"He could have gone on national tv and addressed the country about the coming severity of the storm."

He declared a national emergency two days before the storm hit. MSM is the one who did not take it seriously.

Not a prime-time address, though, unless I missed it somehow, which I can't imagine I did.

The Prez did not make a national address; but he did proclaim a "natural disaster" area status for the Gulf coast a full two days ahead of Katrina making landfall. This was widely reported in the Atlanta area where I live. I noticed because I am a New Orleans native, expatriate. I pay attention to these things.

Now, the MSM seems willing to bury this fact in the sheer tonnage of "blame Bush" rhetoric. But the fact that neither the mayor nor the governor lifted a finger to take advantage of that pre-disaster status to shore things up and evacuate more people must surely be a matter of conscience for them now. And of course, we know the MSM has no conscience. So it's "blame Bush" again, you dumb, stupid people. That's the talking point, and they're sticking to it.

If they're nationalized, then they become RA. Prez has very limited power to use RA for LE purposes.

Not only that, but Bush strong-armed the incompetent LA folks to order an evacuation.

The only thing he did wrong is not publicly show them up before they failed (as the Constitution lets them). And how the hell should he have known *that* would be needed.

The previous mayor was black, too.

This race card crap is gonna SO blow up in everyone who's playing its face.

Gov Blanco's Error

http://subpariq.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-orleans-own-evacuation-plan-not.html

I've been thinking about the buses - imagine if this dipwad had used them. He almost certainly wouldn't have lined up actual reception areas and shelters for the people at the end of the journey (and to be fair, that might be more of a governor-type task), so now you have these poor folks wandering through rural Louisiana in the middle of a Hurricane. Shudder

Even if those busses had mad only one trip each, going until they found someplace survivable like a truckstop, this would still have been a major improvement on what happened instead. The school bus fleet alone could have taken over 10,000 people. Not only would that have been 10K out of harms way (albeit still in considerable discomfort) it would have been that many less overloading the Superdome and Morial CC. The side effects of the crowding and limited resources would have been lessened by that much and some lives saved.

Which situation would you rather have? Being stuck on a rooftop surrounded by sewage or waiting out it in a bus on dry land? Even moving the bus fleet to the area of the Superdome would been better just to get people out of the rain.

To be blunt, the bodies determine the blame. If 10k drowning victims are pulled out of attics, then the local and state govts get the blame. Try as they might, the media will have a tough time making the President the fall guy for not evacuating the population. There aren't 10k bodies lying around the Convention Center and the Superdome, as much as some have wished, so the perceived delay did not have a substantive body count. Babies and old people died waiting for food and water? Well, why weren’t the most vulnerable evacuated by the local authorities?

After playing the race card, the media cannot lay the violence story at the President's feet. The PC alarms would go off the minute the MSM started hinting that minorities degenerate to raping, murdering and looting throngs without proper supervision of white federal officials. Everyone is insulated if 10k bodies with gunshot wounds materialize.

If fewer than 10k bodies are found, then other considerations come into play. Is the body count less than 9/11? If greater, then cause of death determines blame. If less than 9/11, then declare victory and weather the storm of criticism. A city destroyed by a disaster of biblical proportions with a death toll less than 9/11 should be considered a victory.

Ultimately, the blame will probably fall on the people responsible for designing the levee system. The breaks were on canals within the city. The levees holding back the lake and the river held, even though they were designed to only withstand a Cat 3 hurricane. Why weren’t the canals compartmentalized to allow breaks without unrestricted flow from either the lake or the river flooding the city? This will end up on a History Channel engineering blunders episode.

The DU “debunking” of the buses is that there was no one to drive them and no where to drive them. Both are examples of failures of local leadership. The idea that the numbers of buses was insufficient to evacuate the entire population and therefore should not be utilized is just ludicrous.

In the end, this will be no different than Memogate, Al Qaqaa-gate and all the other Bush bashing gates, just another attempt by the MSM to take down a Republican. Eventually the MSM will move on to the next Bush “scandal” and start again.

Nagin is on the record rejecting an offer by Feds to transport bus drivers into the city to utilize the school buses.
He wanted Greyhounds "from all across the country" ordered in.

Apparently it is beneath the dignity of the local populace to be driven out of town like so many band-camp er...refugees.

Back in a sec with link

Nagin rejected bus drivers

Well, Nagin did say that he's not one of them drug addicts. And that he's thinking clearly.

Though he didn't seem to know squat about the constitution.

Tell me again...how did this guy get elected?

Tribes?

Durand

Almost forgot this.
Weren't communications out in N.O.?
But Nagin was getting calls from people up to their necks in water?

Don't want to pick nits, but....

For some reason, some people were actually able to place phone calls.

Not sure why.
Could some old analog lines possibly still be functioning?

I'm a little curious about the media blackout of the 600 buses story as well. I've seen the pictures of the flooded school buses on blogs, and have heard about the additional 300 city buses that lay ide, also on blogs; but does anyone have an original source cite for the story and the photo that I can hammer my local newspaper with?

That's original source, please - as in, the original MSM or government reports about the buses, and the original news photo link -- not a second- or third-hand report on a blog.

Not that I disbelieve the story or think it untrustworthy. But hammering an MSM outlet with their failure to cover a story is more effective if you back it up with the original source, especially if that source is "MSM-approved" (i.e., other MSM or government).

Thanks.

The dems went on full offense right from the beginning with the 24/7 blame mongering - a very savvy move on their part as otherwise folks might naturally look first to those in the immediate vicinity (a democrat mayor) and work their way up the ladder (to a democrat governor), and by the time they got to the prez there wouldn't be a lot of blame leftover.

The repubs on the other hand were caught sleeping as usual in re: the blame game - I'd like to say it's because they're just nievely hoping dems and the MSM will restrain themselves with common sense but in fact I think the reason is simply that now that they're in power they're growing increasingly lazy about watching out for this kind of thing.

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel - the 9/11 Omission's findings are being investigated in light of the Able Danger scandal, and which could swing the credibility balance back to the repubs in the public's eye prior to the commission on the NO disaster, which could allow them to show these dem responsibility duckings for what they are, but they'll have to play their cards right.