pubs gone nuts:baker,hastert ,santorum blame victims to weathar service

[dajoki]

WPhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090901930.html


Some GOP Legislators Hit Jarring Notes in Addressing Katrina

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 10, 2005

Some lawmakers are still struggling to find the sympathetic but diligent tone that a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina -- and the lagging government response to its victims -- would seem to call for.

The latest elected official to step into the swamp was Rep. Richard H. Baker, a 10-term Republican from Baton Rouge. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that he was overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Democrats, of course, gleefully disseminated the report, saying they detected a GOP pattern. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) recently spoke of bulldozing part of New Orleans, they reminded everyone, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) suggested punishing people who had ignored pre-storm evacuation orders.

<<snip>>

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Santorum was drawing a second round of fire, this time for saying the National Weather Service's forecasts and warnings about Katrina's path were "not sufficient." Democrats e-mailed audio links to a radio interview in which Santorum said that "we need a robust National Weather Service" that focuses on severe weather predictions. "Obviously the consequences are incredibly severe, as we've seen here in the last couple of weeks, if we don't get it right and don't properly prepare," Santorum said.

In fact, many people think the Weather Service got the Katrina prediction exactly right. They include GOP Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), who chairs the Senate Commerce subcommittee on disaster prediction and prevention. He issued a statement headlined "DeMint Gives National Weather Service 'A' Grade for Katrina Prediction."

Santorum, long at odds with the federal agency, is pushing a bill that would require it to surrender some of its duties to private businesses, some of them located in his state. The National Weather Service Employees Organization said in a statement: "We did our job well and everyone knows it. By falsely claiming that we got it wrong, Rick Santorum is continuing his misguided crusade against the National Weather Service."

[undergroundpanther]

1. Blame ANYBODY but themselves

Fucking SOCIOPATHIC PIGS..Lock them all up and SHUT THEM all UP. FUCK THEM ALL

[dajoki]

10. that's been their m.o. from the begining n/t

[flakey_foont]

2. The National Weather Service

was spot on.......anybody that had a TV on in the days preceding Katrina's landfall knew it was coming and NOLA was in the path.....

what does Santorum offer as an alternative to predict the weather? geese entrails??
runes? Barbara Bush's bunions????

[dajoki]

3. wants to privitize...

to accuweather in pa.

[jedr]

8. yes , so we can pay tax dollars to fund the NWS;

and have them give the data to accuweather and then we pay accuweather for the service....thanks Ricky; we need more just like you:puke:

[eleny]

5. You're helping me learn to smile again

Babs' bunions. Oh yeah :rofl:

[Lasher]

4. Is this a blame game?

I keep getting mixed up about that.

[dajoki]

11. i don't know what you mean...

but someone or some agency must be held accountable and then fixed so this won't happen again.

[TomClash]

6. Santorum is really going off the deep end and . . .

Bob Casey is going to whip his butt.

[dajoki]

7. OH,YES

i'm a casey vote waiting to happen. where gonna kick that knucklhead's ass out of office so bad it might even shake his head loose from his asshole.

[RallyInDC]

9. Yeah unless he can cheat on paper ballots.

Doubt it though, I'll watch it closely. Santorum be run out of office.