At right, President Bush boards Air Force One on the beginning of his tour of the damage left in the wake of Katrina. The hurricane has provoked a small storm of criticism of the administration, including CNN anchor Jack Cafferty: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people that are in that Superdome down there? I mean what is going — this is Thursday. This is Thursday. This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace." Then there's this ThinkProgress post:

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Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

Why are members of the Coast Guard being used as a backdrop for Bush’s press conference? Don’t they have more important things to do?

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Should we be playing politics while New Orleans simultaniously drowns and burns? I was going to say, "No, we should be calm, we should focus on the people who are suffering."

Then I read this, from CNN last night:

Michael Brown, director of FEMA: People who were unable or chose not to evacuate are suddenly appearing. And so this catastrophic disaster continues to grow. I will tell you this, though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today and so I have directed that we have all the available resources to get to that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water, the medical care that they need.

Paula Zahn: Sir, you’re not telling me –

Brown: To care of those bodies that are there –

Zahn: you’re not telling me that you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn’t have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea that they were completely cut off?

Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.

And this:

During President Bush's first term, Army Corps of Engineers Chief Michael Parker kept pushing for massive, costly refurbishing of the flood-controlling pumping system in Louisiana's portions of the lower Mississippi River. Bush fired him.

And this:

In its [2004] budget, the Bush administration also had proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, one-sixth of what local officials say they need.

And to top it all off, the Administration complains about anyone who criticizes the preparation for or response to Katrina ("I hope people don't play politics," says the President, while an aide calls criticism "despicable and wrong") at the same time they use Katrina as cover to slip in a controversial recess appointment.

It's bullshit, and there's nothing wrong with calling it bullshit.

Agreed, it is BUllSHit.
Fema director and BUSH are giving conflicting statements to the Mayer of New Orleans and eye witnesses (check out article on newsweek.com). Who are they trying to fool? Why are they doing it? In this day and age of instant media access they can not hope to get their BUllSHit past the American public can they? For me it al boils down to stop the crap and get the people help now! politics schmolitics right now!
-P.O.ed in TN

Posted by  Anonymous @ 4:08 PM

 

NPR reports that there is worry that gators and snakes will start showing up in flooded areas. Well, the biggest snake was already there. - "Alligator" Dundee

Posted by  Anonymous @ 11:45 AM

 

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