Hardly surprising, there is an ongoing, scripted, effort to politicize a natural disaster.
One who is not, and kudos for taking the high road, is Former President William Jefferson Clinton.
Captain Ed points out that he took CNN's Suzanne Malveaux to task for playing partisan politics with the Katrina relief efforts.
Captain Ed has a damn good summary of former President Clinton's action and those of CNN.
Clinton took over this interview because he knew that Bush 41's response would just be considered the normal response of a father defending his son, and that Bush had too much class to go after Malveaux. In fact, Clinton's response aimed not just at Malveaux but the entire crew at CNN, especially Jack Cafferty, who crowed about the fact that 500 CNN viewers had nothing better to do than write e-mails criticizing the current President Bush. (Later in the segment, Cafferty upped the number to 6,000, proving that he didn't bother to listen to Clinton on his own network.)
Thank you, Mr. President, for reminding people that our focus should remain on the difficult work ahead in rescuing the victims and starting the recovery process. Anklebiters, nitpickers, and partisan hacks should step aside and let the grown-ups take over.
I'm personally not a big supporter of former President Clinton, but that doesn't stop me from giving him credit for doing the right thing.
Jeff Goldstein has a good "post-flood reaction" post.
Here are some highlights:
"...it looks like the Governor specifically has to request troops. It does not look like the President can send them in on his own authority just because a state of emergency has been declared.”
...
Couple this with Robin Roberts’ reminder that “Federal planning guidelines instruct the state and local governments to expect Federal aid to take 3 to 4 days to arrive and be prepared to handled the situation for that long”—consistent with the actual arrival of federal aid after the Tuesday levee breaks, and despite enormous logistical obstacles (the absence of infrastructure, flooded roads, and no centralized communication—which NO accepted monies to assure wouldn’t happen)—it seems to me that the FEMA response was appropriate.
He also quotes this
Washington Post article:
Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana’s failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. “Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level,” said one state official who works with FEMA. ‘Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."
LASunsett quotes
Danielle Crittenden's post as another example of those calling for cooling heads. Here is the money quote from Ms. Crittenden:
What will the left NOT blame on a Republican president?Here is the condensed wisdom of the liberal media on why the Bush administration is ultimately responsible for the disaster of Hurricane Katrina:
LASunsett sums it up well:
What follows is a pretty good list of idiotic accusations by the usual batch of clowns on the left.
The leftists have proven themselves time and time again that they do not possess to the capabilities of holding intelligent debates. They contribute little and they achieve little. They do not stand for anything, yet they stand against anything, as long as it is the opposite position of President Bush.
Accusing Bush for all of the ills of the world is a strategy that lacks effectiveness and credibility, especially when the accusations are out of Galaxy X, and have no evidence to support their weak and faulty claims. The funny thing is, these ills all existed before Bush was President, they existed before he was ever born. But somehow, someway, he just has to be the culpable one. I guess they slept during history class.
As I've said before, in order for the democrats to regain the trust of the majority of Americans to right of Howard Dean, they have to start with being for something rather than just being the Anti-Bush team. Running against someone is a losing plan. See the Republican attempt to recapture the White House in 1996 for a prime example. The democrat Presidental runs in 2000 & 2004 qualify as well.
Cold Fury remembers the left's reaction to the DHS recommendation that Americans have
an emergency readiness kit. The portion of the kit for dealing with attacks and natural disasters should have, ideally, “at least
a three-day supply of non-perishable food” and a corresponding amount of water - a gallon per day per person.
Cold Fury goes on to say:
Yet when he announced the suggested measures that we all take to prepare for potential terror attacks or natural disasters, he was met with nothing but mockery. So much so, that his name is synonymous with duct tape - since that’s the only thing anybody in the MSM (or for that matter the lefty blogosphere) cared to discuss.
Thanks for undercutting it, my patriotic left wing friends, and calling it partisan scare mongering. What kind of a warped mind, can spin basic common sense as partisan bickering.
So answer me this, how many of the displaced persons in New Orleans secured a ready kit? If none, then why not? They can’t all be that poor - three days food and water is pretty cheap, especially if you’re buying the non-perishable staples (e.g. beans & stuff) recommended.
Do you remember what the left said about Ridge, that it was just foolish alarmism for political gain? The only thing the left could focus on, was duct tape. I would argue that the partisan sniping from the left, in the form of ongoing and repeated rants about about duct tape, caused people to really dismiss the message Secretary Ridge was trying to put out. The message was simple: The Feds can’t prepare for everything. You have to be ready to survive for 72 hours. After that, FedGov can get enough stuff in place to help.
He goes on to provide a long list of examples of the left attacking HSD Head Ridge at the time.
HT to Jay TeaUpdate:
By way of Ace comes these facts gather by
NRO's The Corner that I'm pretty sure will never make the front page of the
Boston Globe:
--“The mayor and the governor are negligent and incompetent. The administration has tried to smooth out the chain of command, but she won't do it. The constitution says that the governor is in charge of the Guard.” ...
--“None of those poor people were moved prior to the storm. They were told to go to the Superdome, but they had to walk there. Whose responsibility is that?”
-- “General Honore in one day got 20,000 people evacuated from the convention center with a ground and air evacuation. Have you heard about that in the media?”
...
--“There will be 50k troops there by mid-week, a combination of active duty and National Guard. Including elements of 82nd Airborne Division, First Cavalry Division, and two Marine brigades. That's in just over a week. That's amazing. But no one realizes it. They had to trot General Honore out this morning to try to explain to the media how you move troops. There were National Guard pre-positioned in the north part of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana two days the storm, watching the storm, seeing which way it was going to go, and once the storm hit, moving troops in immediately. There was a flow-plan that's been working since.”
--“The constitution says the governor is in charge of the Guard. The president would have to invoke the Insurrection Act to over-ride that. No president has done that since the Civil War. And he would have to do it over the head of the governor. Bush is not there yet.”
...
--“The New Orleans police disintegrated. The national response plan calls for state and local to be the first on the scene. But the catastrophe wiped out the whole local infrastructure and the emergency communications. 80% of the police disintegrated and they are just not beginning to re-constitute.”
