(no subject)

[xiphias]

Should it worry me that people who read LiveJournal know more about what's going on in New Orleans, thanks to the heroic efforts of interdictor than the President does?

This does show that the President could have done as good a job of co-ordinating relief efforts from Crawford as he could from Washington -- but, unfortunately, if you're reading this, you could do a better job.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

But we couldn't get the cool shoes Condi gets; that's what crisis leadership is all about.

[navrins]

I'm not sure I buy that. Crisis management in a situation like this is about much more than adequate information at the top about conditions at the bottom. I don't think Bush is solely to blame for the problems - there are ranks and ranks of other in-charge people between him and the bus drivers and guardsmen who are, or aren't, on the scene, and there are obviously problems all the way up and down the line. I'm not saying Bush's leadership has been... well, existent, but at the same time I think it's hard to say anyone else could do a better job. This sounds like a situation where the whole institution is screwed up to begin with; bringing in a new leader at the last minute won't change anything.

Besides, Bush isn't the leader of that institution anyway. Interesting that I don't know who is.

[ckd]

FEMA had a program called Project Impact, which was meant to coordinate local and national emergency planning for disasters and apply cost-effective mitigation measures. In the Nisqually Earthquake, the money spent on seismic retrofits for particularly at-risk buildings saved money and lives.

That same day, the newly-inaugurated President George W. Bush cut the program to save $25 million a year.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

michael brown, a former estate-planning lawyer whose claim to fame is that he ran an association for arab horses into the ground financially. that apparently qualified him to run a federal agency tasked to deal with disasters.

a crony of bush, without any qualifications, any at all to lead FEMA.

leadership means installing capable people so one can delegate to them.

who else to blame for not doing so than the man who hired his crony?

[navrins]

Also - do we have any evidence that interdictor's reports are more accurate than anybody else's? Corroborating sources, that sort of thing? Evidence that he's not actually sitting in a Starbucks in California making it all up?

I'm not saying I think he is; I don't. But what would stop him? If he and a professional news reporter are saying different things (which people seem to be saying is the case), what reasons do I have to believe his report over that of the professional?

The blog world opens up those kinds of possibilities, and I can't help thinking that *lots* of people could be easily taken in by a skilled creative writer.

faked?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

have you read his stuff? he's not a skilled creative writer, he's a macho libertarian (i am 100% sure about the macho, not 100% on the libertarian, but it fits with his insistence to stay and protect his stuff at all cost), who's upset at what's happening to his city. it'll be very interesting to see how this'll effect his politics after it's all over.

if this is faked, it's ingenuous in its haphazardness. no, this is as little faked as raed in baghdad was faked; this is the real mccoy, and so you get the real stuff from his particular perspective. with a little extra helping of drama, IMO, but that's to be expected; it is a very dramatic situation. i wouldn't take his word against that of a "real" reporter, but i'll take it right alongside. eye witnesses often disagree, and i like to hear as many different perspectives as possible, because the truth lies somewhere in between.

New Orleans

[(Anonymous)]

the ultimate problem was not lack of a plan. You can see New Orleans had an evacuation plan in place and knew well anything above a 2 would breach the levies. The problem was, the Mayor and Governor didn’t execute their evacuation plan at all. It’s a complete joke that the feds are on the hook. Anything pre-storm is up to the locals. Bush can’t order the locals to evacuate. FEMA called Governor Blanco and told her to evac that Sunday. New Orleans evac plan calls for 72 hours prior and to incorporate buses, trains, everything to get the poor and invalids out. It’s unreal that they are skating, it was their fault. They have evacuated before for false alarms and I think they underestimated it.



It’s all on the web, their local gov stinks. Plus, several members of their flood preparedness department got indicted for corruption just this year. That city’s corruption and mismanagement is legendary and it caught up with them in my opinion. Bush and FEMA are easy targets and could have done better, but if those people weren’t there it wouldn’t be an issue.