Bush defends Katrina response (updated)
Old saying — quit while you’re ahead. (Maybe Bush doesn’t know this saying.)
In what was billed as President Bush‘s last press conference, he said a lot of amazing things. What really jumped out at me was his defense to Hurricane Katrina. I am guessing that Dana Perino and others in the press office got together with President Bush and worked on his answers to many expected questions. I think this response was rehearsed. The fact that the Coast Guard rescued hundreds, if not thousands, of people off of rooftops does not excuse the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was completely inept. (I readily admit that Louisiana is a completely dysfunctional state. Louisiana and Illinois should probably arm-wrestle for the distinction of being the most corrupt state in the union. The local and state response were completely inadequate, but that does not excuse the federal response.)
The New Orleans Times Picayune has more here and here.
The federal report that was written by a Republican lead Congress. Surprise.
Keith Olbermann takes Bush to the wood shed (see clip).
An Editorial from the Times-Picayune really encapsulates my Outrage over Bush’s comments (here’s a portion):
In his last scheduled press conference, the president vigorously dismissed criticism of the government’s performance.
“Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed,” the president said, pounding the lectern. “That’s a pretty quick response. . . . Could things have been done better? Absolutely, absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?”
The U.S. Coast Guard, indeed, performed thousands of heroic rescues after the storm. But it’s indisputable that the rest of the federal bureaucracy failed miserably in aiding tens of thousands of people who waited days for water, food and evacuation. Even reports by the White House and Congress faulted the federal performance.
So did President Bush a few days after Katrina. “The results are not acceptable,” the president said Sept. 2, 2005, referring to the federal failure to timely deliver food and medicines to survivors. (more… )
