(no subject)

[mamadeb]

kadymae wants us to write our representatives and ask them to ask Bush to resign.

God knows I want that man out of the White House. He has never been fit to be president, and this is, unfortunately, not an impeachable offense.

But.

That would mean Cheney is president. Or, if he's too ill, Hastert.

...

You know. I hate to say this. Maybe Cheney would be better.

Comments

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

It would at least force the people for whom he is a figure-head to come out in the open themselves. I'm not sure if that would improve things, but there you have it.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, Cheney does not have the charisma that Bush posesses. Therefore, when he flubs up, he won't get out of it as easily.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

In what sense do you think Cheney is not running things?

Where *is* he, anyway?

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Cheney, evil fucker that he is, is at least competent.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Um. MamaDeb, I apologize for that previous (now deleted) comment, which was without question the bitterest, most hateful thing I've ever posted. Anywhere. It is how I feel right now, but your LJ is not an appropriate venue for those sentiments. I clicked post without thinking, and regretted it the second I had. Sorry.

[dj-clawson.livejournal.com]

I'm for Cheney being president over Bush. He's smarter and not a religious radical. Vast improvement.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

You know what? I'm sick of this, and if you're going to slag off on Bush, I'm damn well going to slag off on you. What was Bush supposed to do? He urged people to evacuate on FRIDAY! He put FEMA on standby. The responsibility for evacuating the city was the MAYOR'S. It was NAGIN who sat on his bum, and wouldn't even have called a mandatory evacuation if BUSH hadn't pushed him. Imagine that, the president has to call the governor and ask what the hell this mayor is thinking, why isn't he calling an evacuation! The city administration that was supposed to manage this, and HAD the resources to do so (~275 buses sitting unused, and now useless, that could have evacuated nearly 20K people without cars).

Bush asked the governor to turn the emergency management over to the feds, and she refused. So what was he supposed to do, exactly? As far as I can tell he's done everything he was supposed to.

On the other hand, Cheney as president? Sounds great to me. I've been saying for years that it would have been better for the country if Bush had become a martyr on 11-Sep-01, because that's the only way I could see Cheney becoming president.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

See this post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/eleri/894174.html). It looks as if he urged people to evacuate when it was already too late, having been aware for some time that the storm was coming, that it was going to be serious, and that it was going to hit somewhere along that coastline. As for the rest of your comment, I'm hoping to get verification one way or another, because being so far away, it's easy to get misled by sufficiently impassioned declarative statements into thinking that they are factual.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

He put FEMA on standby.

And it stood by for days after the storm abated, preventing actual aid from coming to NOLA (http://www.livejournal.com/users/naomikritzer/61552.html).

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Fine. Slag on me.

This is why I never discuss politics. I'm just angry that incompentence from the bottom all the way to the top has meant thousands of deaths.

And nothing will explain four days of doing almost nothing and not permitting mitigating help to, well, help.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

You said nothing I didn't think myself.

I've been angry for days.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

You mean she didn't issue this (http://gov.louisiana.gov/2005%20%20proclamations/48pro2005-Emergency-HurricaneKatrina.pdf) order?

Or this request? (http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf)

Thank you, filkertom.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she declared a state State of Emergency on the Friday, which should have got the city to activate its own emergency plan. Didn't work, and has nothing to do with Bush. And on Sunday, she asked him to declare a federal State of Disaster, which he did; in fact, I vaguely recall that he had already done this the previous day. On Sunday, Bush called her, and got her to sit on the mayor and get him to order an evacuation; without his call, even that wouldn't have happened.

But look at her request from last Sunday - make money available, make loans available, etc. All of which Bush did. She's not asking for troops, or convoys of federal supplies, because at that point there was no need for them, no reason to know that they would be needed, and no way to know where they might later be needed. And Bush cannot send federal forces, whether Army or out-of-state National Guard, without the governor's request.

Meanwhile, on Friday night, when Bush asked the governor to just step back and let the feds take over the evacuation instead of having to run everything through the state, she refused (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html).

Food for Thought

[phoenix-starr.livejournal.com]

May I also chime in to say "here here!" to the above Bush defender.

I also wish to point out 2 quick things.

1 - When has the government EVER been swift to do ANYTHING?? No matter if it was a Democrat or Republican in office? With all the red tape involved with government stuff I think he's doing a damn fine job. Also, where the government was a bit slow the private organizations where not. Some of them were in there offering help hours after the last puff of wind from Katrina. Not all help and answers come from government.

2 - Isn't this Mayor and the Governor being discussed members of the Democrat party? (on the premises that a Democrat would have run this situation better.) If a Democrat would run things better... why aren't they/didn't they?

Just food for thought.

Re: Food for Thought

[zsero.livejournal.com]

See more here (http://neowarmonger.blogspot.com/2005/09/logistics.html). And be sure to read the rest of that excellent blog (said he, without the slightest bit of shame).

Zev (aka Milhouse)

Re: Food for Thought

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

When was the government faster? In every other disaster in the past hundred years.

In 1902, the government was providing help before the first aftershocks after the San Francisco Earthquake.

Help was around in hours (during the first Bush administration, I will add) after Hurricane Andrew.

*Four* days of obstructionism and, apparently, ignorance, is inexcusable.

And Mayor Nagin? Had been a Republican and a Bush supporter right up until he changed parties to run for mayor of New Orleans. He was still a Bush supporter until last week, while the governor had been begging for help from *before* the time Katrina struck. The National Recovery Act says that FEMA trumps local and state governments, so why were they arguing jurisdiction? And why didn't they know what the rest of the country knew?

You can bet I'd be screaming this loudly if it were a Democrat in office.

Re: Food for Thought

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

It should be noted that the President's federal emergency declaration (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.html) of 27 August did not extend to the parishes south of Baton Rouge.

There are left-slanted timelines, with links to relevant documents, at, e.g., Think Progress (http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline) and other places.

Even conservative talking heads, such as Joe Scarborough (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8791344/#050905a), lay ultimate responsibility for FEMA's lack of response where it belongs, in the office where the buck stops.

The Nielsen-Haydens' blog (http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/) has been interesting as well - the commenters are many RASSefarians, and Tor authors, etc.