Russert Tears Up Homeland Security Chief (Are you planning resignation?)

[Liberty Belle]

RUSSERT TEARS UP HOMELAND CHIEF ON ‘MEET THE PRESS’
RawStory.com )9/4/05) --

RUSSERT: How could the president be so wrong, be so misinformed? Mr. Secretary... are you planning your resignation?

The following is an excerpt of the transcript from Sunday's meet the Press with Tim Russert. The full transcript is available here.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, let's turn to Hurricane Katrina. Joining us is the man in charge of the federal response to the disaster, the director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff.

Mr. Secretary, this is yesterday's Daily News: "Shame Of A Nation." And I want to read it to you and our viewers very carefully. It says, "As for Chertoff, if this is the best his department can do, the homeland is not very secure at all. It is absolutely outrageous that the United States of America could not send help to tens of thousands of forlorn, frightened, sick and hungry human beings at least 24 hours before it did, arguably longer than that. Who is specifically at fault for what is nothing less than a national scandal... It will never be known exactly what a day could have meant to so many unfortunates whose lives came to an end in those hopelessly tortured hours--on scorching roadsides, for lack of a swallow of water, in sweltering hospital bads, for lack of insulin. But what is already more than clear is that the nation's disaster-preparedness mechanisms do not appear to be in the hands of officials who know how to run them."

Mr. Secretary, are you or anyone who reports to you contemplating resignation?

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Russert_tears_up_Homeland_chief_on_Meet_0904.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. But Tim lets it rest here when the state made requests in advance

MR. RUSSERT: But that's the point. Those who got out were people with SUVs and automobiles and air fares who could get out. Those who could not get out were the poor who rely on public buses to get out. Your Web site says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a national disaster. If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?

SEC'Y CHERTOFF: Tim, the way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials. The federal government comes in and supports those officials. That's why Mike Brown got on TV on Saturday and he told people to start to get out of there.


Telling people to get out and GETTING THEM THE FUCK OUT are not the same thing

[Matariki]

3. having a place to send them is also an important issue

even if the mayor of new orleans bussed all those people out before the hurricane, where would he have bussed them to? he had no control of that. an issue i haven't seen brought up yet.

[natrat]

8. fuck that

you bus em 50 miles up the road out of danger then go back for more

[Spazito]

12. The hurricane devastated hundreds of miles along the coast AND

inland as well. Are you suggesting that the mayor should have bused hundreds of thousands of people, assuming he even could, bit by bit, abandoning each bus load to wait by the side of the road while the hurricane hit?

[SlavesandBulldozers]

21. uh 50 miles aint shit in a hurricane.

nr

[tabasco]

27. It does when you go from below sea level to above seal level. n/t

[comsymp]

38. That ain't necessarily so

F'rinstance, Hurricane Floyd - 1999

Princeville NC - elevation 36 ft - 180 miles from landfall:




Hurricane Fran - 1996

Raleigh NC - elevation 350 ft - 130 miles from landfall:




Hurricane Hugo - 1989

Charlotte NC - elevation 700 ft - approx 180 mi inland:




It makes one hell of a difference whether you have a place to house evacuees, and as the previous poster said, 50 miles ain't shit. Pulling folks out of their houses without a safe destination in mind is simply. fucking. nuts.

[Booster]

25. Yep, bussing them 50 miles up the road is a lot better than making

them stay where they were. "Where to put them" sounds like something Bush would say.

[ThoughtCriminal]

49. Dumping 20000 people in an empty field?

50 miles inland from a category-4 hurricane is going to leave few survivors and even worse conditions for those who do.

I'm not sure about round trips wither since many of the highways had all lanes one-way out.

FEMA needed a plan to shelter and provide provisions for people who could not drive themselves out and get a motel room.

[aquart]

10. That's why emergencies like that are federal.

The local area is too destroyed to help itself. AND THAT HAS TO BE ASSUMED IN THE PLANNING.

[malaise]

39. It was

They had 10,000 body bags:sarcasm:

[eleny]

13. leaving them there was the better option, then? think!

[BrendaStarr]

35. They took them to the Superdome and Convention Center

Many of the people in the Superdome and Convention Center would have died if they had stayed where they were.

Those places might have been hellish due to the federal govt refusal to bring supplies, help, and transportation out after the hurricane, but they saved lives.

Putting people down beside the road 50 miles away in a hurricane that was supposed to retain hurricane force for 8 hours and 100 miles inland might have been murder.

Plus even traveling 50 miles would have taken up precious time they used to pack the Superdome in.

[onenote]

19. exactly

I've been making this point over and over. What does Brown think...that the mayor of New Orleans was going to take tens of thousands of people and bus them to another state and just let them off? The fact that there isn't anywhere in-state to put them has been demonstrated by the post-storm response...evacuees are being dispersed all over the country.

The attempt to shift blame to state and local officials is complete and utter bullshit.

onenote

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

29. Being part of the Bush administration means......

...you never take responsibility for anything.

:argh:

[Toots]

36. Do you think they had not given that any thought?

If they haven't then they are far more incompetent than even I give them credit for and I can not think of a more incompetent bunch ever to occupy the whitehouse or control the nation.

[AbbyR]

55. Perhaps taken them to shelters???

We had one set up in a little town in south Arkansas on Sunday night/Monday morning and I'm absolutely certain I don't have the only church in an outlying area that was preparing to take in those evacuated.

FEMA or the NG could have commandeered buses and gotten those people OUT OF THERE. On the road, they could have made calls to churches on their path, or to police in an area ahead and had the churches ready. This is not rocket science, and if I can figure it out, surely our highly qualified horse show judge could have done the same.

[rodeodance]

7. so is Cherkoff saying the Feds only support the locals?

[Dr Fate]

9. And you have to give them somewhere to go- you cant just say "get out"

n/t

[demo dutch]

28. Can you imagine the deathtoll if Nagin hadn't opened the Superdome!!

and Convention Ctr was used in desperation only to save lives

[DamnYank]

46. Russert is a lackey for the Repukes

I'll never forget him smiling happily during the 2000 returns as it looked like * would win. By the time NBC (prematurely, as we all know) called the election for Bush he was positively smirking. I haven't watched Russert or NBC news since....

[anitar1]

53. I loathe Russert and everything he stands for. n/t

[Turbineguy]

2. Resignation....????

Where have you been Russert?? Fucking things up is how you get promoted in the Bush mis-admin! What with Renquist gone, there's another opening!

[Guckert]

4. Bush is already shining some Medals of Freedom for these asshats

[xchrom]

5. ok -- tim -- NOW you act tough?

we have been killing our own and innocent others by the truck load and NOW you act like there's hair on your chest -- very nice.

glad i don't listen to you anymore.

i repeat msm is extremist and should be treated the way we treat freepers -- their agenda is no different and as extreme -- if not worse.

[tinrobot]

6. He's a whore... blowing for ratings

He's knows the tide has turned, and is trying desperately to get out in front of it.

As much as I hate the whores, I'm glad they're finally asking the tough questions.

[Peace Patriot]

14. I agree, xchrom! The war profiteering corporate news monopolies,

acting in concert, falsified their own exit polls on election night, "adjusting" the exit polls (Kerry won) to "fit" the "official result" coming from two Bushite companies--Diebold and ES&S--who were "tabulating" the votes with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code (Bush won), thus denying the American people major evidence of election fraud.

It was the most wretched journalistic crime I have ever seen--and that's saying something.

They CHANGED the data on everybody's TV screens. They gave us WRONG, PHONIED UP EXIT POLL NUMBERS to PREVENT protests and calls for investigation.

Their lying propaganda about Iraq was not bad enough. Their protection of war criminals and master thieves is not enough. They covered up the most corrupted election in the history of fascist coups. Covered. It. Up.

And we expect them to start telling the truth now, or even some part of the truth? Nothing is being permitted in the corporate news monopoly "newstream" that is not planned. If Bush has ceased being useful, they will either go with a Cheney "Protectorate" or, if we're lucky, they will install a War Democrat to keep the war going, get a Draft, run the breadlines and start to take the blame for everything (so they can install Jeb in '12).

We must learn to disconnect from the umbilical cord of the corporate news monopolies. They are USING our need to identify with "our nation"--for LACK of a legitimate federal government, and a legitimate president, and in view of the hatreds and nastiness that the Bush Cartel has stirred up in their tiny minority of supporters (their divisiveness)--to brainwash us once again. We turn to them for unity--that's what they're doing--for some even ragged and infuriating sense of commonality. But we need to distrust them and to question every word they say and every image they show. We need to treat the corporate news as if it were presented in a foreign language and needed TRANSLATION. I think we're doing a pretty good job here at DU of discerning what is really being said, parsing it, digging beneath, and getting at the truth. That is good. That needs to be done, and that needs to spread. And we also need to look to the actual mechanism of our power as citizens of a supposed democracy--our vote--to understand how this illegitimate regime was re-installed, and how to get our country back.

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor'--that's what I think--and start over, with paper ballots. There is a lot wrong with our country, but until we have restored our right to vote, there is NOTHING we can do about it.

[UpInArms]

11. these lame sacks of shit think we want to keep their failed ragged

asses around to botch the rest of what they have screwed up so badly??????


HELL NO! THEY NEED TO HIT THE ROAD AND NOT WAIT FOR THE DOOR TO SWING UPON THEIR SCURRYING BEHINDS.

:nuke:

[pa28]

15. Russert calls Bush "misinformed"?

I'm glad he took a tough line on Chertoff. He should.

But portraying Bush as misinformed is excusing him. Just as the media excused him over Iraq.

The fact is clear and his actions show it. Bush didn't give a damn about helping the victims and he had other priorities in the days after Katrina: like fundraisers, demonizing Cindy, playin' the guitar and golf.

[Jon8503]

16. Yeah, right, was Bush misinformed about not coming off of vacation?

Was he misinformed about going to San Diego for his rich buddies for a fundraiser instead of the hurricane & flood disaster?

Was he misinformed about the levees holding up when he was told about it needing more money over a year ago and instead he cut the budget himself?

Misinformed no; it is his own attitude and arrogance that made his decision for him not to react until he was forced to.

[chomskysright]

17. GET THE GOP OUT OF THE SOUTH NOW

[jamesinca]

33. No, keep them there

I don't want the GOP bussed out to CA, I don't want the GOP'ers that we have here. I want the GOP sent to the south. I want Arnold to be the first one sent to live in LA. Let them live in the wretched condition known as the south. Let them live in the area with the lowest rated schools. Let them live in the area with the worst delivery of health care. Let them live there and let them campaign for cutting federal dollars. Let the GOP live with its sins, but don't bus them out of the south. The Dems are welcome to come out of the south. By the way, Zell Miller is not a Dem. I will take Jimmy Carter in a heart beat.

[BlueIris]

43. I agree with the last part of your post.

He could still run again, you know.

President Carter? Yoo hoo?

[JABBS]

18. Failure

Here are some questions I have:

Why didn't the Bush Administration work proactively? Instead of waiting until Wednesday for a Rose Garden speech, why didn't Bush speak to the nation on Saturday, from Crawford?

Why wasn't the National Guard helping with the evacuation? Why weren't supplies ready to go?

For more on this, check out my post, at JABBS.

[anitar1]

20. Amazing how quickly russert jumps the fence. He is

usually defending the Bushies.

[symbolman]

22. Here's a question for you

if it has taken so long to get all of these people fed and out of there with ALL THE HELP they are offering now, then how long BEFORE the hurricane hit, and with the limited resources the city and state had at their disposal, would it have taken the city/state of NO to get those people OUT BEFORE THE HIT?

Sounds to me like the proof that Naglin,etc couldn't have gotten them out is that Bush STILL CAN'T with thousands of troops and buses doing it for days now.

gotcha, assholes!

[underpants]

23. Replay on MSNBC at 10PM Eastern and 1 AM

Man he SLAMMED Chertoff (see below for Chertoff's um background in Emergency services)

The whole show was outstading.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2062701

[Up2Late]

24. Screw Russert, how about the Jefferson Parish President?

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard He totally lost it.

Here's the transcript: <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179790/>

MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

(clip)

MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179790/>

[poetsdream]

30. FEMA's actio n is chilling

For them to refuse aid that is available and ready to go, is not just appalling. it is criminal.

Someone must be fired for this. All americans must demand that it be so...

[stlsaxman]

40. not fired- imprisoned and tried.

oh, if I weren't so opposed to capital punishment, I'd say hang those responsible for mass murder.

THEN we can "move on"....

[Up2Late]

45. I opposed capital punishment too, and I actually think that those who...

...get the death penalty are getting off easy.

I mean, which is a worst punishment, spending 10-20 years in prison waiting to be put to death, or spending 50-60 years in a prison cell, with all that time to sit and reflect on what you did or who you killed?

I'd take the death penalty if given the choice.

[NYC]

52. Watch the video. Reading it is not the same.

Broussard sobbed. This is what the federal government has done to people. This is what Homeland Security did.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/04.html#a4784

Scroll down about 5/6 of the page to:

Broussard: "We have been abandoned by our own country."

[AX10]

26. Timmy also won't blame Bush either.

[raysr]

31. I saw that,

great acting Tim!

[OzarkDem]

32. He's deflecting blame from Bush

Pumpkinhead is just doing his duty as an a$$ kissing media whore - trying to protect the blivet by pointing the blame elsewhere.

[Seabiscuit]

48. BINGO! Bush is Chertoff's boss. He can't do anything without Shrub's

authorization, and he also can't do nothing for three days without Shrub's authorization.

[Hekate]

34. Write the man a thank you note

I saw that -- he did great. We need to give the MSM positive reinforcement whenever they get it right, not just hammer them when they go wrong.

Hekate

#Why won't the Chickenhawk cross the road?#
#Why won't the Chickenhawk be waitin' on the levee?#

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Stranger]

41. Chertoff must resign.

He is very bad for the nation, and was deadly for those in the wake of Katrina. He is too busy trying to justify his already considerable failures, instead of doing his job.

Chertoff must resign.

[edhopper]

42. Read what Arrianna has to say about Timmy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/russert-watch_b_6807.html

[Rebellious Republican]

44. Well, thats nice of Tim to set the Scape Goat for the slaughter!

Tim Russert is just a tool, he is helping Bush to take the focus off the real cause of the disaster. If the Levy would have held, there would not be this major disaster occurring now. George Bush owns this catastrophe. Its his policies not some toadie implementing those policies. No one else can be blamed for it!!!!

When the levee breaks
It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html




Vacation is Over... an Open Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Submitted by editor4 on September 2, 2005 - 2:33pm.
By Michael Moore
Source: Common Dreams


>And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!<
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/869

[norml]

47. Michael Jerkoff

[eauclaireliberal]

50. COUGH-COUGH...

...sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit.

[NJCher]

51. oh, "tears up"

As in rips a new one.

Do you know it was so far beyond my comprehension that Russert could actually tear some buscho hack up that I read the thread subject line as "tears up." I had visions of Russert and Chertoff crying together.

LOL.

Oh man.




Cher

[Up2Late]

59. Oh, that's weird, I didn't realize that Tears (crying tears) and Tears...

...as in "Tears him a new one" are spelled the same, or maybe I did, but I thought the poster meant the Crying usage.:blush:

[Eurobabe]

54. Remind him of his predecessor, and then ask yourself

what kind of idiots Bu$h "appoints." This whole Roberts to CJ thing has me furious!!

[calimary]

56. This guy is nothing but a wanker. chertoff AND russert both.

I'm surprised to see that russert's even holding his feet a little bit to the fire. Why not just give these guys another free pass like you've done all along with everybody from "the bush leagues," tim?

Assholes both.

My favorite part of this interview - NOTE FOURTH SENTENCE:

MR. RUSSERT: But that's the point. Those who got out were people with SUVs and automobiles and air fares who could get out. Those who could not get out were the poor who rely on public buses to get out. Your Web site says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a national disaster. If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?

Again, note the FOURTH SENTENCE. UMMMM... I guess that means the feds ARE INDEED ultimately accountable for this. They can try to spin off the blame on somebody farther down the food chain, but this ON THEIR WEBSITE, DECLARES FLAT-OUT, that the Department of Homeland Security bears primary responsibility for a national disaster. Instead, we have a Department of Homeland Security that IS a national disaster.

[orpupilofnature57]

57. The Evil Elf is a G.E. boy!THE MSM IS RUNNING FOR COVER, WHY

Because their the assholes that spent more time on a Dress, than Election fraud, the fact that this president has had a free hand from the press for 5yrs.

[Imagevision]

58. Jerkoff is reciting Rove prepared script --so yesterday...!

you can't fool us anymore asswipes...what? - nuke iran, that's your next play?!!!

[barbaraann]

60. Yes. Chertoff had the answers all prepared.

And Russert just asked the questions in an outraged tone of voice to allow Chertoff to rebut with talking points so *obviously* the outrage was wrong.

I watched this interview three times and it became obvious that it was just propaganda.