[Peace-discuss] DI Column

[David Green]

The Daily Illini - Opinions 
Issue: 9/9/05 

Column: Misplaced blame
By John Bambenek 

As Hurricane Katrina starting bearing down on New
Orleans and the Gulf coast, the Left's blame game
began. They were almost giddy with excitement at the
prospect of dead Americans that they can blame on
President Bush. You could see the Left going through
the usual talking points about what was to blame.
"It's Kyoto!" "It's the environment!" "It's Iraq!"
"It's the Bush tax cut!" These wild claims were
disproved by the alternative media - like my blog - as
fast as they came out.

Even the campus commies got in on blaming Bush. "I
wonder if this is part of a national strategy, to
allow (and help along either directly or through
negligence) horrible things to happen to the main
anti-Bush areas?" C. G. Estabrook of the University's
sociology department wrote in an e-mail. At a
University meeting Tuesday, history Professor Mark
Leff was brought out to talk about the disaster, but
he apparently doesn't even know what FEMA stands for.
Louisiana wrote their disaster plans knowing they had
to evacuate if a strong level three hurricane was
coming. They simply didn't follow their own plan.

Like gibbering yard apes, the Left went fishing in the
sewage-infested floodwaters to throw human corpses at
the Bush administration. Then it became apparent that
a crisis had developed. Almost 100,000 people were
trapped in New Orleans without food or water. The
rescue operations were halted because of armed pirates
boatjacking rescuers. The Left began to blame FEMA and
Bush for the response.

Louisiana's emergency plan called for a complete
evacuation upon the risk of a strong category three
hurricane. They waited 36 hours after a declared state
of emergency to order an evacuation. Bush had to
personally call the Governor to beg for a mandatory
evacuation, and they still waited 12 more hours.

At the Mayor Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool (no pun
intended), there were 255 buses parked neatly in rows,
according to The Associated Press, and about 500 buses
city-wide that were left to be flooded out. The
disaster plan called specifically for the use of those
buses. One trip using those buses filled to
"regulatory" capacity could have taken about 30,000
people. With the 36 extra hours they would have had if
they ordered the evacuation earlier, they could have
gotten 120,000 people out. Instead, they left those
people in New Orleans with no plan whatsoever about
bringing in supplies after the roads and causeway were
destroyed. Even if they didn't use the buses before
Katrina struck, they could've taken them to higher
ground and used them after Katrina had passed. Mayor
Nagin, a black Democrat, let the buses get destroyed
instead.

FEMA is set up to assist states and cities with
disaster response, not to do it for them. When Sept.
11 hit New York, Rudy Giuliani was in charge, not
FEMA. There's a reason why people bought NYPD and FDNY
hats after Sept. 11 and not FEMA hats. After the
hurricane hit, New Orleans Mayor Nagin indicated
things were under control, and when they fell apart,
he started to blame Bush. Two-thirds of the New
Orleans police abandoned their jobs, according to a
CNN interview with General Blum of the National Guard.
As a reward, New Orleans is sending the police on
taxpayer-funded trips to Las Vegas while bodies are
still lying in the streets. After meeting on Air Force
One, Gov. Blanco, a Democrat, wouldn't authorize the
federal response plan - she needed 24 hours to think
about it. Meanwhile, more people died. 

President Bush perhaps should have called a special
session of Congress to demote Louisiana to federal
territory status, thereby relieving the inept
Democrats in charge - that would be a fair criticism.

The plan was to get everyone out of New Orleans and
the Democrat mayor left those people to die instead of
using the hundreds of buses he had. The hurricane hit
Mississippi too. Hear much press about that? No.
That's because those local officials did their jobs
and saved lives, while the locals in New Orleans were
whining to the press and blaming everyone but
themselves while their people died. Mayor Nagin and
Gov. Blanco have no one to blame but themselves. 

John Bambenek is a graduate student and a University
employee. His column appears every Friday. He can be
reached at opinions at dailyillini.com. 


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