According to a CNN-Gallup poll released yesterday, the American people are in no mood as yet to blame President Bush for the relief fiascoes that occurred in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Nearly twice as many people – 25% to 13% – blame the disaster debacle tag team champions Blanc-o-Nagin for the unbelievable number of screw-ups, let downs, and incompetent decision making as blame the Bush-led undynamic duo of FEMA Director Brown and DHS Secretary Chertoff. And showing a perspicacity not evident when listening to people in Washington or Baton Rouge, 38% of the American people blame Mother Nature or, specifically, no one at all.
Never underestimate the intelligence of the American people.
Only 35% think the President did a “great” or “good” job. Another 21% believe he performed neither “good” or “bad.” On the other hand, 42% believe he did either a “bad” or “terrible” job which would seem to indicate the majority of independents believe the latter.
Not very cheery numbers for the White House…but also shows the stupidity of the Democrats who have been trying to portray the relief effort as a disaster almost before the last hurricane force gusts of wind from Katrina died down in the Gulf. There has been no discernible backlash yet against the Democrat’s blatant attempt to politicize the relief efforts while people were still stranded on rooftops and the law of the jungle reigned in the Convention Center. That tally may come when many more details are revealed regarding the inability of local DHS officials to work with FEMA employees.
What is slowly emerging from the rubble in New Orleans may in fact shock the American people out of the poisonous partisan warfare that has gripped the nation for more than a decade. The question will inevitably be asked: Was part of the reason for friction between state Homeland Security Department officials and national FEMA employees the result of partisan party politics?
The state government is Democratic. The national government is full of Republicans. Could there have been a level of distrust regarding the motives of each side which played a deleterious role in the disaster? A possible hint of this was revealed by Mayor Nagin in an interview with CNN American Morning on Friday, September 2. Nagin was talking about a meeting the President had with Governor Blanco in which he offered to have the federal government take over the relief effort:
NAGIN: They both shook—I don’t know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, ‘Great.’ I said, ‘Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.’ There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, ‘Everybody right now, we’re leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.’S. O’BRIEN: And was that done?
NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, “No, you guys stay here. We’re going to another section of the plane, and we’re going to make a decision.”
He called me in that office after that. And he said, “Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor.” I said—and I don’t remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.
S. O’BRIEN: You’re telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?
NAGIN: Yes.
S. O’BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?
NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the—I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.
S. O’BRIEN: And the governor said no.
NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn’t happen, and more people died.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Governor didn’t trust the President not to use the federalizing of the relief effort to highlight the national response to the tragedy at the expense of state efforts. Nor could the President take much more of the idiotic finger pointing on the part of Mayor Nagin who seemed to be spending more time giving interviews to the press saying nothing was being done than he did trying to recall the 500 or so New Orleans city policemen who had vanished into thin air once the storm struck.
Once the complete picture emerges regarding the scope of this tragedy, those numbers may jump substantially one way or another. For now, the American people, as usual, are showing themselves to be much more grown up than the idiots who are trying to make one side more culpable than the other.
4:11 pm
You can supersize your posts,You can blog doubletime,but your neocon world is about to fall. So long boys!
5:05 pm
While the evacuation and shelter situations in New Orleans and Louisiana were certainly on Nagin and Blanco, the @ssdragging afterward is all on the FEDS.
How can Nagin and Blanco be to blame for people going without aid (STATE or FEDERAL) in parts of Mississippi as late as Tuesday(the 6th) night????
Time to give it up. “Compassionate Conservatism” has been exposed.
6:41 pm
Don’t you both think it a little unedifying to be celebrating the demise of the President while dancing on the graves of black people?
What are you? Racists?
7:18 pm
Folks are still going without in Mississippi….
http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/_wea_katrina_squalor;_ylt=AmFyd28QwGA_2NH9m.O3O1es0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ—
Why do you ignore this?
9:56 pm
Melanie, WHAT a$$-dragging? And simply braying “they took too long” isn’t good enough. You really need to be specific if anyone should take you seriously about what you claim the FEDS did not do.
What about the fact that since Katrina blew through Louisiana, specifically New Orleans, the Red Cross (who had PRE-POSITIONED huge trucks full of supplies earmarked for the people at both the SuperDome and the Convention Center immediately after the storm) has been denied access to the disaster area in Louisiana by the LA Homeland Security Department? This is a fact that is validated on the Red Cross website.
IF the state of Louisiana (Blanco) refused to let the Red Cross do it’s job and bring the food, water and medicines to those in the SuperDome and Convention Center, HOW is it the fault of the FEDS again?
Looking back, I find it in-EFFING-credible that aid was rendered as quickly and as broadly as it was considering the chronic obstacles the government of Louisiana placed in their path.
It WAS a ClusterFoock of unbelievable dimensions and the ClusterFoock was authored SOLEY by the state and local government. And if you have proof to the contrary you’d better put it up or
SHUT THE FOOCK UP YOU MOONBAT!
5:51 am
It can’t be denied the polls show most blame the locals—you leftist take from that what you want.
For God’s sake, wake up, sure there were some screw ups but the Feds seem to be doing everything humanly possible and I think this is another thing that is gonna blow up in the lefts face.
Also, someone needs to tell Paul, the so called Repub from Tx, to sit down and shut up or just go ahead and cross the f&#king aisle cause we are sick of this speeches on c-spann, caught him yesterday, it was disgusting, bashing Bush for Iraq and our so called regime change, I’m so sick of that term I could hurl.
10:13 am
The point Melanie brings up about Mississippi illustrates something that has particularly frustrated me about all the Katrina coverage:
This is about more than New Orleans. The area of destruction covers Mississippi and parts of Alabama, too. People who complain about the federal response (and there is PLENTY to complain about, legitimately) need to remember that FEMA and the feds are responsible for the ENTIRE area of Katrina damage, which makes the ball-dropping by the locals even more infuriating.
10:29 am
Trying to think ahead a bit here… If some subsequent disaster hits a white, middle-class area, can we do well with the relief efforts without being open to charges of disparity or racism when it comes to federal emergency management?
1:25 pm
Schwing!
Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … Another Friday, already in progress
2:08 pm
Melanie,
I think Mississippi is being ignored because the leftist-MSM thinks that New Orleans will damage Bush more than does Missisippi where they have competent governments.
But with competent governments the states of MS and AL are doing OK, or as best can be expected in this natural disaster.
The left, that’s another matter—It looks like in the end Bush Derangement Syndrome is now a proven killer.
1:43 am
I am one of those who feel that partician politics got in the way on both sides of the fence and unfortuantly will continue to do so until we have a strong leader weather it be on the local or federal level.
2:53 pm
“....and the Lord sent a great flood…” I started thinking about this at 2 am. Five or six years ago I took my son on a cruise, and one of our stops was New Orleans. I took him on a bus tour to show him some history of America, and as the bus took us here and there in the Parrish, my son ask, “Daddy, what country is this?” I was stunned at first until I looked at the world from the eyes of a child.He couldn’t tell the difference between one third world country and another, for that is what NO had become, a low rent, trashed, infrastucture-wrecked bayou, like so many we had seen that week in the Caribbean. And the residents of this watery slum were just like the people we had seen on islands in the stream, people waiting for someone to make their lives better. I started thinking about Katrina in biblical terms when I heard that the death toll would be much lower than previously feared. Perhaps the Lord decided to repeat his flood schtick, and start over with a clean slate.