Oh come on, Peoria…. that’s because his ENTIRE term was a disaster!

…

Barbour hasn’t had to wait hours to talk to Bush. In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. “I never called him. He always called me,” he said.

Let me be very specific, because I have indeed seen this more than once:

Conservative poster: Thank goodness that the death toll wasn’t as high as predicted.

Leftist poster: [expletives deleted]

These people don’t literally wish that there were more deaths, but they are angry that one of their weapons against Bush has been taken away from them, and they have become too transparent about it.

That is, they have elevated their politics over their concern about lives, one way or another. The rest of us are just happy that not as many people died as feared.

You can continue to cry “demonization” if you wish, but as I said before, this is abhorrent behavior that I am actually witnessing. I have difficulty finding credibility in the charge, anyway, when the left so often inflexively shouts that their enemies hate black people, want to starve children, and would be happy if old people died… based, again, not on actual behavior but the accepted self-delusion that the enemy is not human.

Actually, Jeff, there will be no ‘downfall’ on either count. Didn’t you hear how the President of Iraq today said he thought 50,000 U.S. troops could be withdrawn soon? [Of course that wasn't on the nightly news.] Now why would that be? And why would anyone in their right mind suggest that the *world’s* intelligence regarding Iraq was wrong, or that we were remiss in assisting a country run by ghouls?

As for Katrina, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. MSM scored one teeny point re Brown. But soon we’ll actually get *the facts* in spite of them.

The only downfall here is going to be seen in the last gasps of legacy media and its putrid political machine.

He who laughs first laughs last.

“So they ordered the busses on the 31st, and then cancelled it, and it took THREE MORE DAYS to get a request through. That kinda answers the bus question. Don’t blame me for the news – blame the Wall Street Journal.”

You know what, Greg? Bullshit. Your mischaracterization of that WSJ article says it all. What you say it says doesn’t say what it says at all. Shall I go into obvious details about how you did so? No. Why bother. Everyone here can read.

I had thought better of you.

However, your belief that Democrats are furious that there aren’t more deaths is pure, unmitigated crap. It is the absolute worst kind of demonization possible. It’s personally offensive, and I am both shocked and truly appalled that a person of your rationality could believe that. I’m not going to “quote Republicans” to prove anything, nor am I going to quote Democrats. That’s completely unnecessary.

Like most rational people, I try to take people as individuals, not as representatives of some nebulous group. So believe me when I tell you that I am disgusted not with you as a conservative, or as a Republican, but as a person. You owe yourself better.

“We’re starting to move the trailers in,” said then-FEMA director and current Hillary favorite James Lee Witt, nearly a month after Floyd first hit. “It’s been so wet, it’s been difficult to get things in there”

What’s remarkable is that leftist bloggers are characterizing Witt’s administration of FEMA as particularly noteworthy (and I’m not saying it wasn’t) by quoting glowing statements by Republicans, including then-Governor George W. Bush.

What they miss is just what I’m talking about: what’s most likely is that Republicans at the time were giving honest, non-political assessments. Where there is nothing to be gained by blindly attacking over and over, you have the luxury of simply being honest and gracious.

That’s not what many Democrats are doing now. This is not attack on my part, but analysis: the intensity of the attacks on the Bush adminstration are based less on the actual shortcomings of the response than they are a carry-over of the non-stop hate and craving for political opportunity. We could have had the same exact situation, same problems, and same results, but if we did have a Clinton in office, we’d be hearing almost nothing but the positives, how FEMA’s response was as fast or faster than could be expected in an emergency of this magnitude, and we would especially see a celebration that the feared death toll was not as high as expected. The MSM, whether you choose to believe it or not, is still primarily a liberal organization.

Instead, now — and I’m sorry, this is quite telling — I’m seeing many people on the left *furious* when they hear that there weren’t more deaths. This is related to the victory lap I identified in one of the posters here, earlier. They have quite clearly allowed logic and reason to slip away in favor of single-minded fury.

And I apologize if this sounds like an attack. It *is* quite harsh, but it is exactly what I am seeing.

You can easily counter by citing Republican failings again. Of course Republicans respond by citing failures of local Democrats, but they are behaving defensively and not proactively. They may or may not be right in doing so — but it’s childish to constantly harp on “what they do” when there is clearly no restriction or boundary on what you are doing.

Have you listened to talk radio? Have you watched Fox News? Have you read books by the likes of Coulter?

Yes, but you apparently choose not to understand what I wrote.

You and Greg Burton are missing my point. I’m simply saying that the tendency to create stereotypes — even in a mildish, innocent way of moderates — seems to be making many see this as some kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, when it may be simply what it is… a man resigning after it has become clear that he has become the scapegoat (rightly or wrongly).

It doesn’t really matter to me if you hate hate hate Republicans and think they are capable of nothing but evil. But it will cause you to go through life viewing life in a distorted and unrealistic way that will probably not serve you well. And I never said there weren’t Republicans who suffer from the same problem. But to claim that somebody who recognizes this problem is further demonizing people in turn is ludicrous; back to my previous analogy, you don’t exhibit hate by identifying the traits of Ku Klux Klan members.

Having said that, the laundry lists of Republican hate are amusing, because FoxNews is not a font of hate simply because it allows conservatives equal time on the air. Defining free speech for your enemies as hate simply because they disagree with you is more telling of your own potential symptomatic hate than theirs. O’Reilly is always held up as a symbol of Republican hate, for instance, even though he is often simply just an apolitical loudmouth. He’s FoxNews’ Oprah Winfrey. And he’s probably less representative of today’s conservatives than Shephard Smith.

But there are Republicans who do suffer from this dementia, and I never said there wasn’t. Ann Coulter clearly does hate liberals, but I don’t see Ann Coulter skulking around Jeff Jarvis’ comments. Or FoxNews, for that matter. However, it is quite likely that some of the commenters here are frequenters of DemocraticUnderground, Kos, Atrios, etc, which is what makes them relevant.

“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government…Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That’s a very important question and it’s in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond.”

For the full story, see:

“George W. Bush: Security Risk.”

And it’s the first real info I’ve seen on the bus situation, as well.

And I still want to know why they would not allow food and water until the buses got there.

You have supplied me with the very first hint of info and I have been on looking every single day…..

“In addition, FEMA’s official requests, known as tasking assignments and used by the agency to demand help from other government agencies, show that it first asked the Department of Transportation to look for buses to help evacuate the more than 20,000 people who had taken refuge at the Superdome in New Orleans at 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 31. At the time, it only asked for 455 buses and 300 ambulances for the enormous task. Almost 18 hours later, it canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, “the DOT doesn’t do ambulances.”

FEMA ended up modifying the number of buses it thought it needed to get the job done, until it settled on a final request of 1,355 buses at 8:05 p.m. on Sept. 3. The buses, though, trickled into New Orleans, with only a dozen or so arriving on the first day.”

So they ordered the busses on the 31st, and then cancelled it, and it took THREE MORE DAYS to get a request through. That kinda answers the bus question. Don’t blame me for the news – blame the Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112658472240639074,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

It was more than needed: 21%
It was appropriate: 35%
It wasn’t enough: 45%

Hardly scientific, but indicative nonetheless.

the irony of your trolling question is that you used the word

waiting…

Please just go with the facts, not the out of context stuff from Rooters and CNN!

And I suspect that the perception of indecisiveness is the best frame the White House can expect. It’s a tossup to me, but indecisive is better than inattentive or incompetent. The opposites – decisive, attentive, competent – are beyond reach for them. Honestly, a headline reading “Bush Does a Good Job Once He’s Aware of The Issue” is not a confidence builder. Neither is “Bush Signed Emergency Order for Wrong Parishes, But Fixes it Two Days Later”.

So cheer up – on the political front, things could get worse for the White House.

http://chicagozoner.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-quotes-dumb-dumberer.html

Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.

“No photos. No stories,” said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn’t being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters — more than three football fields in length — away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.

Back on September 7th, Rep. John Conyers wrote to the Congressional Research Service (one of the few parts of the government that can legitimately be called non-partisan) and asked them to review the record to see whether Gov. Blanco of Louisiana took the necessary steps in a timely fashion to secure federal assistance in the face of hurricane Katrina.

The report came back yesterday. Yes, she did.

Can the fact that Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin have yet to do the same form the basis for the conclusion that they are without responsibility at this time?

Can we conclude yet that they are not actually leaders in the same sense as President Bush is?

Is it about a difference in management styles? Are the Mayor and Governor simply more laid-back and easygoing?

Maybe I just don’t understand how they operate in Louisiana.

But it’s useful to the demonization principle to identify the most extreme of your opponents as their mainstream. For the most part, I see that as largely starting with opposition to the Vietnam war – which is to say, the technique has been used most successfully by some on the right. Indeed though, both sides do it, because if done right it works.

Now, it gets more complicated when there is a major power imbalance between the two extremes. Pat Robertson (to take an example) is an extreme, and I wouldn’t hold him against most Rs. Ward Churchill (to take another example) is an extreme I would hope most Rs wouldn’t hold against most Ds. But Robertson has far more influence on the Republican party than Churchill has on the Democratic party. How does that kind of situation get reconciled? Is it ok to use the tar brush with a little thinner?