And I'm guessing that Hurricane Katrina has dealt Senate Democrats a much stronger hand in shaping the upcoming debates than either party now realizes, because it has exposed the moral and civic bankruptcy of the GOP policy agenda.
I'd say it was the policy of "terrorism is the only thing we care about."
That over and over Bush has appointed his buddies head of FEMA and cut FEMA's budget is no doubt at fault for a lot of the suffering. And telling FEMA its new focus was terrorism didn't help either.
That doesn't bear close examination. The FEMA budget is higher than it was under Clinton or Bush Sr- the "cuts" are cuts in the size of the increase, not cuts in the actual amount. Nor does a focus on terrorism explain why the city's written evacuation plan, using city and school buses to get the poor out of town, was not followed. It was not FEMA's fault the local police and fire had no backup radio, or that the designated public refuges had no food or water. I don't see how it's FEMA's fault a city can build a Superdome and not be able to afford one warehouse full of MREs. I hardly think FEMA can be blamed for initially sending their forces to Mississippi, where the storm actually made landfall, instead of N.O., which everyone believed had dodged the bullet on Monday before the levee broke. The only way I can see FEMA being at fault is not having in place a public policy of assuming city and state incompetence/corruption, and making emergency plans based on the local authorities being useless. While in fact this is probably what FEMA *SHOULD* do, can you imagine the political fallout? Bush is being called a racist right now- what would they be calling him if he based his reactions on the assumption that the local elected authority would simply collapse?
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And I'm guessing that Hurricane Katrina has dealt Senate Democrats a much stronger hand in shaping the upcoming debates than either party now realizes, because it has exposed the moral and civic bankruptcy of the GOP policy agenda.
Usually I can follow the logic here, but this escapes me... what moral or immoral policy caused a hurricane?
Joel Monka
I'd say it was the policy of "terrorism is the only thing we care about."
That over and over Bush has appointed his buddies head of FEMA and cut FEMA's budget is no doubt at fault for a lot of the suffering. And telling FEMA its new focus was terrorism didn't help either.
CC
That doesn't bear close examination. The FEMA budget is higher than it was under Clinton or Bush Sr- the "cuts" are cuts in the size of the increase, not cuts in the actual amount. Nor does a focus on terrorism explain why the city's written evacuation plan, using city and school buses to get the poor out of town, was not followed. It was not FEMA's fault the local police and fire had no backup radio, or that the designated public refuges had no food or water. I don't see how it's FEMA's fault a city can build a Superdome and not be able to afford one warehouse full of MREs. I hardly think FEMA can be blamed for initially sending their forces to Mississippi, where the storm actually made landfall, instead of N.O., which everyone believed had dodged the bullet on Monday before the levee broke. The only way I can see FEMA being at fault is not having in place a public policy of assuming city and state incompetence/corruption, and making emergency plans based on the local authorities being useless. While in fact this is probably what FEMA *SHOULD* do, can you imagine the political fallout? Bush is being called a racist right now- what would they be calling him if he based his reactions on the assumption that the local elected authority would simply collapse?
Joel Monka
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