this was his response to a question by Elizabeth Vargas last night, WRT a congressional report assessing the US response to Katrina, and its preparedness to possible future terror attacks.
here's the context:
ELIZABETH VARGAS: Let's start with Katrina, because today is the six-month anniversary of the hurricane hitting, and you know there have been a series of government reports evaluating the government response to that disaster. A congressional report assessed the U.S. reaction as "woefully unprepared" not only for a natural disaster now but for a terrorist attack, the state of readiness right now of the United States.
Setting aside future improvements that you plan, do you agree today with that assessment, that the United States is "woefully unprepared" for another natural disaster or attack?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I agree that we didn't do as good a job as we could have done on Katrina. However, I would remind people that there was a hurricane right after Katrina that hit Louisiana and Texas, and the response was much better coordinated, and the situational awareness on the ground was much improved. And so while I can't predict 100 percent success on a catastrophic — major catastrophic event, I can say that lessons learned from Katrina were being implemented quickly. And the case I make is that hurricane that hit down there in Texas is one where the response was much better.
Listen, here's the problem that happened in Katrina. There was no situational awareness, and that means that we weren't getting good, solid information from people who were on the ground, and we need to do a better job. One reason we weren't is because communications systems got wiped out, and in many cases we were relying upon the media, who happened to have better situational awareness than the government. And when you have the media
better situational awareness than the government, the American people are saying, "Wait a minute. What is happening? How come the federal Government and state government and local governments couldn't do a better job of providing information necessarily so that people could react better?"
VARGAS: So you don't agree with that report that calls the U.S. "woefully unprepared?"
BUSH: I think the U.S. is better prepared than woefully unprepared. There's no question we've got more work to do, and our report on Katrina outlined the work that needs to be done.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1671087&page=1is it possible at all that the dems and progressive pundits can seize upon this idiotic response for a change, and use it in a manner similar to that which the neoprotofascists always do?
something like this should be repeated endlessly
"Better than woefully unprepared"that sets a pretty high standard, yes?
''better than woefully unprepared'' for screening, say, containers in our newly outsourced ports, for example?
''better than woefully unprepared'' for the dealing with the next natural disaster, including the aftermath (just ask how happy the people in the Gulf Coast region are with the way the government is handling things since last August)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=542857&mesg_id=542857
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