From a Newsweek article about federal response to Katrina:
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."
Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.
The movie "The Siege", about martial law in Brooklyn after a string of Al Qaeda type bombings, was on History Channel last night. It went straight to the denial of citizen rights, a scene of the torture and murder by the military of a suspected terrorist (who turned out to be innocent), and such like that. Holy cow, someone at History Channel's got some balls.
Yeah. I'm stoked they're not just the Hitler Channel anymore...I've actually watched a couple times this week.
Yeah. I'm stoked they're not just the Hitler Channel anymore...I've actually watched a couple times this week.
Yes. Hopefully this will last a while before it turns to the Jesus channel around the Holidays
I'd been wondering if that movie would ever see the light of day again.
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."
Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president.
Blanco didn't know the secret word(s): "There's an election soon and the Republican candidates could use some support."
Today always makes me think of you, you know, and that's not a tease. I saw your posts first at Vanessa's, informing us of the plane(s) hitting the twin towers. I think EverDawn might have posted first, but I saw your post, first
Just the bearer of glad tiddings. *sigh* It was such a surreal day
Just the bearer of glad tiddings. *sigh* It was such a surreal day
Was it ever. I pretty much went from reading your posts, to packing up Julia and Chris to go to Ben's Kindergarten Tea Party.
How Bush Blew It
Longish
Newsweek
article - interesting. A (supposed) behind-the-scenes look at how Bush and his aids did and did not handle the crisis.
President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.
The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.
How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.
