Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

FWIW, I don't think anybody on this blog is exclusively blaming Bush. Personally, I think the MAJORITY of the blame belongs to the long, long history of corrupt mayors and city legislators who drove the city into the ground and left it as a haven for crime and completely lacking in resources. This article kinda highlights it -- the city was looking into the disaster scenario and concluded that they just didn't have the resources to pull it off.

Even the federal screw-ups aren't all the fault of the Bush administration. Bush wasn't any better, but you can't exclusively blame him for 40+ years of ignoring the levee problem. However, even Bush acknowledges that the federal response was unacceptable. Well, the buck stops at his desk. That's the deal for being President: you are responsible for making sure qualified people are in place and are getting the job done.

I'm not exclusively blaming Bush, but I blame him more than any other figure in the mess. For four years now, it's been beaten into our heads that 9/11 was The Day Everything Changed. Preparation was supposed to be our watchword. As "All of the sacrifices, all the tomfoolery, all the ridiculousness of the Bush Administration was based on the claim that Bush was a War President. His one job was to Make Us Safe in the case of attack and, after 9/11, we knew exactly what kinds of problems could occur after a municipal attack. "

my, that was awful.

those of you looking to point fingers exclusively at the Bush administration are missing out.

I'm curious, who did you have in mind when you posted this? I know that Corwyn and I have both had sharp words for the mayor and the governor.

There was one particular very well-researched comment by Bogg that I'd wanted to respond to (or at least follow through with reading all the links) and hadn't yet.

Let's be fair, then, because he said in that post, "I'd be happy to look at any reports of failings on the city, parish, or state level."

FWIW, I think less than half of the links I provided were specifically critical of Bush, with the others being critical of DHS and FEMA. It's shocking to me the number of bald-faced lies the directors of those departments have made in the news lately.

And I fully admit that things could have been better at the local level -- the school bus problem Corwyn pointed out for instance -- though those links have been harder to corroborate. (For instance, I'd first heard that there was no food or water at the Superdome, but later read an article in the Times-Picayune that they had 36 hours' worth of both.)

What's worse, though, is the amount of time the Feds (Bush, FEMA, DHS, et al) have spent covering their asses and blaming others, rather than just going and helping. The latest word is that communications are being jammed and the press isn't allowed back into the region. This doesn't sound like how the US gov't usually runs things, does it?