Rested

It's good to get away and see family, and particularly when you know where your family is and that they are safe. It's amazing at the things we take for granted. In Gwinnett Co., Georgia life goes on and we are thankful.

Now imagine that you don't know where your family is or if they are even alive. Imagine that you don't have food or water or a charge card, your house in uninhabitable and you're waiting for someone to come rescue you. You are taken to a shelter with thousands of other people you don't know. There is no food or water there. You don't know what's going on and the people you are looking for to give you assistance is not there. What do you do?

For all the Bush apologist, and there are many, what will it take for you to see the man is incompetent and has surrounded himself with incompetent people? "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Even his own party is beginning to wise up. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breech of the levees." This administration is always on "damage control" and how do they do that? They attack those that try to do the right thing, they change the subject to moral issues (BTW Newt said that doesn't work anymore).

You didn't have to come in from the Planet Ork to understand that the images on television were not contrived and that "those people" were desperate. Desperate times require desperate measures. FEMA fiddled through that desperation. 1000 FEMA volunteers were sent to give the relief effort a positive spin. Trouble is there is no positive spin.

Hurricane "Pam" predicted the many dire consequences that have come to fruition with Hurricane Katrina (or is it Corrina?). What happened to the plan? First responders? Overwhelmed and wiped out. National Guard? In Iraq. School bus evacuation? Where were they going to go? Convention Center? Superdome? Do you forcibly remove people before the disaster hits or after? To be sure there is plenty of blame that needs to be assigned and only a 9/11 type investigation will get at the real picture. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security should not be allowed to investigate, however, because they were the ones that approved Michael Brown in one hour. Susan Collins and JoePa need to take a sideline and have an independent group perform the investigation.

Apologists should take no solace in that this event occured in NO where the population is of a certain makeup or "those people." All of our major cities have a majority of "those people" in the inner city. It would have been just as bad in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, or Los Angeles. For $41 Billion I expect more. How would our response have been if this had been an actual terrorist attack against the levee in New Orleans rather than a hurricane, which there was some warning? Would it have been any different? I think not. Could we have handled a chemical or biological attack in Chicago any better? What about a major earthquake in Los Angeles or San Francisco?

The fact is "Brownie" was a political appointee with no disaster management experience, as are 5 of the to 8 most senior officials in FEMA. This is what you apologize for? Harry Truman had the buck stopping in the White House, Dubya passes the buck along like a hot potato. Yes, Mr. Brown will be the latest "My Pet Scapegoat."

But let's don't leave the apologies in New Orleans. "Nobody had foreseen airplanes would be used as weapons." Remember that along with the PDB that Bin Laden was looking to attack with airplanes? Have we found any WMD's? What about the record trade and budget deficits? Where is our plan to stop illegal immigrants from flowing across our borders? What about record number of people below the poverty level and millions without healthcare insurance? Somehow the fixation on the blue dress seems juvenile now. Yet, those apologist will still find a way to blame Bill Clinton for something and everything. Sometimes you just have to take responsibility for your actions or inactions. George W. Bush has not mastered that part of being a leader.

I find it interesting that by executive order federal contractors do not have to pay the prevailing wage rate in cleanup and rebuilding. Could there be any other motive than to slap those poor people who depend on paychecks in the face and to reward the Halliburton's who get the government contracts with greater profits? Compassionate Conservative? Give me a break. No excuse, no apology necessary. Keep drinking the Koolaid.

On a local level: Anyone who has worked in corporate America who can read between the lines of the e-mail quoted in the DDT knows what "being evaluated" means. Adios Textron!

Whoever, asked what would happen in Greenville if the levee broke and the current adminsitration (local) was handling the disaster. I think you can turn on your TV set and see how it would be on a smaller scale. The Guv would probably be slower to act. The reason action is happening on the GC is one word "Casinos" and don't you forget it.