Oldie DU'ers: Is this "9/11" Redux? Who IS in Charge Here?

[KoKo]

NO is in Crisis mode....the Govenor of LA and some FEMA and NG Reps are all we are hearing from....and they are worried out of their minds about NO.

Where is Cheney/Rummy and the rest. I feel just like I did that morning of September 11, 2001 when I saw the airplanes hitting the towers and then the collapse...and I kept saying to myself...WHO IS IN CHARGE?

The people of New Orleans are in desperate shape. The Governor has said we need to do two things: "Bring Supplies in to help people survive until we can Get the People Out." (from her Press Conference late today on CNN). I'm asking where are the Military "Pontoon Bridges" to get these folks out
of NO. They say the causeway and all roads are impassable but where is the military who is really good at "evacuation?" These folks need to get out of NO because fires could rage on the "toxic soup" of oil and gas that's in these rising waters.

Supposedly the Army Corps of Engineers is "working on" a plan to fill in the Levee's that have broken and they hope to get working on it tomorrow.

I heard reports that a "Navy Hospital Ship" would be brought into the Gulf to help the folks with medical problems (it has 600 hospital beds) and yet the Governor of LA says that the roads in and out of NO are compromised..there really isn't a way in or out for those who want to escape or to bring trucks in with supplies. That was reported earlier today...and yet CNN's reports later today didn't even mention it. Is Rummy throwing out "trial efforts" to feed the media? :shrug:

Only the Coast Guard with their amazing Rescue Operations seem to be visible in all of the reports I've seen today on the Cables. Where is the help here? Or, is it like "9/11" where only Guliani (i.e. LA Governor and Mary Landreau and a FEMA Person) are speaking about the desperate situation of those all along the Gulf Coast, but most particularly in New Orleans...where a Health Crisis is looming so big we could have major loss of life. Those folks in NO are caught in a bowl of "no escape" and WHERE is the co-ordination of Govt. Agencies to get all these folks out and find some kind of shelter for them?

[BattyDem]

1. The Chimp is useless

Three states are disaster areas, NO is under water and he's still out golfing, fundraising and giving speeches! :grr:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. Yeah...they're probably preparing Haley Barbour to appear presidential

for his run for office...if I have to see him faking tears one more time I'm gonna puke

[KoKo]

5. Barbour has been so disgusting..there aren't words to describe it.

He's a local...yet he left his state a long time ago. :-(

[charlie]

9. He's got the smirk disease too, the fucker

I watched him reel off a list of disasters and I swear he had to work to suppress a grin between each morbid data point.

[Wolf321]

3. Why should Bushco fix New Orleans

... when his environmental policies caused the problems to begin with?

[ClintonTyree]

4. If the plan on fixing the levee tomorrow............

it'll be too damn late. Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is already out!
Maybe that's their plan, to have no plan. They may realize that the situation is hopeless and rather than tell people that, they'll just evacuate and let the water in until it equalizes on both sides of the levee. It wouldn't surprise me, our government has been, how shall I phrase this, "less than forthcoming", :eyes: with information for the American people.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. ACTUALLY doing things isn't Bush's job.

He's trying to figure out two things, right now, I'd wager:

One, which of his friends to let loot all the reconstruction cash

and Two, How to do it without getting caught, because in New Orleans (unlike, say, Iraq) government contractors hauling money out in Duffel bags might raise some eyebrows or even get caught on film.

[newscott]

7. T'would be unseemly for a person of such importance

to be seen to dabble in the misery of the little people. :sarcasm:

[Up2Late]

8. It always takes them 3-5 days to get together, shoot the bull, then...

...run their stupid ideas past the "focus groups" before they will reveal their "plan."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I'd have every naval and marine base in the Western Hemisphere

fill up a cargo plane with boats and personnel and assign each boat a section of the city to search for survivors. I'd also send a few aircraft carriers and other Navy vessels, although this would take longer.

[KoKo]

17. Yes...and pontoon bridges supplied by our Military to get Busloads of

folks out of that SuperDome where they are having to put all those who have been "rescued" by Coast Guard...but who have NO WHERE to GO.

Why can't they do Pontoon Bridges. We did it in WWII, Vietnam..and for all I know in Bosnia and anywhere that people needed to get out...or troops needed to get out.

Where are the rubber rafts and pontoon bridges? Have I seen too many old War Movies...and it was all "hype?"

[Pobeka]

11. They have calculated that more dems than repubs will die

if they do nothing.

So first they'll let as many die as possible without it looking too obvious.

Remember, this is the war profiteering crowd. Life is not sacred, and may be a liability if it may kick them out of power.

[KoKo]

12. As dreadful as they are...I don't know if they "politically" could take

the hit for so many dying, though.

I can't blame this Hurricane on them...and that NO has such huge problems...except that our American Infrastructure has been compromised for Iraq and Bush's endless vision of spreading Democracy...and our Senate and House has been complicit (except for our few Dem hero's) and so what I'm focused on is that they LACK LEADERSHIP in times of CRISIS.

They don't seem to have an ability to relate to the plight of their fellow Americans. Organization and Compassion is MISSING...We Dems need to hit them on both of those talking points.

[Pobeka]

14. That's why I said it can't look "too obvious".

Oh, there will be weeping and compassion for all those lost, and the media will do their duty and show the photo-ops -- and never bring up how many could have been saved with more action immediately before Katrina to evacuate the coasts and more action immediately after to minimize the losses.

[KoKo]

15. Exactly...NO had plans to deal with a disaster like this...Bush cut the

the 2006 Funding for the projects that might have saved NO...but how can we blame his cutting for 2006 when that wouldn't have saved NO for Katrina's hit.

BUT...if one goes back that our House and Congress haven't been "addressing the needs of the People's Infrastructure" then we have a "start" at working for change. New Orleans has been waiting for the "Big One" for years. Moyers and others kept reporting about it...but who really in our leadership addressed this terrible impending disaster.

And, it falls on our Dem Doorsteps as well as the Repugs. Maybe if when Bush was "selected" in 2000 his Administration had gotten on board for a plan for New Orleans in case of a Category Five Hurricane and not focused on his "Wars to Spread Democracy" we might have had better plans in place. Maybe, even if Clinton had been able to look at America's crumbling infrastructure and the past actions of Army Corps of Engineers programs which worked for the 20th Century...but were NO Longer working for going ahead because maybe the ACE's fixes for one time in America weren't going to work with "Global Warming" in 2001..we might have been able to work for solutions to some of America's "swept under the rug" disasters in waiting.

Instead the Chimp went with PNAC/NEO-CONS focusing on getting "them terraists" who hate us for who we are, instead of targeting and focusing on the small group who did perpetrate 9/11 and working on being a true President who had "average" Americans interests at heart.

[Pobeka]

16. Greed is good. Greed for money, greed for power.

This is what greed gets us in the end.

[wli]

13. yep, they're committing genocide against Democrats n/t