Re: GWB farewll speech.
Nice back and forth, Felix and SW.
Regarding Katrina, here a few facts that often get overlooked.
More than 25 years before Katrina struck, scientific researchers were asked to list the most devastating natural disasters that could occur in the US. New Orleans being hit by a Category 5 hurricane was in the top 5 of that list. What did the government and state of LA do about that? Crossed their fingers and hoped it wouldn't ever really happen.
Meteorologists started warning that Katrina could strike New Orleans at least 5-6 days ahead of time. They then changed their warning to say that Katrina would definitely hit New Orleans at least 3 days before it came ashore. What did the Democratic mayor of New Orleans and the Democratic governor do in the face of this immediately impending disaster??? Nothing.
What should they have done? Commandeered every school and city bus within 100 miles to start evacuating people and calling for emergency supplies to stock emergency shelters along the way. The stockpiling of supplies should have begun as soon as there was a chance of Katrina coming close.
What did President Bush do about the impending disaster in LA? He took a pre-emptive stance and declared New Orleans a "disaster area" 2 days before Katrina actually hit. Why? because he knew LA would need federal aid and he was getting the process started as quickly as possible. What else did he do? Nothing. Why? Because the US Constitution forbids the federal government from stepping in to take over state business until it has been formally asked to do so by the state government. In this case, state government actually trumps federal government. President Bush got the process for federal aid started before Katrina actually made land, but that was all he could until the LA Governor specifically requested federal aid and intervention. And what did the state government (who should have had a vested interest in getting as much help as soon as possible) do? That's right, boys and girls - nothing.
Then, after the hurricane actually struck New Orleans (like the meteorologists said it would do) and the levees broke (like scientists had predicted they could do over 25 years before), what did the state government do? Put the blame on Bush as fast as possible. The only thing the mayor did right in that whole fiasco was turning the Superdome into an emergency shelter, except he neglected to provide any SUPPLIES for the masses that would be sheltered there, so it ended up being a horrible situation, but at least the people survived the hurricane.
When federal aid finally DID start moving towards LA, it was President Bush that dropped the ball, it was FEMA and their apparant inability to do anything right due to their thumbs being permanently implanted in their ass. Now, for the sake of fairness, one reason FEMA was such a screw-up is because Bush had put a long-time horse breeder buddy of his in charge of the department and the guy apparantly couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel. So, yeah, that one was on Bush. Then again, such buddy-appointments have been the norm for every Administration in recent history, so it wasn't like Bush was doing anything nobody else had done. This one just came back to bite him in the ass and he quickly fired his buddy and hired a guy with some actual experience for the job.
As for the two elections, that has been covered thoroughly, but what the hell? The only reason the vote was close in the first place is because the Dems had disallowed thousands of absentee ballots from military personnel, the majority of which were for Bush. Peter Jennings and ABC news declared Gore the winner before all the polls had actually closed in Florida (they apparantly forgot the panhandle is in the Central Time Zone and the polls were still open for another hour there. That area is also predominantly Republican. Jeb Bush did his best to (publicly) recuse himself from the count or recount. The head of the Republican Party in Florida tried to declare Bush the winner ahead of time, but was overruled by the court. They then looked at the recount themselves. Like it or not, the result was determined by a court of law, not by the President's brother. As for Ohio, much rhetoric was slung around about election officials being jailed afterwards, but a further investigation discovered the "officials" were not "heads of the Republican party" - in fact, the higher ranking of the two was a Democrat. The two workers admitted they were too lazy to do an accurate recount in the one district where they worked. Even if the votes had gone Biden's way, he still wouldn't have had enough votes to win Ohio.
I realize none of this will detract the dedicated Bush-bashers and will pooh-poohed as insignificant or misleading. That's fine. But if you ignore facts that conflict with your own opinions, then you can understand why others do the same when they don't agree with you.
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Cerek the Calmth
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