Evil
Another contrast for you. First, from the New York Times:
David D. Kirkpatrick and Scott Shane write in the New York Times: “Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29, as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael D. Brown recalls, he placed frantic calls to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and to the office of the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.
“Mr. Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he told the officials in Washington that the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and her staff were proving incapable of organizing a coherent state effort and that his field officers in the city were reporting an ‘out of control’ situation. . . .</i>
Now, from fearless spenders speech last night:
Yet the system, at every level of government, was not well coordinated, and was overwhelmed in the first few days. It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces – the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.
If you compare the response given to Florida during last years run of 4 hurricanes to the reaction from the Feds to Katrina, the difference is glaring. FEMA was on the scene before the storms hit, and in the end, doled out money hand over fist, even to people who never asked for it. Yes, the local and state government in Louisana failed it’s people- and had been for decades.
But you have to ask yourself- why did the White House sit on its hands, when it’s own people were telling them the situation on the ground in LA was out of control? Were they incomptent? Most assuredly. Or was it something worse? Was it to get the American people used to images such as this one?
“Evil-X176”
Evil.
