Now that Bush has accepted responsibility how would you grade the response and why?


Nagin = F

He waited too long. Pam showed he needed 72 hours to evacuate. I would give him an F for that alone. He did have transit busses running 24 hours a day since wensday offering free transportaion out of the city. The dome was the alamo, the shelter of last resort but it was not ready.

Blanco = F

She did ask for Bush to send everything and got that rejected because it wasn't specific. Bush should have cut the red tape but she did make a mess. The two ended up dancing the politics as usual dance at a time of crisis.

FEMA = C-

The people of FEMA did well in spite of the leadership. They still responded too little to late but again that was leadership, not FEMA. If this was a grad on Brown it would be forget the grade just hang the SOB.

Bush = D

He put wrong guy in charge of FEMA had no idea it would bite him so bad. Gets bonus points for taking three tours of the damage, and asking for the resignation of FEMA director. He should have cut the red tape faster when he saw how inept the response was instead of playing the spin game. Also, he was on vacation 3 days into the crisis. If this was a grade on the entire federal response it would be F. The entire lot was on vacation day one and Cheney took a week to even show up. Other countries ended up being 1st responders to Americans in need.

   

I can't see how anyone deserves better than a D-. Even then, that's being generous. Not a single leader showed much in the way of foresight or even actual leadership. If Guilani was running New Orleans or Louisana, a lot of this would likely not have happened. He maybe a dirty Republican , but he is one of the best leaders south of the border.

On the Daily Show they've shown several people who predicted what would happen, yet they were all ignored. It's pretty sad when a Canadian rescue team gets there to help you before your own military. I know I'd be pissed if a US team was the first one in to help Canadians after major disaster up here.

It's pretty obvious now that too much emphasis has been placed on terrorism and not enough on natural disasters. Although it's far too late for the victims in LA, MS, and AL, I'm sure that plenty of Congressional task forces/committees will examine the event ad nauseum, hopefully preventing a re-occurence (but with giant bureaucracies you never know). Let's hope the government (local/state/federal) learns something from all of this...

   

Daily Show, HA, there's your problem, the wanabe scott.

Well damn everybody better get out of Cali cause they have been predicting the big one there for years.

   

It's one thing to predict that 'the big one' is coming next year or next decade or whatever, but when people tell you it's going to happen tomorrow or the next day and you sit on your ass, then IMO you're guilty of not giving a damn.

   

Exactly that’s why it’s not Bush’s fault. After the fact maybe some of the blame goes to him but if they all got the fuck out (like they were told) all it would be is damage to homes and buildings.

   

You know hwanker, the Daily Show gets the majority of its news clips from the MSM news channels.

   

Yeah and ? you like to prove my points now do you.

   

I guess I should bring back the SSM thread to refresh your 3 cells. Search for it and after you’re done the 300 pages come back and tell me I’m a ass bandit.

   

You make it sound like people can just pick up their lives and leave in the span of a week. Considering 35% of the N.O population is poor, they're was no way they could getout. The Superdome was their last line of defense - and it wasn't ready. FEMA was supposed to be there to save them - they weren't. Their president was supposed to be there with them in their time of need - instead, he was doing somthing out of a Monty Python sketch.

And btw, most of the things John Stewart makes fun of are taken directly from the horses mouth - they aren't editing speeches to make Bush look like an idiot, they aren't doing anything but reporting things that are funny as hell.

   

Well, hindsight is always 20/20. The problem is foresight. whenever something big happens there is always at least 1 person who knew that it was gonna happen but nobody listened to him. Should the US, and the rest of the world focus more on disaster relief? Probably. But there is only a fixed amount of resources that one can spend on the milatary. The US has a lot of manpower and resources, granted, but 10 years ago it was prepared to fight the USSR, in the last few years it has been reorganizing to fight terrorism, and now we want them to be #1 in disaster relief. They can't do it all.

However, they should have responded faster to the hurricane, have troops prepositioned in the area and ready to go once the rain stops. But i am sure there are logistical reasons behind not doing that, or if they had why it wouldn't work. yes the leadership should have responded faster, but what should the responce have been? things need to be planned out to be the most effective, that takes time. and yes the people should have gotten the hell out of there once they got the warning, but where to go? It is hard to tell where the strom will hit first of all and harder still to predict where it will go once it hits land.

So in the end, i think that although it seems that a lot more could have been done, in reality it may not have been possible to do much more, at the time.

   

Grade the response and if you feel like it say why they deserve that grade. I am curious if anyone here gives any level of the government a grade higher than C level, which is the same level New Orleans is, ironic?

If you want to discuss the disaster we have plenty of threads already, thank you.

Non-partisan Congressional report clears Blanco against charges that she did not call a state of emergency in time.

I take back that F...

   

I agree with this assessment, but would raise it to a D because the Mayor was abandoned by *all* of the bus drivers he needed for the evacuation and by 1/3 of his police department and about 1/5 of his fire department employees. Just being fair, the guy can't be expected to do it all himself. Also, it should be noted that a citywide evacuation plan had been developed and it was scheduled to be released to the public this past week - a shade too late, of course, but still, they should get credit for trying.



Too generous. Blanco played party politics - which in Louisiana is far more serious than you can imagine - party loyalty is irrational in that state. She held off requesting Presidential assistance until it was too late and the media is now blaming Bush for not breaking the Federal law that requires he cannot go into a state until invited by the governor. The vast majority of the public cannot think in anything more substantial than a sound bite so asking them to understand that a President is expected to obey all of the laws of the land is asking too much.



Probably a fair grade. Maybe a little higher like a C+/B-. The hurricane devastated a land area larger than Iraq and FEMA was tasked with first replacing resources it lost in the hurricane and then moving the replacement resources into the area over wiped out bridges and roads.




If Bush is to be blamed for Brown then so should the Senate that confirmed Brown. The Democrats are wise to stop harping on this issue as it will cost a few of them in the midterm elections next year. Also, Bush's mea culpa from last night will squelch any further calls for his team to resign. Belated it is, but he is starting to act like a leader, sort of.

He's no Ronald Reagan, though.

I guess I'd let the "D" stick.

   

Rep. Conyers has cleared her of ANY wrongdoing