You are politicizing it by spinning on behalf of a beleguered President and the FEMA he created/ignored, even after 9/11 when it should not have been.

The plan was in fact the "good samaritan" plan where folks were supposed to help out their neighbors and take them out, i.e. voluntary assistance evacuation. The problem with that is two-fold, first, some areas lacked enough folks to adequately assits, second, voluntary doesn't generally work. There was a story today about the planning near Newport, VA, where the disaster agencies hand magic markers to those who would stay behind and ask them to write their SSN on their body parts.

The point is that the government had both ample time and opportunity to plan better. It had the time and opportunity and knowledge to understand that voluntary was totally inadequate, and yet, it went along hoping that NO wouldn't get hit, i.e. putting it's finger in the dike and whistling in the wind. It works fine so long as you never actually have to put that plan into action.

The right is just insistant on excuses, and this from a group that tried to suggest that Bin Laden was Clinton's fault because bad stuff happened on Clinton's watch. The bottom line is that once again, this President showed just how out of touch he is, btw so did Babs (barbara bush) with her increadibly inappropriate comment that some folks are "fortunate" that Katrina dislodged them. He was slow to react, underfunded FEMA, and did nothing even though he was warned to make NO safer.

It's not all his fault, it's not even mostly his fault that NO was unready for Katrina from a preventative standpoint, but he gets most of the blame for the slow and inept after effects. Blame a Mayor who has nearly zero funds if you like, a man who ordered everyone out, and who's police department fought valiently to keep any order, but this president lied about the meals they were getting at the convention center, and he was innacurate about how "help was ready and standing by" once the storm passed to "give these good people the help they need." They didn't get what they needed, too little was standing by, and they didn't get to where they needed to be for days.

Bush should have had public and military evacaution capacity brought to bear, he should have put the military into NO on Tuesday, Aug 30, and any comment that he has to wait for a request is bogus. I'm sure he'd have gotten it, but did Eisenhower wait to federalize the National Gaurd in Alabama? Did George Wallace ask Ike in? No, and in a case of national emergency the President needs no invitation.

PB

http://www.blindmanphoto.com/images/Stop-Blaming-FEMA.jpg

"You are politicizing it by spinning on behalf of a beleguered President and the FEMA he created/ignored,"

FEMA's been around since the sixties.

" even after 9/11 when it should not have been."

FEMA's always been renowned as a bloated bureaucracy; there have been many calls for its complete abolition over the decades. They've had their reforms, their successes and their failures.

"The plan was in fact the "good samaritan" plan where folks were supposed to help out their neighbors and take them out..."

Which, as duly noted in my piece, was supposed to deposit evacuees with FEMA. And didn't. Hence the need to switch routes in midstream.

"The point is that the government had both ample time and opportunity to plan better."

Sorry, P - are you from England or something? There is no "The Government". There are three levels of it involved. Each had their own responsibilities.

As to "ample time" - have you even paid attention to the lessons from Hurricane Ivan, which New Orleans completely ignored?

" The right is just insistant on excuses,"

One person's "Let's try to get the truth out for a switch, here" is always another person's "Excuses, excuse".

"and this from a group that tried to suggest that Bin Laden was Clinton's fault because bad stuff happened on Clinton's watch."

Not that we really need the change of subject, but the point was not that "bad stuff happened", it was that Clinton actively evaded serious action on Bin Laden on several occasions.

"He was slow to react,"

He dragged Blanco into some sort of productive action.

" underfunded FEMA,"

Speaking of "Excuses"; "we are underfunded" is the classic bureaucrat's dodge. NO bureaucracy is EVER funded to their level of comfort.

"and did nothing even though he was warned to make NO safer."

Funding for magic wands was apparently cut under the Reagan Administration. "Making NO safer?" By what - raising the entire city above sea level? Parting the seas? Immobilizing Lake Ponchartrain?

""but this president lied"

Misinformed = Lied?

Is "Bush Lied" to you guys what "Bring yourselves up by your bootstraps" is to the right - an instant bromide that you can toss out without thought?

I mean, it's not like either the President is going to know who's eating what where, or that the government of N.O. - who were supposed to get people OUT of N.O., and didn't, and wound up punting and sending people to the food-less, toilet-less, lawless Superdome because it was that or watch the entire Ninth Ward drown - have a reason to puff up the situation they report upstairs, now, is it?

And let me ask you this: What's the president's interest in "lying" about something when he knows as well as anyone there'll be a zillion blow-dried camera crews descending on the Superdome as soon as sufficient hotel space is cleaned up?

Get real.

" about the meals they were getting at the convention center, and he was innacurate about how "help was ready and standing by" once the storm passed to "give these good people the help they need."

Which is the point of my post; it was. It was upstate, waiting for the evacuation that was in *the plan*, which never came.

"and any comment that he has to wait for a request is bogus. I'm sure he'd have gotten it, but did Eisenhower wait to federalize the National Gaurd in Alabama? Did George Wallace ask Ike in? No, and in a case of national emergency the President needs no invitation."

The President can indeed step on governors' and mayors' feet if he decides he needs to - as Ike did in both cases where he had to ram policy down governors' throats. Comparing N.O., Selma and Little Rock is grossly inappropriate; the Civil Rights crises built over several weeks and involved calculated defiance of Federal court rules. N.O., especially the realization that N.O. could not deliver on its *responsibilities*, was a very fast-breaking situation. The Feds had to change their response, under conditions of total civil crisis and collapse, with broken communications and with flooded and blocked roads and washed-out bridges, over the course of a day.

Given your oft-stated military background, PB, I'd think you'd know that that's not exactly second nature for big, disparate organizations under crisis conditions.

As opposed to Monday morning quarterbacking, which is ALWAYS easy.