Friday, September 09, 2005

What Went Wrong 5

So, FEMA screwed up, local officials allow their fleet of rescue buses to be flooded... Time for the President to send in troops, right? Wrong.

According to a senior official who spoke with the NYTimes:

"For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control."

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential."

And this is their spin! They actually think, well okay, know, that there will be people who are dumb enough to say, "Gosh, the President sure wanted to help, but those liberals just won't let him do anything!" Stabbed in the back again, eh?

What does this tell us?

1) Kathleen Blanco is still an incompetant buffoon.
2) The National Guard handled this hurricane about as well as they handled Kent State.
3) The President of the United States could have sent troops in to save people's lives, but didn't because of how it might appear. Let's let that sink in.

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