Kilmoll the Sexy wrote:It is real fucking easy to place blame on Bush for not pumping billions into trying to keep a city above water that would not even BE a city above water if we were not artificially keeping it that way. I mean...did GWB pass a law stating those people have to remain there and are not allowed to leave? No? Then just MAYBE those people can take responsibility for being there and stop fucking bitching about someone that doesn't control the weather being to blame.
You don't see Kansas residents putting up mile high walls to block tornados and then blaming Bush for failing them when their town gets wiped out. So New Orleans residents (and the taxpayers...thanks) can take the ass raping from nature and shut the fuck up...or they can move.
But this discussion isn't about whether it's a good idea to live in a place that has a much higher chance of a natural disaster than any other place. It's about a place where a number of people have lived for hundreds of years that was recently struck by a natural disaster. Furthermore, it's a discussion about how the leader of those people reacts to calamities that befall those people, and how he delivers on promises of help that he has made. Not to mention that he
did pump billions into the city, around 6 Billion if memory serves, and it appears that it didn't do what he promised it would.
I am not going to disagree with the statement that it is not a good idea to live below sea level in hurricane alley. We're in full agreement there.
Now, since we have that point settled, let's move on to the linked article.
NEW ORLEANS - The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Did he deliver on that promise? No, apparently not. Is it his fault? That's a little grayer area.
At the very
least, it reinforces the fact that Bush has a poor track record of choosing his underlings. "Brownie" is the first one that comes to mind, but wasn't there an FBI or CIA director, as well as a couple other high-profile members of his cabinet or appointed to branches of the government that have stepped down or been fired due to scandals or incompetence? Then you've got whoever it was that is in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers. I'm going off the top of my head here, forgive me for not spending a lot of time researching.
More nefariously, and less undeniably factual, would be the idea that his administration chose a "cronie" company to help line the pockets of his friends or family, with utter disregard as to their capabilities to handle something of that magnitude. Something that the administration has also been criticized about regarding Halliburton in Iraq and other companies in other situations. To be fair, it's hard to judge whether the Halliburton deal is strictly a "cronie" deal when there aren't too many companies in the world that are set up to handle what they've been tasked to do, but it merits mentioning when the same types of accusations repeatedly follow an administration around.
George W. Bush is a bad president. I cannot say if John Kerry or Al Gore would have been a better one, no one can, but I can say that I haven't ever felt that any other person who has been president has been worse. Nearly every day something comes out that makes him or his administration look worse than the day before, and I cannot think of 10 things that they have done that have made them look better.
I know some of you are going to disagree with me, and I welcome counterpoints on
good things that this administration has done or situations that have been handled well. I do dislike George Bush, but my contempt for his ability to run this country is far outweighed by my desire for positive things to happen to this country, its citizens, and the world. I would much rather be wrong about Bush being a bad president and have good things happen to us than for bad things to happen and me be right. Prove me wrong, someone!
)were saying it was the hurricane (winds/rain/etc) that caused it. This is why State Farm was recently attempting to settle a lawsuit against them for how they handled their homeowner's claims in the areas hit.
