Here is conservative commentator Peggy Noonan’s take on the federal response to Katrina from today’s Wall Street Journal:
“When an American city descends into lawlessness, and as in this case that lawlessness hampers or prevents the rescue of innocents, you send in the 82nd Airborne. You move your troops. You impose and sustain order. You protect life and property. Then you leave. That’s what government is for. It’s what Republicans are for. The White House didn’t move quickly, and that was the failure from which all failure flowed. The administration was slow to see the size, scope, variations and implications of the disaster because it was not receiving and responding to reliable reports from military staff on the ground. Because they weren’t there. When the administration moved, it moved, and well. But it took too long.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- SolDevVB on Open thread 11/24
- Phantom on Open thread 11/24
- sursum on Open thread 11/24
- SolDevVB on Open thread 11/24
- donndublin on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/24
- KSGolfnut on Whose ‘unchecked spending’?
- outlander on Open thread 11/24
11 Comments
Peggy and the WSJ are trying to lighten Bush’s load, because they endorsed him. { Notice how she brought in the 9/11 crap as some sort of highground for Bush as though he wasn’t blind-sided on that as well, man, they love to bang that drum } Bush is the problem, and let me sum it up this way: What would Nixon or LBJ have done? Answer: Got right on it…. Bush needs to be told what to do…a stupid jerk who gets people killed. Nothing more.
Peggy needs to get “Martha” to show her how to bake a cake.
The Republicans are so deep in denial that they can’t admit to any flaws in their system.They are in control aren’t they?
Oops, Peggy missed the memo: “Blame local officials. Blame locals. Blame more locals.”
As a former speech writer for Reagan, you’d think she’d know how to stay “on message.”
From CNN:Blanco conceded “there were failures at every level of government — state, federal and local” in response to the disaster.
“At the state level, we must take a careful look at what went wrong and make sure it never happens again,” Blanco said. “The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility.”
Bush used similar words Tuesday in taking responsibility for the federal government’s failures in the response.
“Bush takes responsibility” which means exactly . . . what?
I would love to see these people claiming ‘failure’ of response to muster 10,000 people plus tons of food, water and medical supplies, along with the vehicles to transport all that hundreds of miles…and do it OVERNIGHT.
All who can do that, raise your hand. On top of that, it is not enough just to show up with some food..there has to be a distribution system as well as a long term organization. Many people screamed about “no support” for 3 to 5 days after Charley devastated central Florida–yet they ignored the FEMA teams that were still there 8 months later. It took just as long to set up relief in Punta Gorda as in New Orleans, but the NAACP isn’t screaming about that one..wonder why?
The federal response was and still is huge, and will be ongoing for months, if not years. Blaming someone is not going to help anyone.
Well, hell, Ray, using your philosophy, the victims should just die.
Anything else is “collectivism” in which the gov’t takes the sweat of my brow and gives it to the “needy.”
Explain how some people are “deserving” of collective aid, but everybody else isn’t?
That is, IF you can . . .
Once again, Galahad..you have completely misinterpreted what I said. Did I ever once say anything about deserving collective aid? No. My very simple point, and I will spell it out for you since you obviously cannot grasp complex thoughts, is:
It takes time to mount a massive relief effort. It took 3 to 5 days in Punta Gorda. It took 3 to 5 days in New Orleans. Simple enough for you?
Never once did I make judgments about deserving collective aid.
I agree it takes time to set up the network to distribute and coordinate a response.
What you’re not taking into effect are the factors that magnified the problem.
You’re forgetting FEMA turning away the coast guard diesel, or sending back trucks loaded with water. Turning down requests for supplies because the paperwork hadn’t been faxed to them.
It takes a while to set up the network. It also takes the skill of someone to bring all the pieces together.You’re forgetting there was a naval hospital ship was off shore. This ship capable of making its own water.
What state would things be in if people would have waited 3 to 5 days before even noticing there were problems?
Just saw the president’s speech in NO. Not much meat there. My question is, how are we going to pay for all of this? We got tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush’s “botique” war, and now New Orleans. Where is the money coming from? All this going on and still, nobody is asked to sacrifice. We’ll do what we’ve gotten used to; borrow the money. I wonder if the Chinese will want to oversee the reconstruction of New Orleans, being as they’ll be paying for it.
XXX, I wonder what the priority order will be?