Subj : Re: Um...no comment?
To   : Angus McLeod
From : Frank Reid
Date : Sun Sep 04 2005 10:16:00

  Re: Re: Um...no comment?
  By: Angus McLeod to Frank Reid on Sat Sep 03 2005 22:29:00

 > And what I'm doing is blaming YOUR God up in Washington.

Actually, I put faith in no man, but I do have faith in mankind itself. 
Although Bush was the better choice in our past election, he's certainly not
the gifted speaker, charismatic leader or polished statesman I would desire in
the office.  However, despite his many (obvious) faults, he was a far better
choice than the alternatives.  As you may have gathered, I'm fairly "liberal"
on domestic and social issues, but staunchly conservative on economic matters
and foreign policy.  I can't remember anyone elected to the office who exactly
mirrored my personal views.  Clinton came close, but he occasionally let
liberal special interests unnaturally influence his position, and he ultimately
let his personal peccadillos cloud his judgment and negatively impact his
ability to lead.

As a foreigner, maybe you think the whims of a single man rigidly steer the
entire course of our country.  Fortunately, that's not how our government
operates.  More relevant to this discussion, it's definitely not the
relationship between our federal government and the states.  Maybe your
Barbados "monarch-like" Governor General can influence the actions of his
hand=picked prime minister and the parliament more than our president does.  I
don't know.  In the U.S., virtually every decision is the result of committee
and consensus-building, with the notable exception of Commander-in-Chief of our
military, where the president answers to no one.

FEMA, our "system" for response to a natural disaster, executed exactly as it
was designed.  Whether that design requires revamping will be a matter for much
debate in coming months, I'm sure.  However, consider the scope of this
catastrophe.  90,000 square miles of the U.S. -- greater than the entire size
of Great Britain -- was flattened.  The entire critical infrastructure was
decimated.  Things that were artificially above sea-level were razed, and
things below sea-level were filled with water to even them.  How quickly could
your island respond, had the entire island been washed out to sea?

It puzzles me why we're compelled to blame someone (anyone) for a natural
catastrophe like Katrina, but I guess that's human nature itself.  In my mind,
there are definitely individuals at the state and local levels whom I would
call to task for poor decision-making during the crisis.  Why, for example,
were there still ambulatory patients in every hospital in New Orleans with a
category 5 hurricane taking dead aim at the city?  For crying out loud, they've
been talking about "the big one" for decades, knowing their city was below
sea-level!  Yet the governor issued some lukewarm recommendation to evacuate in
advance of the storm because she felt the people of New Orleans were too
"civilized"?  And where the hell was the mayor of New Orleans while his police
force was deserting or, worse, joining the looters and thugs in the lawlessness
and chaos?  Obviously, these folks didn't read the Giuliani "book of
leadership" during crisis!

I know foreigners, like yourself, will blame the President for this despite the
magnitude of the natural catastrophe itself.  Again, it's human (and political)
nature.  Unfortunately for him, he's the man-in-charge, and the buck stops
there from your perspective.  Fortunately for him, I don't think his
credibility and leadership ratings can fall much further, unless they start
measuring in negative numbers!

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