I guess like pretty much everyone, I have been both amazed and disgusted by what I have seen from New Orleans. There has been an endless series of news reports and 24 hour news channel video pumping this stuff at us like a firehose. It has been a little bit, well overwhelming.
My friends ran this new orleans blog about their experiences trying to keep internet connectivity and keeping their business afloat while this has been going on. They are located not more than about 4 blocks from the Superdome, so they have been living this crap first hand.
The people that disgust me the most? Morons like Bill O’Reilly (fox news) who has attempted with every broadcast (and every “talking points” bullshit that he puts out) to spin responsiblity away from the president and onto local officials and specifically the democrat Governer of Louisiana. Considering he claims to be the “no spin zone”, his performance has been nothing less than hurricane strenght.
Mr O, here is a hint: No matter what happens, the boss is always responsible in the end. In case you missed it, LA and MS were declared federal disaster areas before the storm even hit. That means that FEMA is effectively authorized to enter the area and begin operations without any “invitation” from the state or local officials. They are FEDERAL DISASTER AREAS. End problem. FEMA screwed the pooch, took a 5 day vacation (they got 2 days lead time with the disaster area declaration), and in the end, there is one guy responsible for it: They guy who stayed on vacation in Texas instead of heading back to Washington to “lead the fight”. Had Bush been back in Washington on Sunday, I suspect you would have seen the trucks rolling into the area Monday morning – not wednesday afternoon or thursday.
He didn’t make it back to work until Tuesday himself, so why should anyone else care? Heck, Cheney didn’t make it off vacation for nearly 10 days after this started. WTF?
No matter how hard you try to “no spin zone” the situation, the federal response was lax, and the leader of the federal response is POTUS. The buck is suppose to stop there. Let’s see where it really ends up.