff works. I even had to remind them how it was Rudy Guliani who ran the 9/11 recover ops and not the President.

The reply -- but why is it just now that the military and federal resources are getting there. Other than rebuking them for not understanding how many resources were there, I also pointed out that it takes time to create a response that is tailored to the situation. We need to know what kind of resources are needed. To know what they need, the executive power in the area needs to let them know.

Ugh.

Posted by: Cullen at September 2, 2005 10:25 AM

THS, I was almost wishing you were there with me. I have some rotten tomatoes we could have thrown at the screen.

God. What a nannystate we live in today. All our problems should be solved by the president and the federal government.

I'm beYOND disgusted.

Posted by: Lisa at September 2, 2005 10:40 AM

Lisa, the key is not that they solve the problem, but that exist for folks to blame for not solving it.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at September 2, 2005 11:05 AM

but that they exist for folks to blame for not solving it.

i meant to type.

damn fingers

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at September 2, 2005 11:05 AM