The director of FEMA is apparently taking PR lessons from the Bush camp (who had the above photo op on Tuesday-a day after the hurricane struck) as he blamed the people of New Orleans for not leaving before the hurricane. FEMA, which has moved on this storm about as quickly as Levon Kirkland, apparently isn’t taking responsibility for it’s own incompetence, but instead blaming people who HAD NO WAY TO GET OUT OF THE FREAKING CITY. There was no system in place to move people who didn’t own cars.
Bush didn’t decide to end his vacation until Wednesday, two days after the hurricane struck. He then called in Clinton to mobilize the country. Can Bush just step aside and let Clinton and Giuliani take it from here? I mean, did you hear his speech the other day? “Katrina is one of the worst natural disasters in American history.” Gee whiz, George, you don’t say. My brain wasn’t able to process the pictures it was receiving from CNN. Way to show some leadership. Now go back to playing guitar and let some leaders take over.
But the real heroes in all this have been our Senators, who waited until Thursday night (3 days after this disaster happened) to return from vacation. None of them dare go to New Orleans yet to help, because it’s too dangerous. It’ll be interesting to see how many photo ops are forthcoming once things get under control. Another thing: do you think the President and Congress would have waited so long to return if the people in trouble were well-to-do white people instead of poor black people? Do you think that there would still be thousands of people waiting without food and water outside the convention center if they were white? Heck, Congress called an emergency session when a single white woman was taken off her feeding tube!
FEMA, the President, the Congress; the incompetence, arrogance, and racism of our Federal Government has never been more apparent than it has been this week.