Subj : Re: Yet another poll To : alt.tv.farscape From : Ken McElhaney Date : Tue Sep 13 2005 15:16:37 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape TNW7Z7Z7Z12345 wrote: > Ken McElhaney wrote: > > TNW7Z7Z7Z12345 wrote: > > > Ken McElhaney wrote: > > [much snipped all the way through] > > > > > The governor declared a state of emergency a day before Bush did (before > > > the hurricane hit) and asked Bush for help directly. > > > > Funny that you leave out that Bush made his declaration BEFORE the > > hurricane hit, which was a rather unusual move in historic terms for > > presidents to make. > > I believe Clinton did with Hurricane Floyd. And possibly some others. I'd probably like to see some research on that. > > > Both the gov & Bush begged the Mayor of New Orleans to call for a > > manditory evacuation of the city on Saturday, yet he waited until > > Sunday morning because "he didn't know if he had the authority.". A > > pretty sorry excuse for someone who should know what authority he has, > > but let's say he didn't know, why would it take 12 to 18 hours for him > > to figure it out? > > Actually, I believe that's false information from an AP article that was > then widely spread via the right wing press (Brit Hume et al, > columnists, etc.) and especially blogs. Nope, that info comes from a radio interview done with 'da Mayor. It is true that Hume and like have repeated it, but the source was NOT the right-wing press. > Governor Blanco declared a State of Emergency on Friday and on Saturday > asked Bush to do the same, which he did. All true. > Neither Bush nor Blanco asked > for a mandatory evacuation at that time. (Someone did suggest it - Max > Mayfield, the director of the National Hurricane Center in Florida, who > I believe called Nagin. And who, BTW, also repeatedly told Chertoff and Brown > that Katrina was likely to cause massive flooding.) Nagin is the important one here since HE is the one responsable for issuing the manditory evacuation. > Here is the timeline for announcing the evacuation: > > On Sunday at 9:00 AM, Bush called Blanco to request the mandatory > evacuation, just minutes before she and Nagin were going on the air with > already prepared statements requesting the mandatory evacuation. > > Here is the White House transcipt verifying exactly when Bush requested > the mandatory evacuation: > > http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050907-2.html > > "MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely, Terry. He got on the phone with Governor > Blanco at 9:00 a.m. -- I think it was around 9:00 a.m. on Sunday > morning. And if you'll recall -- in fact, let me pull back up some of > what the President said at the time, because maybe you weren't there > covering him at the time, but some of your colleagues were. And the > President specifically addressed this issue when he said that -- let me > have one second here and I'll get it for you -- Sunday morning, in his > news conference, "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane > poses to the Gulf Coast communities. I urge all citizens to put their > own safety and the safety of their families first, by moving to safe > ground. Please listen carefully to instructions provided by state and > local officials." At 9:00 a.m. that morning, he was on the phone with > Governor Blanco. Governor Blanco even talked about it at her briefing > later that day, I think it was early afternoon, and said, the President > urged me to take steps to evacuate the people in New Orleans." > > Here is the exact transript of Blanco & Nagin's > statements from the press conference, which many reports say was at 9:30 > AM, 30 min. after the president's call (although I saw one report that > said 11:00 AM, but the transcript itself seems to have been posted at > 10:00). Scroll down to find Nagin's very detailed statement and then Blanco's. > > http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/28/bn.04.html If Nagin was not contacted by Bush until the next morning, then I stand corrected and pull that particular charge from Nagin. However, his radio address on Sunday advised those seeking shelter in the Superdome and Convention Center to bring enough food for "three or four days", which indicates that he understood that it might take that long for relief to arrive. > > Bush did act, more money was allocated during the first five years of > > the Bush administration than the last five years of Clinton's. But it > > still didn't make any difference, nor would it have had all the bills > > been passed. > > I won't argue whether the money would've made a difference, as I don't > know. But the bit about more money allocated during Bush's first 5 yrs. > than Clinton's last may be another widely touted "fact" that turns out > to be false. It was first reported in a Wash. Post article and everyone has > repeated it. And? Are you saying the story in the Post is false? Given the fact that they're a well-established news source and not some right or left wing propaganda machine (like Salon), I'm willing to take the story at face value unless further investigations prove it wrong. > A number of sources mention Clinton (from 1996 on - for the Lake Pontchartrain > and Vicinity Hurricane protection) *proposing* from $12.5 million to $17 > million. But the money actually allotted by Congress was slightly higher > - up to $23 million in 1998 and then back down to $16 million by 2000. > In contrast Bush's proposals for that project were all a third to one > half of the Clinton proposals. Again, Congress raised them, but only slightly. > > There were other projects, and different articles call these things > different names, so I'm not 100% certain I'm comparing the correct > expenditures. But it appears that under Clinton the drainage project > got $75 million in 1999. Under Bush in 2002, $57 to $62 million. > Another report said that the total spent in the last 5 yrs. declined 44 > percent, but of course that means little without more info. > > Again, I'm not arguing whether any of this would've made a > difference, just that there's a lot of confusing and false information > that the media/blogs seem to be repeating without doing any independent > research. It may very well be that Bush spent more than Clinton, but at > the moment it's hard to tell. Bottom line, it wouldn't have mattered in preventing the flood since none of the money was allocated to the retaining walls which failed, since they were considered completed projects. All that's important is the knowledge that under the first five years of the Bush administration, he allocated as much if not a bit more than the last five years of Clinton. Which destroys this canard that Bush cut funds to that region dramatically as has been implied. Having said that, I'm certainly willing to admit that Clinton had an advantage over Bush in the response since FEMA was an independant agency whose director could go straight to the President. Hilary Clinton is probably on to something by proposing that FEMA be restored to independant status. Again, I'm not limiting my blame to the state and local authorities as everyone should share in the blame. And since Brown, Chertoff, & Bush have been getting railed everyday in the press for the last two weeks, it's time to turn the attention to state and local officials who also screwed up. Ken .