Fired Up! America - Bush's Post-Katrina Recovery Disaster

In A Time Of Crisis Bush's True Character Was Revealed

Fri, 3 Mar 2006 07:51:34 -0600

As someone famous once said, it is in times of crisis that one's true character is revealed. So what we now know about President Bush, is that he and his administration are profoundly imcompetent, and when the President feared that was about to be exposed, he simply lied to cover it up.

From today's WaPo:

Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.

The release of a pre-storm video showing officials warning Bush during a conference call that the hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast posed a dire threat to the city and its levees has revived a dispute the White House had hoped to put behind it: Was the president misinformed, misspoken or misleading?

The video leaves little doubt that key people in government did anticipate that the levees might not hold. To critics, especially Democrats but even some Republicans, it reinforces the conclusion that the government at its highest levels failed to respond aggressively enough to the danger bearing down on New Orleans. To Bush aides, the seeming conflict between Bush's public statements and the private deliberations captured on tape reflects little more than an inartful statement opponents are exploiting for political purposes.

GOP Rep: Port Deal Not Investigated Beforehand

Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:50:11 -0600

According to USA Today-On Deadline, GOP Rep. Peter King says the Bush administration failed to investigate the ports deal before approving it.

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, told radio ranger Don Imus this morning that contrary to what President Bush and administration officials have been telling the public, the Dubai port deal was not scrutinized first, according to officials involved.

This is yet another example of a troubling lack of character in the Bush administration. As in the case with Hurricane Katrina, they fail to take actions to keep up safe, and then when they get caught failing us, they lie about the situation.

Bush Was Aware Of Risks Posed By Katrina

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 16:44:43 -0600

According to the AP, President Bush was fully aware of the risks posed by Katrina.

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.

Simon Says: 2006 Likely To Be A Very Bad Year For The GOP

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:34:25 -0600

In this piece, NDN Chair Simon Rosenberg lays out how he sees 2006 shaping up.

Here's his bottom line:

I've been skeptical about the fall elections becoming a 1994-like "change election." But given that in Mid-February the President has dropped below 40 percent, their weak agenda has nowhere to go, foreign policy and security issues are as likely to be as damaging to them as helpful, and the criminal cases against their leadership will spread and deepen, I think even the skeptics have to now acknowledge that 2006 is likely to become an historically bad year for the governing party.

Even The GOP Won't Cover Up For Bush On Messes Like Katrina

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:13:38 -0600

The Bush administration's respones to Hurricane Katrina that even the GOP isn't willing to cover up for them on that one.

Here's the NY Times story on the report to be issued on Wednesday by the all-Republican committee that investigated the Bush administration's response to Katrina:

House Republicans plan to issue a blistering report on Wednesday that says the Bush administration delayed the evacuation of thousands of New Orleans residents by failing to act quickly on early reports that the levees had broken during Hurricane Katrina.

An examination of documents shines a new light on the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

A draft of the report, to be issued by an 11-member, all-Republican committee, says the Bush administration was informed on the day Hurricane Katrina hit that the levees had been breached, even though the president and other top administration officials earlier said that they had learned of the breach the next day.

That delay was significant, the report says, rejecting the defense given by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that the time it took to recognize the breach did not significantly affect the response.

"If the levees breached and flooded a large portion of the city, then the flooded city would have to be completely evacuated," the draft report says. "Any delay in confirming the breaches would result in a delay in the post-landfall evacuation of the city." It adds that the White House itself discounted damage reports that later proved true.

Shame On The Bush Administration

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:57:52 -0600

The Bush administration is profoundly incompetent. What other explanation can possibly be offered for this?

Cherthoff Should Be Fired

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:39:13 -0500

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherhoff's performance before the sham committee in the House investigating Bush's Post-Katrina Recovery Disaster was inexcusable.

The blurb from the KR story pretty much sums it up:

Michael Greenberger, a law professor and director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security, disputed that Brown had adequate authority prior to Chertoff's designating him the principal federal official.

Evidence Of Bush Administration Incompetence Keeps Rolling In

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:00:30 -0500

This story from the AP is just the latest example of how the Bush administration just ignores information that they don't want to hear.

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown was warned weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit that his agency's backlogged computer systems could delay supplies and put personnel at risk during an emergency, according to an audit released Wednesday.

The internal review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's information-sharing system showed that it was overwhelmed during the 2004 hurricane season. In an Aug. 3 response, Brown and one of his deputies rejected the audit, calling it unacceptable, erroneous and negative.

Mike Brown AWOL (Absent Without Leadership)

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:36:41 -0500

In an extraordinary post-resignation hearing on Capitol Hill, former FEMA head Mike Brown claimed that his agency, designated by the President of the United States to organize the full force and resources of the federal government to respond to an emergency, was helpless to avert disaster in New Orleans because the mayor (of the 36th largest U.S. city) and governor (of the 24th largest state) were unprepared to deal with a category 5 hurricane bearing down on their shores.

At last check, Brown was part of an Administration renowned for its self-proclaimed leadership capabilities and willingness to take bold action in the face of an urgent threat. In its National Security Strategy, issued in 2002, this Administration asserted confidently that "preemptive action" must be taken to "counter a sufficient threat to our national security." "The greater the threat," they claimed, "the greater is the risk of inaction." The President personally opined in this Strategy document that "history will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act."

George's Excellent Colorado Adventure

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:58:20 -0500

George Bush enjoyed his Hurricane Rita fact-finding mission to the United States Northern Command headquarters in Colorado Springs so much, that he came home and decided to ask Congress to give the military the lead responsibility for dealing with all natural disasters. These are the same forces that stayed on the sideline when Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, rudely interrupting the President's vacation and the Secretary of State's shopping trip to New York.

But the "fact-finder in Chief" has failed to explain why the entire system needs to be changed when the response to Rita, with civilian authorities in charge, worked so well.

KR Coverage Undermines Bush's Claims

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:59:38 -0500

This story from KR really makes the point that I was trying to make in my last post. Bush has plenty of authority, he just didn't use it well during Katrina.

The speed with which the federal government marshaled significant military and other resources to evacuate, rescue and care for victims of Hurricane Rita raises new questions about why Washington was so slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina less than four weeks earlier.

Bush Doesn't Need More Powers, He Needs More Leadership Ability

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 20:00:05 -0500

President Bush is out claiming today that Congress should consider granting him more authority to use the military in times of catastrophic natural disasters.

As I mentioned last week, this important op ed points out that the President already has all the authority that he needs. In the case of Katrina, it was his leadership ability that was lacking.

From the Op Ed:

President Bush claimed last week that Hurricane Katrina made clear that "greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces" would be necessary to deal with future natural disasters or terrorists attacks.

Bush's Katrina Disaster Coordinator Busy With Fundraising Duties

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:38:54 -0500

Senator Frank Lautenberg sent a letter to President Bush today raising important questions regarding Karl Rove's fitness for the task of assisting with the rebuilding effort on the Gulf Coast.

From the letter:

As all know, Hurricane Rita is bearing down on the Gulf Coast even as the nation reels from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It would be expected that Mr. Rove would be at his post "24/7" during this crisis.

However, as unlikely as it might seem, we have learned that Mr. Rove will be travelling to North Dakota to engage in political fundraising activities. When this fearsome hurricane makes landfall on Saturday, Mr. Rove will be delivering a political speech to the North Dakota Republican Party, and will be featured as a special guest at a fundraising dinner.

Bush Has All The Authority He Needs

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 07:34:27 -0500

Here's an important op ed from the Raleigh News & Observer on Presdent Bush's leadership failure in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

President Bush claimed last week that Hurricane Katrina made clear that "greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces" would be necessary to deal with future natural disasters or terrorists attacks.

The president of the United States, however, has all the legal authority he needs to mount a robust federal response to a natural disaster or terrorist attack, including the use of the armed forces. The fiasco resulting from Katrina was caused not by the lack of legal authorities, but by a failure to assert federal leadership at an early stage of the disaster, a lack of pre-disaster planning to coordinate the activities of all levels of government and a basic misunderstanding at the state and local level of the proper role of the armed forces in domestic crisis management.

Bush's Pride and Ideology Trump Compassion In Katrina Relief

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:18:02 -0500

Hat tip to Slate's Today's Papers on this one. Buried deep inside today's WP story on the housing crisis created by Bush's Post-Katrina Recovery Disaster, there is an interesting gem that reveals oh-so-much about Bush and his team.

On Sept. 14, a unanimous Senate adopted an alternative to trailers, providing $3.5 billion in HUD rental vouchers to Katrina victims -- as much as $10,000 each for 350,000 families -- for six to 12 months.