President Bush says he takes responsibility for the federal government’s failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. Details soon.
Accountability doesn’t stop with that statement, but I think it gets the country on the right track to have a serious discussion about how to improve performance in future disasters.
I don’t blame Bush for the levees. That was a long standing problem with wide blame to go around. I don’t think anyone meant to screw-up or meant to have such s disproprotionate impact on the poor and African-American. I do think that we have as a whole failed the poorest amongst us and when it’s a slow catastrophe that plays out in our inner cities every day squelching hope of young people brought up often in tragic circumstances, we don’t pay attention. And we didn’t pay attention to what would happen in the case of a crisis in New Orleans or any other major city.
One part of moving on from that is admitting there were real problems and then engaging people how to address those problems. Given the past with this administration I have little trust that the evaluation of the incident will be full and honest, but I do applaud him for taking this step and hope for more in terms of a serious discussion on these issues.
Now, if we can get Blanco to explain the call-up of the Louisiana National Guard….
‘to the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility’ – – but he still doesn’t understand ‘what didn’t go right’. It’s like a child’s apology.
For Bush and his crew, things are going swimmingly; this is another fine opportunity for transferring money from the public sector to the likes of Halliburton and Bechtel.
You won’t hear him say “Sorry I gave away trillions for tax cuts and war, instead of making sure our nation was safe like I said I would. My mistake. Sorry.”
Al Gore’s recent speech on Katrina is both a withering attack on the Bush Administration and a powerful statement about the linkages to global warming and wetlands destruction. I have it at:
http://illinoissierraclub.blogspot.com/2005/09/gores-katrina-speech.html
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asked a question, & the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report Tuesday afternoon.
It’s official: LA governor Katherine Blanco took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government. “The Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time.”
So much for the GOP cleaning their image with “there’s enough blame to go around for everyone” — at a later date. Framing a good image is OK. Facts (whether GOP voters want to believe them or not) are better.