www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_08_28.php#006382
exchange FEMA chief Michael Brown had yesterday with Wolf Blitzer ... BLITZER: Advertisement Knowing what you know now, Michael Brown -- and obviously all of us ar e a lot smarter with hindsight -- what would FEMA -- what should FEMA h ave done differently in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina to sav e people's lives in New Orleans? Because as you know, we're getting rep orts from the governor, from the mayor, that perhaps the death toll wil l go into the thousands. BROWN: Well, I think the death toll may go into the thousands. And unfor tunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not h eed the evacuation warnings. And I don't make judgments about why peopl e choose not to evacuate. But, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. And to f ind people still there is just heart wrenching to me because the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there. And so we've got to f igure out some way to convince people that when evacuation warnings go out, it's for their own good. One might note as an aside that the administration is putting a lot of we ight on the claim that it simply wasn't foreseeable how bad things were going to be, even though people knew there was going to be a major storm . And yet a similar lack of foresight apparently leaves many of the vict ims with primary responsibility for their own deaths.
mentioned yesterday, a not-insubstantial number of people who did not evacuate did not do so because they didn't have the cash on hand to do s o Several papers mention this this morning. Others were sick or invalid s And, yes, there were some who probably just figured they'd get lucky and paid a big price. But anybody with any serious experience even watching disaster relief, le t alone managing it, knows that public authorities are supposed to plan in advance to manage and alleviate the suffering, death and property des truction of anticipatable events. Brown might be bucking for a promotion to manager o f human nature and/or wealth inequality; So it's distressing to see his quick effort to bla me the victims of this disaster for what were in many cases flawed actio ns on his watch. But more specifically, and going back to what I said at the beginning, I' m pretty sure there was publicly available information on hand (from the Mayor, I think) before the storm even hit that a substantial minority o f the population had not left the city. Whatever their moral culpability may be in Borwn's eyes, he knew those people were there. And yet, as I think we'll see over the course of the day, there's a concerted effort t o say these facts were not known or were perhaps unknowable. Watch for the rewriting of the history and more efforts to blame the disa ster on its victims.
Over the last few days a lot of folks have noted the fact that President Bush went about his normal political schedule as usual until well after New Orleans had sunk, literally and figuratively, into disaster.
Bloggers also circulated a picture of Mr Bush playing a guitar at an ev ent in California on Tuesday to imply that he was fiddling while New Or leans drowned. Later that day, as floodwaters poured into New Orleans, Mr Bush returne d to his ranch in Texas, then left from his ranch for Washington on Wed nesday morning. You mean to tell Advertisement me that the president wasn't actually photographed in the midst of an i mpromptu jam session on the San Diego trip like we were all led to belie ve? This really is an example of how some instances of special pleading are t oo grasping and silly for the White House to use themselves. So they pas s it off to a compliant White House reporter. Let's stipulate that the president did not give a guitar performance or r ock out on Tuesday. The point of those who've showcased the picture is t hat it demonstrates (in quite a damaging way, the White House seems to t hink) that the president was business as usual well after everyone else in the country knew we had an historic disaster on our hands. Sometimes images give a misleading impression of the underlying reality.
this morning: "President Bush has used a constitutional provision to bypass the Senat e and fill a top Justice Department slot with an official whose nominati on stalled over tactics at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval facility."
article, this one from Scientific American, from October 2001 . The synopsis: "A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi Riv er have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineer ing of southeastern Louisiana can save the city."
And then below that, everyone else, in alphabetical order. The apparent rationale for the two-tiered set up is that the first three are places to "Donate Cash" and the rest are to "Donate Cash and/or Volu nteer". I'm not sure whether arranging them in that way makes a great de al of sense. Yet, apparently, someone pointed out that giving Operation Blessing highe r billing than the reality-based alphabetical system might not look so g ood.
as of today Operation Blessing has been bumped down to #3. But the whole two-tiered set up itself struck me as quite likely a strained way of giving Robertson the big disaster rel ief shout-out.
repeatedly been criticized for commi ngling his overseas charitable operations -- specifically, Operation Ble ssing -- with his personal for-profit ventures into precious metals and diamond extraction, particularly with some of your better-known human ri ghts pariahs and genocidal dictators. Zaire's Mobutu with blood diamonds , Liberia's Charles Taylor with gold mines. In any case, looking over the list, one other thing occured to me. Beneat h the big three, there are eighteen other organizations listed -- with a number of extremely respected organizations including the Salvation Arm y, Catholic Charities, B'nai B'rith and others. But as nearly as I can tell, not one non-religious or ganization is listed.
Now, I know as well as anyone the huge role that sectarian-affiliated cha ritable organizations play in disaster relief and other sorts of charita ble work. But it wouldn't surprise m e to learn that most or even the overwhelming amount of this kind of wor k is done by these groups. But surely there are some secular relief and aid organizations, right?
They asked if we would be willing to contribute ad spac e for Katrina-related disaster relief fundraising. And since I had wante d to do something like this, once we'd done some basic due diligence on their reputation in the field (which out to be very good), we were happy to oblige. Surely, there are many other qualified groups that aren't tied to a religious denomination. note: The details noted above prompt me to mention a few more details about our ad policy. nor do we give discounts or free ad space to advertisers, organizations or candidates we support or agree with. Ther e is a firm division between the business and editorial sides of our ope ration.
print) In times of such stress and grief as these, it is reassuring to know we c an rely on some immutables never to change. Like Pat Robertson being a shameless nutcase, for instance.
print) Another September '04 article out of New Orleans. The Federal Emergency Management Agency shook up its way of distributing disaster preparedness money when it introduced its Pre-Disaster Mitiga tion (PDM) grant program in 2002. Given the program's criteria, Louisia na appeared to have been a shoo-in for federal dollars for 2003, the fi rst year the program began awarding money.
REPORTER: Theres a lot of discussion going on about the funding of proje cts prior to this, whether projects in New Orleans in particular were u nderfunded because of the Iraq war or for other reasons.
New Orlea ns was sort of obvious to a lot of the experts? MCCLELLAN: As I have indicated, this is not a time for politics. This is a time for the nation to come together for those in the Gulf Coast reg ion and thats where our focus is. And I think the last thing that the people who have been displaced or the people who have been affected need is people seeking partisan gain in Wa...
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