They Speak For Themselves
No additional words from me are needed on these pieces.
THE DEPARTMENT OF PRIORITIES
It took less than a day for members of the GOP-controlled Congress to cut short their vacations and rush back to the capitol to “rescue” Terri Schiavo from those who wanted her to be allowed to die in peace. It took about four times longer to get them back into town to deal with the worst natural disaster in American history. Perhaps their attention was focused on more important things. On Thursday, as the death toll escalated, Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, unveiled a campaign urging citizens to unite against…the death tax. “Today our economic outlook is bright,” he wrote in an e-mail to GOP supporters, three days after the disaster, urging citizens to call GOP holdout Sen. George Voinovich to lobby in favor of axing the tax. Nice to know they have their priorities straight. Calls to Mehlman’s office were not returned. (Adam Morgan)
ABC News Special ReportDiane Sawyer in a rare interview with President George W. Bush
SAWYER: And in fact, Mr. President, this morning, as we speak, as you say, there are people with signs saying, “Help, come get me.”
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Right.
SAWYER: People still in the attic, waving. Nurses are phoning in saying the situation in hospitals is getting ever more dire.
BUSH: Yeah.
SAWYER: That the nurses are getting sick now because of no clean water. And some of the things they have asked our correspondents to ask you is, they expected, they say to us, that the day after this hurricane that there would be a massive and visible armada of federal support. There would be boats coming in, there would be food, there would be water, and it would be there within hours.
BUSH: Yeah.
SAWYER: They wondered, What’s taking so long? But given the fact that everyone anticipated a hurricane five, a possible hurricane five hitting shore, are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving and which it was planned to arrive?
BUSH: Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I…I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can—I just can’t imagine what it’s like to be waving a sign that said, “Come and get me now.” So, there is…there…there is frustration, but I want people to know there’s a lot of help coming.
SAWYER: National security, another problem, and security in the region. We’ve seen the looting before. National Guard troops, as we have said, are now up to 22,000, I think, by tomorrow, coming in. But people have worried that the National Guard is stretched too thin. So many overseas.
BUSH: Yeah.
SAWYER: And the governors themselves, bipartisan numbers of governors, have worried out loud that with so many National Guard deployed in so many places, they don’t have the full quadrant it may take.
BUSH: I…I…I…
SAWYER: Some people, Democratic critics…have begun to say that they were surprised that you didn’t come back to the White House on Tuesday and start to organize this—
BUSH: Yeah.
SAWYER: —this cabinet meeting that you did yesterday. Was—
BUSH: —You mean the one I organized on Wednesday? Well, I…I…I…I started organizing Tuesday when we realized the extent of the storm and I said, “Look, when I get back to Washington on Wednesday afternoon I want to have a report on my…on my desk and a cabinet meeting for you to tell me exactly what your departments are going to do to help alleviate the situation.”
SAWYER: I…
BUSH: By the way, I…I don’t…I…I hope people don’t, you know, point political, you know, play politics during this period of time.
SAWYER: I’m struck by the fact that the picture that we saw of you sitting and looking outside the plane at this disaster and the picture of 9/11 were so similar…
BUSH: Yeah.
Let's not be political......Yeah
posted by Ron at 9:26 PM
10 Comments:
It will do NO good to donate to the Red Cross
No thanks to Homeland Insecurity.
Read it and get mad as hell. We need all the anger we can get right now.
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Air America Radio's Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina.
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Also, if you’re looking for a way to help personally, MoveOn.org Civic Action, formerly known as MoveOn.org, launched a new web site yesterday, http://hurricanehousing.org/ asking its 3.3 million members and the public to post any available housing for the thousands of people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. The organization will directly connect evacuees with volunteer hosts, and also provide the housing information to the Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
AMERICAN RED CROSS ANNOUNCES FAMILY LINKING AVAILABLE VIA WWW.REDCROSS.ORG OR BY CALLING 1-877-LOVED-1S
National Headquarters
2025 E Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
www.redcross.org
WASHINGTON, Friday, September 02, 2005 — The American Red Cross, with support of the worldwide Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, is launching a Web site and hotline to help assist family members who are seeking news about loved ones living in the path of Hurricane Katrina. You can visit the “Family Links Registry” via www.redcross.org or call 1-877-LOVED-1S to register.
Evacuees wishing to inform loved ones of their location can register their name by clicking on “Family Links Registry” on www.redcross.org. Concerned loved ones can register the names of their loved ones and view the list of those already posted. Due to the extent of the damage and the number of people displaced, concerned friends and family members are encouraged to visit the site daily to consult the list, as it will be updated continuously. 1 877-LOVED-1S is a toll-free hotline established for those who do not have internet access.
Wow, it's amazing how the completely taxed, overutilized, and under-funded National Guard was able to expend 40,000 troops in the largest military mobilization for a natural disaster ever. Guess that whole Iraqi war making us ineffective thing doesn't quite make sense.
In the mean time none of us should go to work or worry about any other important matters that need handling until such time as the people in New Orleans deem appropriate. Since the deadline for the passage of our laws has not been delayed or changed we shouldn't expect that they be properly debated, until such point that the people in New Orleans allow. Instead we should ask for the aid of the federal government, expect it to do its job, yet be upset when other people do theirs.
Why does congress need to meet in the face of this natural disaster? The response is already in place through several national agencies meant to deal with kind of thing. We have weathered hurricanes of this magnitude in the past. So why again does congress need to quickly run to the capitol when a response system is already in place?
We should of course expect that when a city is 80% underwater that all of the relief efforts contained within that city should be ready to go the day after the disaster. No one seems to realize that the relief efforts for the hurricane were in the city being affected! Perhaps if it weren't under water that response could have been quicker. People don't have food and water because the grocery store is under water!
Then when all logic fails us we should resort to baseless race baiting as an effective means to meet our ends. We can put Rudy Guliani right next to the mayor of New Orleans and see the quality of fine Americans in the face of disaster. One professionally handles the situation and deploys the efforts of his city with deft care, the other goes into a cursing tirade and blames racism and George W. Bush. What a fine example of sensibility.
Joe you are full of shit...nuff said'
Sorry guy for being so kurt but I no longer have time for you or yours apologist bullshit. You guys are causing America to crumble and I have no desire to even try to relate to you anymore. If you can't see it get some therapy.
Like you have anything to apologize for.
You don't, promise. He deserved that one.
And here we were all hoping he was there in the south, doing something constructive.
Yeah, right. *rolls eyes*
Actually, I think Joe made some good points. HOWEVER, surely we could have airdropped water to the convention center a lot sooner than we did. Come on!!
Media people seemed to be able to get to New Orleans. We could have gotten more people there sooner, too.
And our leader should have been in Washington like Clinton would have been, getting the latest info and trying to get things done instead of strumming a guitar and then playing golf.
Mary Landrieu said the caterpillar, or whatever it was that was a backdrop to Bush's visit, showing it working on moving dirt around working on the levees was just a photo op for Bush. It wasn't there today, only yesterday when he was there.
Typical. And he is more worried about the criticism he is getting for his ineptitude and insensitivity than for the ineptitude itself.
Lonna
well lonna, the nations business and our individual business must go on in the meantime. That is just hyperbole. Other than that I can find nothing in what he said that I don't just shake my head at. Apoligist Bullshit, thats it.
Get a grip. It's not even apologist. It's just bullshit.
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