Thursday, September 08, 2005

Columnist Kathleen Parker's straw man defense!

Kathleen Parker’s recent column chastising administration critics regarding hurricane Katrina, misses the point completely! She tries to neutralize the outcry by saying you can’t blame "mother nature" and that even though critics (read, liberal democrats) try----" not even George Bush can take the fall for this one!" She then adds her coup de grace, "Some things cant be helped. Nature, ever untamable can’t be thwarted."

True, the administration can’t "thwart" a hurricane. What any administration can and should do, is everything within its power to limit the human toll of suffering and death. Clearly this administration failed miserably!

1. President Bush, his Director of Homeland Security and his Director of FEMA were briefed by the Director of the National Hurricane Center--- prior to landfall— on the severity and possible impact of Katrina on the levees. Yet Bush claimed after the disaster, "I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

2. FEMA Director Michael Brown waited five hours after landfall on August 29, to ask Homeland Security ( via a memo) to send 1,000 employees to the region within two days. Then suggested another 2,000 after seven days.

3.President Bush waited five days before setting foot in the stricken area. When he did, he joked about his drinking days in New Orleans and then said of his FEMA Director, "...and Browne, you’re doing a heck of job. The FEMA Director is working 24 hours a day."

If the President is serious about investigating "what went wrong", he should re-read his own National Response Plan which claims to "help save lives and protect America’s communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness and efficiency of incident management." Then he should measure it against himself and the actions of his administration
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