But the partisan in media took particular pains to avoid reporting;
“I really should have called for the military,” Blanco said, while chatting with her press secretary in between TV interviews. “I really should have started that in the first call.”
Unbeknownst to Blanco, her bombshell acknowledgment was recorded on a network satellite feed, and by Tuesday the clip was getting wide exposure in Louisiana news broadcasts.
In the early days of the Katrina crisis, disaster management experts repeatedly blamed the failure to send in the National Guard for the city’s descent into chaos.
Most observers blamed the White House for the blunder – a misconception that was thoroughly dispelled by the governor’s inadvertent confession.
Some say Blanco’s blooper was responsible for the abrupt change of tone in her speech Wednesday night to the Louisiana legislature.
Where earlier she and her aides had openly blamed the Bush administration for bungling Katrina rescue efforts, Blanco announced: “The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility.”
Just as surprising were Blanco’s words of praise for the White House: “I want the people of Louisiana to know that we have a friend and a partner in President George W. Bush. I thank you, Mr. President.”
Not that this is new information to anyone who was interested in more than decorating their hatred of Bush with bloated corpses and charges of racism – that Blanco seemed ignorant of the chain of command under the US constitution, resisted declaring a mandatory evacuation, and prevented aide from reaching the afflicted area in a misguided attempt to “force” people to leave has been well documented – just not widely reported. Draw your own conclusions as to why.
After Bush’s speech in Louisiana yesterday, ABC news interviewed people on the street. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to cherry pick the responses;
After the speech ended, ABC provided a scene of wonderful high comedy, with reporter Dean Reynolds interviewing evacuees outside the Astrodome and repeatedly getting the “wrong” answers delivered in the almost musical accent of black New Orleans. Do you think the President was sincere? “Yes.” Did you hear anything you didn’t believe? “No, I didn’t.” One woman not only declined to criticize the President, she forcefully argued that state and local authorities deserve the lion’s share of the blame for not acting long before the feds could be expected to arrive, invoking the famous unused buses.
Poor Reynolds, caught in a white liberal nightmare where the black people refuse to follow the script. But it’s no surprise that Bush won the evacuees over. It was, as one woman put it, “a well fine speech.”
Newsbusters has the full transcript and video.
As I have maintained all through the blame Bush game, there are 3 levels of government and the Municipal level is always reponsible for evacuation and disater planning, The Ste is responsible for communications, militia and logistics support and the feds supply the cash, army and army corps of engineers.
There is more than enough responsibility ducking and ineptitude at the 2 local levels of government to go around.
Yeah babay!
The Moonbat conspiracy theory nutjobs are coming apart at the seams.
Take your pill now little Moonbat and then STFU about the strongest leader the world now knows: W.
How dumb do you have to be to get elected?
I’m a Canadian born and bred, and I know about the “chain of command” and the ins and outs of National Guard etiquette from watching tv. I don’t mean the news. I mean movies and corny miniseries. Little Rock anyone? Does the name George Wallace ring a bell?
Imagine an unpopular Republican president federalizing the NG and sending them into a Southern state run by Democrats?? Pleeeeze: read a history book, moonbats!
Isn’t this the sort of knowledge one acquires just by breathing?
If there was such a strong desire to cherry pick responses, why do a live response bit at all?
Special to WL – ‘blame game’ is slang for accountability. If you want to talk about accountabiliy, then do it, but don’t reduce yourself to the status of parrot by mindlessly using spin terms – you just embarrass everyone for you.
Gotta love it. And it was indeed “a well fine speech.”
As always, America came to the rescue, as they do all around the damn world. This time they just didn’t have to travel so far to find people who couldn’t look after themselves. And if we, up here in bananaland, ever have a similar problem you know who will arrive first to help. Yea, “The Americans”, those same people Gordon Sinclair once spoke about so eloquently. The same people our Liberal Crime family loves to call bastards.
“If there was such a strong desire to cherry pick responses, why do a live response bit at all?”
Indeed. I’m sure that when they chose the quintessential black po’ folks they didn’t anticipate that would happen.
Now, ask yourself why the taped versions on my local news are 100% negative, and why 650 CKOM’s newscaster just now mentioned the national day of prayer and then added “some say it’s a week too late”.
http://www.northsidejournal.com/special2.htm
Just before midnight on August 26, three days before Katrina was to make landfall, Kathleen Blanco received a phone call from George Bush. The president had been through a series of briefings from Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and knew the potential dangers to New Orleans and the surrounding area from a storm the size of Katrina. Now he was attempting to convince the Governor of Louisiana that she needed to take immediate action. His pleas fell on deaf ears. It seemed that the Governor was more concerned with the legalities of accepting federal assistance, and the appearance that her office could not handle the emergency.
Read the rest of this incredible disaster – the timeline & the pathetic events the Looney Left Politicos & MSM are hiding:
http://www.northsidejournal.com/special2.htm
Kathy S. tries to make a whole with half truths. Here’s what actually happened in Little Rock, Arkansas back in 1957:
Following the 1954 Supreme Court decision that essentially outlawed public school segregation, many southern states refused to abide by its edict. On 9/3/59, the governor of Arkansas, Orville Faubus (a Democrat and son of a Socialist Party activist)ordered the state’s National Guard units to prevent black students from entering “white” schools. At this point, the mayor of Little Rock, Woodrow Mann (also a white Democrat) appealed to President Eisenhower (who was NOT unpopular)to send in federal troops to restore order, since the problem was related to prior federal action. After giving Faubus eighteen days to reconsider his action, Eisenhower reluctantly sent in a portion of the 101st Airborne Division to quell (bloodlessly) an act of insurrection in Arkansas and enforce federal law. Black children went to school and the south moved on with its evolvement. Most of the south has appropriately changed over time, though much is left to overcome. Louisiana has resisted change, with the Democrat Party only enlisting servile blacks into its corruption. White liberals everywhere do the same thing.
The real ‘liberal nightmare’ is yet to begin. Bush is preparing to coat the Gulf Coast in federal money, money that the budget can ill afford.
I like this president on foreign policy. He’s made ballsy decisions that are starting to pull the Middle East out of its medieval torpor. But on spending and trade he’s bloody awful.
IF the Dems run a fiscally responsible candidate with a no-nonsense approach to terrorism, the Republicans are going to be toast.
Kate continues to reinforce her #1 place on my “go to” list of websites. As per usual, thank you Kate for the outstanding job you do to bring information from various sources together.
Todd sez: “Special to WL – ‘blame game’ is slang for accountability. If you want to talk about accountabiliy, then do it, but don’t reduce yourself to the status of parrot by mindlessly using spin terms – you just embarrass everyone for you. ”
Obviously you have a dyslexia issue in reading words at their proper meaning or understanding relegated responsibility. The “blame game” is the hysterical, irresponsible reaction of a left biased media and moonbat fringe who seek “accountability” yet refuse to see the proper allocation and execution of “responsibility”. The fact remains those responsible for local evacuation and order either failed, or abandoned their relegated responsibilities. The “accountability” the MSM and moonbat fringe demand is simply politically narrow finger pointing…a partisan unidirectional blame fixing gambit focused at one political target which had constitutionally limited responsibility in the overal chain of executive command in a local emergency/disaster.
But the fact you question this reveals you don’t understand how constititionally relegated jurisdictional responsibility works in the first place so it’s pointless educating some one who is obviously incapable of objectivity.
Speaking of the Moonbat “accountabilty” fixing game, I see Cindy Shehan (the Bush ranch dithc witch) has now made a public plea asking Bush to pull the troops out of NOLA and end the imperialist “occupation” of both NOLA and Iraq 😉
Bat Guano anyone? 😉
Jeff I wasn’t trying to “make anything” out of anything, and I was referring to Bush being unpopular, not Ike (although he too was widely considered lazy and a bit dim).
As for Gov. Wallace, he was only shifted from the schoolhouse door by a combination of federal marshalls and the Alabama National Guard — whom I presume he didn’t call out on himself.
If you want see how truly deluded Canadians are, see this Globe story by “Deep Throat” Jane Taber: “Response to Katrina dims Canadians’ view of U.S.”, Sept. 16
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050916/POLLSIDE16/TPNational
Excerpt:
‘The poll also finds that a majority of Canadians, or 54 per cent, believe the Paul Martin government’s response to a disaster similar to the one on the U.S. Gulf Coast would have been better than that of the Bush administration to hurricane Katrina.’
Just read this excerpt from “A modest return of favours”, Winnipeg Free Press, Sun Sep 11 2005
LT. GENERAL RAY CRABBE
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/3027440p-3510209c.html
‘During the Ice Storms that struck Southeastern Ontario and Quebec in January 1998, it was critical to deploy all three of the Canadian Army’s brigades immediately.
The brigade in Valcartier, Que., and Petawawa, Ont., were deployed very quickly because of their proximity to the disaster area. The 4,000-man brigade in Edmonton, however, required strategic airlift to get it into the operational area in time to be effective.
The Canadian Forces did not possess such resources and a call for help went out to our friends in the Pentagon. As Canada’s Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, I discussed with Gen. Henry H. Shelton, the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the possibility of obtaining some strategic airlift to move the brigade to Montreal. Gen. Shelton stated that he would do anything and everything possible “to help our Canadian friends,” even though the U.S. strategic airlift was heavily committed at the time.
Within hours, two U.S. Air Force Starlifter aircraft were deployed to Edmonton to move the brigade to Montreal. En route, they diverted to Atlanta, Ga., to pick up and transport thousands of cots, blankets and other survival equipment donated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and delivered to the stricken area.
Without this help, the Canadian Forces would have been very hard pressed to respond effectively to the serious crisis facing thousands of Canadians. When I called the Pentagon after the deployment to express our thanks and inquire about the costs, the reply was that “it was the least we could do for our best friends.” No invoice was ever sent to the Canadian government.’
Consider that our military is weaker than in 1998, especially the Air Force’s airlift capability.
And, just as FEMA was subsumed as just one organization in the massive US Department of Homeland Security, so our Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emegency Preparedness (formely Emergency Preparedness Canada) has been subsumed in our new department Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.
Mark
Ottawa
Thanks WL and Jeff in Pullman for your excellent posts. I know it is very frustrating trying to explain what States rights are to a Canadian since many show their profound ignorance in their arguments (and of course our provincial rights are neither non existent or are freely trampled upon in our confederation as compared to the US). As Kathy states, “Alabama National Guard — whom I presume he didn’t call out on himself.” merely illustrates my point. Yes, he did, National Guard is a misnomer, and to be more succinct it’s the State National Guard.
I predicted in a previous post (in the Blame Game section) that within 2 weeks the truth will come out and the President will appear heroic in his efforts to save the people of New Orleans. I will have to advance that a little. The nation is starting to become aware about what really transpired in New Orleans. They have already begun questioning why a State of Emergency was declared and then nothing prepared for the safety of the remaining residence of NO (I thought it was the Friday after the hurricane, but it was 2 days before! OMG!). Simple steps to ensure stocking of Muster points with food and water and driving city buses 25 miles to high ground were purposefully avoided in an abjectly cruel attempt to forcibly evacuate NO citizens. It also shows how completely detached Democrat state and city leadership are from the average American’s notion of independence and self reliance, and lastly, their unwaverable sense of freedom.
When it will be revealed that Blanco delayed federal aid to NO during the first 4 days after the hurricane, was actually trying to negotiate a monetary deal with the Feds with regards to who will pay for and how much in the reconstructing of New Orleans, then the proverbial poop will hit the fan. I doubt she will be able to walk any where in Louisiana unescorted ever again.
And Kate, never mind what CKOM says. Canadian viewpoints are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. And Kate, never mind what CKOM says. Canadian viewpoints are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Most aren�t even aware that the Civil War (War between the States more correctly) was about Sates Rights to secede from the union (a constitutionally guaranteed right) and not about ending slavery.
friday, september 16, 2005
Mama Moonbat: “Occupied New Orleans” >>>> LGF
UPDATE at 9/16/05 11:59:53 am:
The Drudge Report linked to our post about Sheehan�s latest remark, and LGF almost instantly became inaccessible. Drudge wields a mighty internet firehose of traffic.
He changed the link to point to Michael Moore�s site, and now that�s going under too>>>> ????
Any updates??
Oh poop that last paragraph should have read:
And Kate, never mind what CKOM says. Yelling at the radio gave you grounds for starting this excellent blog anyway. Canadian viewpoints are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Most aren�t even aware that the Civil War (War between the States more correctly) was about Sates Rights to secede from the union (a constitutionally guaranteed right) and not about ending slavery.
Excellent post Mark.
Schwarze Tulpe: Thank you for the compliment. About the Civil War, I do not believe the US Constitution (like the Canadian) makes any specific mention of secession and thus it was not a right. The only way to secede legally–as in Canada–would be by amendment of the constitution.
Please see if you can find such a right of secession in the text:
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
Mark
Ottawa
Hi Mark, pleasure exchanging points with you.
Take a quick peak at this link: http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/secessioncrisis/890304.html
Essentially, with the northern victory of the “War Between the States”, the argument of States rights to secede became moot.
The southern states have a particular view of the Civil War that differs from the northern victors, even today.
Hey Kathy S. I believe I was very clear in describing the situation in 1957 as taking place in Arkansas, not Alabama. They are two very separate states. The furor with George Wallace, in Alabama, took place a bit later during the Kennedy administration. Your continued mistakes do not lend credence to your opinions.
For good measure, Dwight Eisenhower could never have accomplished much as Supreme Commander in Europe during WWII if he was indeed “lazy and a bit dim”. The Nazis were as snotty about his bona fides as you are now. They were wrong.
Actually, it was taken for granted by all parties in the US at the time that the states had the right to secede. The war did not break out because South Carolina seceded, but because it refused to acknowledge the right of the U.S. government to the property it owned in the state, and seized it by force.
And, in the case of La., with President Bush’s observance of State’s rights to self administer, this will hold him in good steed in his legacy.
Southern states are very sensetive about Federal involvement in their respective affairs. Blanco made decisions at the expense of her citizens’ well being. Either it was ignorance of state/federal constitutional process (damn scary thought) or just ugly political partisanship.
Guess we’ll have to let Michael Moore direct for the other half of the populace how to decide. LOL
Yo ebt! Please don’t devolve into a discussion of the US Civil War. It’s inevitability and beginnings are both simple and complicated to describe; one simple paragraph just won’t do. The Civil War forged us, with fire and blood, into a nation, not just a collection of loosely allied states. Today, as a great nation, we still deal with its repercussions, due to the monumental nature of the conflict and its wounds. The affairs in Arkansas of the 50’s and Alabama of the 60’s are proof of that notion. Indeed, Loisiana, the last state to rejoin the union and one that had even seceded from the Confederacy, is still fraught with the remnants of Jim Crow, though they’ve managed to disguise it until now.
The right to secede? From maman Canada? Dam- that constitution! (Trudeau did “it”.) Spot Rousseau in this screed.>>>>
http://www.souverainete.info/conseil.htm
1) Notre nation n’atteindra son plein essor que si elle acquiert une v�ritable libert� politique.
Toute nation libre se gouverne elle-m�me, selon la Loi fondamentale que se sont donn�e ses citoyens et ses citoyennes et non sous la tutelle d’une constitution impos�e. C’est l� la condition n�cessaire au d�veloppement et � l’�panouissement de toute nation : choisir sa propre constitution et �tablir librement et d�mocratiquement, sur cette base, les lois qui baliseront et assureront son d�veloppement. Cette situation de normalit�, quoiqu’en disent les tenants de l’option canadienne, n’est pas celle du Qu�bec d’aujourd’hui au sein du Canada.
R�sultante d’une �volution g�opolitique bien particuli�re et dont le Qu�bec n’a jamais pu ma�triser le cours, le statut de province a fait du peuple qu�b�cois un groupe minoritaire sur le plan politique. Avant1840, le Qu�bec constituait une des deux entit�s du Canada. Il devient, en 1867, l’une de ses quatre provinces, puis, graduellement, au cours des d�cennies suivantes, l’une de ses dix provinces. Par la seule loi du nombre, le Qu�bec, unique nation francophone en Am�rique, va �tre soumis, pendant plus de cent trente ans et � de multiples occasions, � des forces d’unification et d’uniformisation venant de la capitale f�d�rale. Ces forces ont pour objectif et pour effet de transformer graduellement le statut d’�tat national du Qu�bec en celui d’une administration r�gionale.
En plus de cette r�ductrice condition de partenaire minoritaire au sein du r�gime constitutionnel canadien, le Qu�bec est condamn� � voir diminuer sa capacit� d’influencer les d�cisions importantes qui le concernent, et cela en raison de l’in�luctable affaiblissement de son poids d�mographique. Ce facteur rev�t une importance capitale � l’aube du 21e si�cle (de 50% qu’elle �tait en 1850 et de 35% en 1867, sa d�putation au sein du Parlement central approchera les 20% en 2020). Tout cela dans un contexte o� l’identit� canadienne et l’identit� qu�b�coise d�veloppent de plus en plus des visions divergentes sur des aspects fondamentaux de la vie nationale. Ce climat de divergence, pour ne pas dire d’affrontement, est n�faste et pr�judiciable aux deux communaut�s nationales du Canada actuel.>>> more
Well said, Jeff in Pullman. Amen.
This happens on the ‘Net?>>> (Will someone tell us about Thurmond’s run in ’48? Was Dewey/Truman in it? MSM declared for Dewey? Could check ‘Net for this, but… would like to hear from above/below the M-D line? What was Lott actually saying?)>>>
The Net knows more than you…………………….via Instapundit.com
“We sometimes forget that the sad events at CBS News a year ago began with an act of transparency. After broadcasting its report (called �For the Record�) Sixty Minutes put the Killian Memos on the Net. That�s how the whole thing started.
People of CBS News, the Net knows more than you. The chances are fairly high that a given producer at CBS would not know enough southern history to grasp what Senator Trent Lott was actually saying when he praised Strom Thurmond�s 1948 campaign for president. The chances of the blogosphere not knowing this background are zero.
�The sheer number of blogs, and the speed of response, make errors hard to sustain for very long,� writes Andrew Sullivan. �The collective mind is also a corrective mind.�>>> Correct?
maz2: “pr�judiciable aux deux communaut�s nationales du Canada actuel”–if only what was once English Canada were still a “national community” itself. It is not, thus the our predicament. We are not what we were but know not what we now are.
(Best Germanic-root single syllable sentence for a while.)
Mark
Ottawa
…and we definitely know what we are not
kelly: Subsitute “sure” for “definitely” to keep the single syllable words going.
Mark
Ottawa
"I Will Rebuild With You, Mr. President"
Democratic political consultant and Gore presidential campaign manager Donna Brazile, writing in the Washington Post:New Orleans is my hometown. It is the place where I grew up, where my family still lives. For me, it is a place of comfort and memor…
Calm down, eh, jeff, no one’s presuming to lecture you on your own war. I’m just correcting a point of historic fact that somebody else got wrong, not you. It wasn’t secession that triggered the war, it was the attack on Fort Sumter. Obviously the Civil War changed a lot of things, and I don’t imagine for a moment that anybody today thinks the American states have a right to secede. Perhaps not so obviously, the American Civil War didn’t happen in Canada, and it has nothing to do with the right of secession of Canadian provinces, which cannot seriously be denied.
Mark, excellent posts. Just one point, then I’ll shut up about the Civil War:
re: “I do not believe the US Constitution (like the Canadian) makes any specific mention of secession and thus it was not a right. The only way to secede legally–as in Canada–would be by amendment of the constitution.”
10th Amendment. This basically says that rights not deliniated in the Constitution are up to the States. This is the basis for the “States’ Rights” debate. The Federal attack on Fort Sumter when South Carolina succeeded was a violation of the 10th Amendment, a primary article of the Bill of Rights, which is why the rest of the South succeeded.
We now return you to our regular programming :).
ebt: Canadian provinces cannot secede without amending the constitution–which does not mention secession. There is not “right”, rather a process. Note the 1998 SCC decision and 2000 “Clarity Act”.
1) “The Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec do not have, either under Canadian law or international law, the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally.
However, the court also emphasized that the rest of Canada would have a political obligation to negotiate Quebec’s separation if a clear majority of that province’s population voted in favour of it.”
2) “WHEREAS the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that, in Canada, the secession of a province, to be lawful, would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada, that such an amendment would perforce require negotiations in relation to secession involving at least the governments of all of the provinces and the Government of Canada, and that those negotiations would be governed by the principles of federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and the protection of minorities;
http://www.canadianlawsite.com/clarity-act.htm
Mark
Ottawa
Ooops: “which is why the rest of the South succeeded. ”
succeeded? LOL! I meant seceded, of course :).
PIMF. Spell Check isn’t. 😀
Come now, the Canadian “constitution” is not law, and what is says has no effect on the right of the provinces to secede, which has long since been conceded by the Supreme Court. An amendment to the constitution is not necessary to achieve secession, it is necessary in consequence of secession.