Will Hurricane Gustav dent McCain's hopes?

THX1138

The Revenge of Gaia!

Craig Strachan

Well, let's hope that Gustav diverts or weakens before landfall - the Gulf coast has suffered quite enough in recent years.

But if it doesn't, it'll keep Bush and Cheney off the platform in St Paul, and that probably helps McCain.

But it will also remind people of the administration's flubbed response to Katrina, which can't help - although this might be Bush's chance to get it right the second time around.

Familiar Clown

Why not skip the convention altogether? The marketing has already been done.

Verity

"The Republicans are acutely aware that this brings back memory of the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina."

I am dumbfounded.

We have spent the last three days discussing a state governor and it has all sailed over your head as you try to develop the stale old "narrative" to use a new, absolutely pointless, buzzword.

President Bush performed very well over Katrina. Mississippi, where Katrina actually touched down (it wasn't in the state of Louisiana at all) was getting back on its feet the day after the hurricane, with the military on the streets dealing with the clean-up and also helping to run essential services.

The damage was severe because, as noted, Katrina only flew over Louisiana and left lashings of heavy rain and floods, but it touched down and flattened whole neighbourhoods of homes, in Mississippi.

The difference? The Republican Governor - see? that word "Governor"? - had heeded the warnings and requested President Bush for military assistance. And it was forthcoming immediately. President Bush gave the order and the troops were on the street working the instant it had blown itself out. (By the way, this same REPUBLICAN governor had invited workers from the federal insurance agency, that covers damage from natural disasters, in early, so they could begin processing claims the very next day. Everything organised. Everythng as under control as it is possible to be in the wake of a natural diasaster.

Now, we take this same word, "Governor", and apply it to New Orleans. Governor Blanco (her married name; she comes from a corrupt old New Oleans family) was busy having meetings, cutting deals with contractors and other old croney suppliers as Katrina came barrelling up the Gulf of Mexico.

Alarmed at not having heard from her, Bush took it upon himself to make the first move - although that was not his job - and ask for the governor's permission to send in the military.

Govermor Blanco declined. (This is key, Fraser. Governor Blanco refused President Bush's offer of federal troops. He could not send federal troops into a state without the governor's request or permission.

Things were looking worse and worse and Blanco was still busy dickering with her cronies, divvying up who gets what.

The fringe - with forceful (but not hurrican-force) winds and rain - hit New Orleans. President Bush took the unprecedented step of calling the Governor a second time and offered federal troops again. Again, with the world falling to bits around her and the police going into abandoned shops and trying on shoes to be sure they stole the right fit, the levies rising and people cut off, Blanco refused to let the troops enter Louisiana.

Meanwhile, all Mr Bush could do was send troops to a state whose goveror would agree, and mass them on the border ready to roll in.

Finally, when she'd got all the really important business wrapped up, like who got what, and the entire city under water and in despair, Governor Blanco graciously allowed the President to send in the troops.

They were right there. I'll never forget that magnificent moment when they were rolling over the freeway into the city and General Honoré - who is black and a native of New Orleans - jumped out of his jeep and began commanding the endless trail of troop vehicles from his mobile phone standing on the edge of the freeway! What a moment! He was magnificent!

Meanwhile, the Beeb's wimpy Gavin Something, in a solar topée for some reason, was weeping gently into the microphone about all the abandoned people, then had to raise his voice, then gave up trying to talk as two helicopters were hovering low overhead winching people to safety.

The Americans understand the governor's role in all this and they understand that the President was helpless against a wilfull and contrary governor.

This time, we have the great Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, who planned a massive and compulsory evacuation, laying on planes, trains and buses for people who don't have their own transport.

Keith

Verity, it's a huge, crying shame that we never learn the complete truth from the Beeb....they only report fully anything that fits in with their left-wing agenda.Hence the Obama adulation over here and a few lines about McCain/Palin

DB

What Verity says.

And Obama's 'bounce' has already fallen flat.

Gil

Excellent post, Verity. But no surprise to those who read the Biased BBC website. Just to add to Verity's post: Who can forget the hapless Ray Nagin, Democrat Mayor of New Orleans who was an utter shambles.

LUH3417

THX1138

Please take your soma now!

Verity

Thanks, y'all.

A little PS on the very fine and independent-minded General Honoré.

When his rescue/clean-up job was essentially completed, he agreed to talk to three or four reporters on the operation. But one of them was a lefty idiot - not from the BBC, although would have made a good stringer - and insisted on asking about something totally irrelevant that fit into her own agenda. As in, "Sir, with regard to ..." And General Honoré, who has a short fuse, cut her off saying, "See, you've been drinking too much stupid."

The heart soared.

Hal

How can someone who is dumbfounded proceed to go on for 1,000 words?

Marian C

Keith -
"Verity, it's a huge, crying shame that we never learn the complete truth from the Beeb....they only report fully anything that fits in with their left-wing agenda.Hence the Obama adulation over here and a few lines about McCain/Palin"

I totally agree with your comments above Keith. Also, thank you Verity for telling us this, we never hear anything of this sort

Tiberius

A killer ball, Verity.

Many thanks for the story. I knew Bush was wrongly accused, but not the extent of it.

Hysteria

Good Post Verity

but........it's the zeigeist innit? The photo of Bush staring mournfully out the plane window is the enduring image of his "fly by" of new Orleans.

It's all about the image portrayed, not the "facts". Shame, but there it is.

Craig Strachan

Verity:

"The difference? The Republican Governor - see? that word "Governor"? - had heeded the warnings and requested President Bush for military assistance."

Yes, Blanco did wait too long to request assistance. But she did ask some 16-hours after the levees broke. The Bush administration - in a response formulated by Karl Rove (why him?) and communicated via Senator David Vitter - asked that the Lousiana national guard and other state and local responders be placed under federal control. So basically - help yourselves but stick a federal badge on it.

Austin Barry

Verity, well said. As I read your post on my laptop in the Cafe Du Monde its truth and the force 4 winds blew the powder off my beignet. New Orleans is basically a third world dump which, apart from the French Quarter theme park, reminds one more of Lagos than a US city. But during Katrina George Bush cared and we weren't told about it. Why?

Hal

Something about Verity's account rankled, so I dug up this 2005 NY Times article about sending troops into New Orleans at the time when looting was going on. It seems the Office of Legal Counsel thought that the president could probably send troops in over the objection of the governor, but the White House decided against it, because it would look bad politically. Here is the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09military.html?scp=1&sq=Political%20Issues%20Snarled%20Plans%20for%20Troop%20Aid&st=cse

I do not mean for a moment to defend Governor Blanco or Mayor Negrin, both of whom acquitted themselves badly in Katrina. But as the article says, there was a hole in the federal emergency planning, in that no provision was made in case the local fire, police, hospitals, etc., were incapacitated. This was four years after 9/11, remember. The public by and large expects the federal government to step in when a disaster is as large as Katrina. Bush didn't even pay attention until well into the crisis. And his head of FEMA, the emergency management agency, knew more about Arabian horses than about disaster relief. But he was a good GOP fundraiser.

In Katrina, there is blame to spare for all levels of government, but Bush deserved the political black eye he received.

Tally Lassie

The Gusty One looks nasty - he's been gathering strength in the heat of the Gulf. Hope neither Verity nor any of our Bloggers are there to suffer his fury.

Following is an extract from Advisory #29A of the National Hurricane Center, if the Speccie can publish it. If not, the link is here: www.nhc.noaa.gov/#GUSTAV

AT 700 PM CDT...0000Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE GUSTAV WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.9 NORTH...LONGITUDE 87.7 WEST OR ABOUT 175 MILES...280 KM...SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. THIS POSITION IS ABOUT 260 MILES...415 KM...SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA.

GUSTAV IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 17 MPH...27 KM/HR. THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE WITH A DECREASE IN FORWARD SPEED DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...GUSTAV SHOULD MAKE LANDFALL ON THE NORTHERN GULF COAST ON MONDAY.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 115 MPH...185 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. GUSTAV IS A CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME INTENSIFICATION IS FORECAST TONIGHT...AND GUSTAV IS
FORECAST TO BE A MAJOR HURRICANE UNTIL LANDFALL.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 70 MILES...110 KM...FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 220
MILES...350 KM. DATA FROM HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT THE AREA COVERED BY HURRICANE FORCE WINDS HAS EXPANDED...PARTICULARLY IN THE NORTHWEST QUADRANT OF GUSTAV. TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE ABOUT TO REACH THE SOUTHEASTERN TIP OF LOUISIANA...AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO REACH THE COASTLINE AFTER
MIDNIGHT.

Ever efficient, they have time to keep the french happy by using their terminology and measurements. The Beeb doesn't reciprocate for the US in such ways, I notice.

THX1138

Austin- "Why?" Because he didn't give care, he didn't give a F**K about New Orleans & lets not forget that he went to the refineries first.

If as Verity suggests that Katrina really was some kind of domestic triumph for Bush why did his approval numbers tank during the event & never recover after the event? Why isn't he in the Twin Cities shouting about what a great job he did over over Katrina. Some things are unspinable & this was one of them.

Ted Tedford

Hal: "There was a hole in the federal emergency plan..." Well, there's a hole in almost *everything* the state does: it's a vast, impersonalised bureaucracy, and as a result is extremely slow to react. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. When something truly unusual happens, the gaps in the plans are exposed. The fact that 'the public' *expect* 'the government' to do something exposes a fundamental philosophical difference between Louisiana and Mississippi.

In contingency planning, people usually hypothesise on a 'best case', 'worst case' and 'most likely case'. In any organisation with finite resources, you plan against the most likely, but with branches or sequel plans to address the worst case. I would defy any but the most pessimistic analyst to say that it was worth considering a worst-case plan that addressed what was essentially a *total* failure of state governance. So, when that happened, it was simply unrealistic to expect a federal body to respond to a crisis of this nature on the timescale the media demanded.

As far as the state response is concerned, New Orleans ran a contingency planning exercise a few months before, and one of the take-home lessons was don't put people in the stadium. So, in the absence of states following the advice of their *own* planning, there's not much a federal body can do to plug the gaps. I imagine the current FEMA planning explicitly takes into account weak links like Nagin. And, by addressing his failures, it's probably created a weakness somewhere else.

THX: The introduction of the word 'oil' into your post no doubt triggered a lot of a happy chemicals in the bodies of like-minded anti-Americans who see no virtue in the oil industry. But the US - the citizens of cities well beyond the areas Katrina hit - depends on its oil infrastructure, and it employs a lot of people. A Sean Penn-style mission to save drowning kittens might have played well on TV, but the federal goverment was correct to order its priorities differently.

Augustus

If the hurricane doesn't dent his hopes, I wonder if all these rumours about his VP will?
American websites are now suggesting that her Down's Syndrome son is not hers, but was born to her 16 year old daughter Bristol. a bevvy of Democratic journalists are already on their way to Alaska to try to find out more about Palin's past.

THX1138

Ted- I'm Very Very pro American but like the great majority of the American people I'm very anti Bush. I can link to the numbers if you like?

I think it would have been more appropriate to visit the stricken city & It's inhabitants before the refineries It's nothing to with seeing "no virtue in the oil industry" If you can't see that then your political partisanship is blinding you to common decency. BTW CNN go to the stadium before FEMA - pathetic.

As I said his polling number dived & never recovered after Katrina & deservedly so. Your's & Verity's desperate attempts to spin success out of huge failure on the part of Bush administration is a bit pathetic & more importantly irrelevant as in the minds of the great majority the f**k up that was the response to Katrina & Bush are forever inextricably linked , hence the reason that Bush speaking to the GOP convention on the day Gustav made landfall was such a big negative issue for McCain .

LUH3417 - How you doing I missed you. (great post I LOL)

Augustus

With regard to the rumour surrounding Sarah Palin's fifth child, at first I thought a palindrome might be in order: Level, madam, level. However, I now believe it to be untrue, and in the typical traditions of Democratic mud-slinging.

Ted Tedford

THX: Yes, I probably should have refined 'anti-American' to anti-Bush.

I agree it might have been 'unfeeling', but I prefer my leaders to eschew the sentimental in favour of the rational. Refineries employ people too.

And I cannot imagine the anti-Bush crowd would have said his visit to the city was statesmanlike: more likely they would have criticised him for grandstanding, micro-management and getting in the way.

However, your contrast of CNN and FEMA is weak. CNN can get people to disasters because they are a private enterprise, motivated by profit, and have no executive responsibility once there. They just have to charter a helicopter, get a four-man crew on board, point a camera, and emote. Perspective is lost because they gaze at everything through the wrong end of the telescope. FEMA could get people in if all they had to do once there was say "look at me, I got here before Fox."

THX1138

Ted- Thanks for clearing that up re anti Americanism I get sick of people from the right throwing that tired old cliché at progressives like me. I dislike the present US government but I love America half my family live there & I visit all the time. I have just booked a trip to NYC in Nov to meet my brother & his family & celebrate Obama's victory with a bit of lite shopping & culture.

"I agree it might have been 'unfeeling', but I prefer my leaders to eschew the sentimental in favour of the rational"

I agree that we should favour the rational so you must therefore discount a candidate such as Palin who believes that god created the world in 6 days possibly the most irrational belief of the lot.

Can you really have a potential President who denies the most basic truths about the world?

Craig Strachan

Ted Telford: "The fact that 'the public' *expect* 'the government' to do something exposes a fundamental philosophical difference between Louisiana and Mississippi."

Well, Mississippi has in Haley barbour a governor who certainly does expect the government to do something - on behalf of his corporate clients when he was king of K street, and on behalf of his constituents now he's governor!

Ted Tedford

THX: I am torn between my genuine hope that you have a wonderful holiday in November and my conclusion that the world would be a better - though not necessarily a nicer - place if your man loses.

As the 'Sarah Palin is a scary fundamentalist who will overturn the church-state separation' gets going from the clearly-rattled left, interesting to consider a vignette from her time as governor. In 2006, her first veto as governor was of legislation aiming to remove health-care benefits to same-sex partners of public employees. She did so on the grounds that to sign it off would be a violation of her oath.

And, for the record, her 'support' for teaching creationism in schools extends as far as allowing it to be discussed. Not 'being taught as an equal or superior theory in biology lessons', but discussed - which could mean in history, general studies etc.

I'm not an American, but, if I were, I would rather have a president who believes in the traditional teachings of the Church than a president that believes that by voting for him, global warming, war, famine, racial division et al will begin to be healed. A bit of proper Christian humility is less likely to be dangerous than the sort of hubris Mr Obama exhibits.

And just as you're not anti-American, I'm not pro-Bush: I'm anti- the 'Bush-lied-people-died' school of non-debate.

Have a good trip!

Verity

THX1138 - "If as Verity suggests that Katrina really was some kind of domestic triumph for Bush".

Failed reading comprehension in school did you? But I think we already knew that. Nowhere did I suggest that Katrina was a triumph for Bush. You are so driven by hatred you cannot even read the words on your monitor. I went to some pains to show that Bush had been misreported on the BBC.

You contribute absolutely nothing to this site. You send in reams of trite, adolescent lefty drivel that lack only one thing: an anchor to reality. Every word you key in reeks of very bafflingly high self-regard. You think you are interesting. You're not. I read the above sentence as I was scrolling down past your name.

The only thing entertaining about you is your naive level of self-delusion. It was you - and only you - who wrote in to the Speccie suggesting they give a cocktail party for regular contributors at The Coffee House. You want what you seem to regard as your "contribution" to be acknowledged. You want to tell your friends you're going to a cocktail party given by the Speccie for its "regular contributors", trying to elevate yourself by association instead of deed. I noticed that only around two people responded. It seems the other contributors are more robust than you and not as needy.

Don't misquote me again, rear aperture.

THX1138

Ted-Thanks for wishing me well & a thoughtful post from you. If we can all turn down the heat & debate rather than shout I'm sure it would make for more fun all round.

I think we have more to come out on the creationist beliefs of Palin, certainly her priest Mike Rose seems to not believe in evolution

“If you really want to know where you came from and happen to believe the word of God that you are not a descendant of a chimpanzee, this is what the word of God says. I believe this version.”

Actually he's right we're not descended from chimpanzee's but rather from a common ancestor but somehow I doubt that is what Mike Rose means.

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/08/hbc-90003486

I don't know of course but I rather suspect that she believes in the creation myth.

If so I stand by my question.

Can you really have a potential President who denies the most basic truths about the world?

THX1138

Verity your hatred for anyone who disagrees with you & me in particular demeans you & this site.

We all post for a variety of different I don't ask yours so don't comment on mine & what we add is not decided Nurse Ratched thank goodness.