Basically, the Captain is in charge. If the First Officer runs the boat into a sandbar the Captain is still responsible. If the engineer burns out the engine the Captain is still responsible.

So I tend to be intolerant of failure. You succeed or you fail, and the “why” of it is an interesting detail, but doesn’t change the basic fact: you did it, or you didn’t.

Following that same line of reasoning I give a new Captain a grace period — especially if the previous Captain was a buffoon — but my patience is limited. Don’t come to me and say, “I want to be president, I want you to pay me 400k a year, pay for a private jet and a big white house, and enter me in the ranks alongside Washington and Lincoln,” but I don’t want to be responsible.

I had no tolerance for Bush’s failures. Up to 911, okay, I don’t blame him for what carried over from the previous admin, but I hold him absolutely responsible for what followed. And I will hold Obama responsible for what comes.

So yeah, I hold him responsible for the implementation of the flu response. His HHS, his responsibility. Don’t tell me why you failed, just tell me you succeeded.

No large institution can plan for every contingency.
Stuff happens. I am not going to blame Obama for this because he was clearly not involved in this at all. Because you see he has been overseeing other important aspects of the operation of our government over these last nine months. He has worked so hard and focused like a laser beam on the most pressing issues of the day.

I do not understand your sarcasm Rick I mean President Obama I am sure cares a lot about this matter and I am sure he gave a speech on the very import of swine flu and ordered His Administration to cooperate and work together to ensure that everything went according to plan.

I myself and rather pleased that he is taking his time on deciding on troops in Afganistan given the track record of his decsion making so far.

But I am sure that the prior administration made things so dysfunctional at CDC and HHS that President Obama was unable to bring the staff into line in time. I know what it was why did I not think of this these snafus took place because President Obama lacked a Vaccine Czar and you know his original choice for HHS Secty did not pay his taxes and I am that this was a concoction of Karl Rove and GWB you know like a new roadside IED that was installed in DC on or about January 20 2009

Just %20 of the populace are willing to branded Republicans.

People know now from the GWB experience that when you care enough to send the most incompetent to Washington, look for the GOP label.

… a crises aided and fomented by the economic mis-management of Democrats in Congress and Obama’s administraton. 4 million jobs lost since Obama was elected, and they wont return soon. Yeah, keep blaming the guy who’s out of office, that’s a real winner of an argument.

Enough about Obama’s record … let’s talk about Swine Flu.

In a world of finite resources, those resources cannot go everywhere. Anyone disagree? OK, after Katrina passed, New Orleans appeared unscathed. Good Ole Shep Smith was reporting from a pristine Bourbon Street afterall. Mississippi, however, was decimated. Now, if I have finite resources (National Guard, bottled water, food, etc) where do I send them in the immediate aftermath of the storm? New Orleans, which was unscathed??? Somehow I think what was left of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi might have been a little pissed at that. The levees broke after the storm had passed. The initial resources of the Federal Gov’t went first to where they were needed the most…Mississippi. It takes a little time to write the orders, assemble extra guardsmen and send them to New Orleans. It doesn’t help when the Governor of Louisiana doesn’t sign over the LA Guard to the national effort. Could things have been done better? Of course, but to paraphrase Rick, this is the government after all. This was an event of near biblical proportions that our nation has never seen before. Well, except maybe early in the century in Galveston, or maybe the Chicago fire, you know, disasters in which the cities recovered without federal help. I lived in New Orleans for 4 years. I love the town. Lotta fun there. But, it is a city built in a sinking bowl. Shit is going to happen there regardless of who has the reigns of power in Washington.

As far as the flu vaccine situation. 100% agree with Rick. I only blame Obama in the way the Democrats blamed Bush…for political reasons instead of actual reasons. No matter how one might wish it, the Federal government can’t do shit about creating things.

http://www.recombinomics.com/whats_new.html

has been posting on H1N1 since January of this year and I believe, though the page of links ends with January, was posting on it earlier than that.