Tag: Hurricane Katrina

Americans awakening: President Bush received a 41 percent approval rating in the new New York Times/CBS poll, which is in line with other polls in recent days.

As we have said ad infinitum, this number is ridiculously high considering the incompetence of this president and his team – at every endeavor except for partisan political warfare.

However, the poll shows that for the first time, just half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush’s handling of terrorism, which has been his most consistent strength since he scored 90 percent approval ratings in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to today’s Miami Herald, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show that it was Michael Chertoff, not Michael “Brownie” Brown, who did not mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Administration soon enough. Apparently, it was well within Chertoff’s purview to mobilize the federal relief effort as early as Aug. 27 — well before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Brown couldn’t have done it without Chertoff’s direct order, which only came 36 hours after the hurricane hit.

While critics assailed Brown’s failure, it was actually Chertoff who didn’t move to avert disaster:

But Chertoff — not Brown — was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

A memo Chertoff issued Aug. 30 to the secretaries of defense, health and human services, and other key federal agencies demonstrated that he might have been confused about his own role and the role of his department:

“As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.’ He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina.”

[…]

FEMA’s “average” grade: A report issued by the Office of Management and Budget as part of the federal budgetary process detected shortcomings in the Federal Emergency Management Administration that became all too apparent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The assessment was published as part of the Bush administration’s fiscal 2006 budget request, and the OMB rated FEMA’s disaster response program “adequate” — effectively giving it a “C” grade. “Adequate” is the middle of five ratings agencies can be given on OMB’s annual evaluations that are used to make budget decisions.

Of 607 programs rated in the fiscal 2006 budget request, 15 percent ranked as “effective,” 26 percent earned marks of “moderately effective,” 26 percent ranked as “adequate,” 4 percent were rated “ineffective” and 29 percent could not demonstrate results.

[…]

Bullets Dodged: On NPR’s “All Things Considered” last night, George Bush was allowed to babble to reporters who had the presence of mind to tape record the blatherings of an idiot. He was in New Orleans on his third visit since Katrina hit town.

In response to a question about the government’s response:

I know there’s been a lot of second-guessing. I can assure you, what I’m interested in is solving problems. And there will be time to step back and take a sober look at what went right and what didn’t go right …. It’s important for people in this country to understand we all want to learn lessons.

Regarding his idiotic statement that no one told him the levees were in danger of breaching:

What I was referring to was this: Uh, when that storm came by, a lot people said we had dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew! There was a sense of relaxation. And that’s what I was referring to. And I myself thought we dodged a bullet. You know why? I was listening to people — probably over the airwaves — who said the bullet had been dodged. And that is what I was referring to. Of course there was a plan in case the levees broke ….

On whether he was even aware of the storm:

I knew a big storm was coming on Monday, so I spoke to the country on Monday morning, and I said there’s a big storm coming. I pre-signed emergency declarations in anticipation of a big storm coming. Which is, by the way, extraordinary. In most emergencies, the president signs after the storm has hit. It’s a rare occasion for the president to anticipate the severity of the storm and sign documentation prior to the storm hitting. So we anticipated a serious storm coming. So what the man’s question implied, there was a moment where everybody said we dodged a bullet, but the bullet had not been dodged.

The White House later clarified that the Moron-In-Chief had addressed the nation on Sunday morning, not Monday. It is unclear where the president will be dodging bullets today.

According to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted among 1,523 Americans Sept. 8-11, more Americans are focusing criticism on state and local leaders for pre- and post-Katrina failures. To me, that’s a measure of the effectiveness of the administration’s efforts to redirect criticism from the president and his lackeys onto the DEMOCRATIC governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans while praising the REPUBLICAN governors of Mississippi and Alabama.

Currently, just 34% of respondents give in Mississippi and Louisiana state and local governments an excellent or good rating on how they handled the disaster, down from 41% last week. Public opinion of the federal government’s disaster response are unchanged from last week —­ 37% positive, 61% negative.

Republicans and Democrats view the performance of state and local governments similarly (34% positive for Republicans, 37% for Democrats), unlike opinions of the federal government’s response, which are divided along party lines. Whites and blacks share views about the state and local response, but blacks are much more negative than whites about how the federal government has dealt with the Katrina’s impact.

Until recently, the only area where President Bush’s team exhitbited anything like competence was in message control. In the two weeks since Katrina washed ashore, they have made misstep after misstep. Here are a few quotes from the president in which he unwittingly revealed that he is clueless, out of touch and completely unmotivated to become engaged:

After flying over the disaster in Air Force One:

To Republican newsreader Diane Sawyer on ABC – who did not follow up on this obviously incorrect assertion:

Today, two weeks later, when asked to explain why he said no one anticipated the levees breaking, President Bush – who has all the information resources of the U.S. government at his fingertips – blames the media for misinforming him:

Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation at a critical moment.

Visiting Mississippi, with Sen. Trent Lott – who lost his second home in the storm and who loathes Mr. Bush – standing beside him:

To his inept, patronage-appointed FEMA Director Michael Brown:

To House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after she suggested he fire FEMA director Brown because of his bungling in New Orleans:

“Whoever was in charge of planning was so detached from the realities of inner city life in New Orleans … that they couldn’t conceive of the notion that they couldn’t load up their SUV’s, put $100 worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water and drive off to a hotel and check in with a credit card.”

— Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL)