The debris trucks came through multiple times to keep the streets and gutters clear, not just once. They deployed people to the neighborhoods with the forms and information necessary to file for assistance if you needed it, no call an 800 number when the phones didn’t work.
Under Clinton, the system worked.
Clinton also came to a couple of local memorials for service people who had died in the military actions he was responsible for, but most people don’t know that, because he made it clear he was there a private citizen and only local media was present. The man sat in the middle of the audience, not in the front with the “dignitaries.”
With Clinton there was the possibility that something might actually happen, and you didn’t have to worry about his convoy of SUVs sucking up all available gas supplies, because he didn’t have one. Of course, there was also the point that people liked the man.
But frankly, most people would like to see some immediate form of assistance. The problem with Katrina wasn’t when he showed up, but when help showed up. All of the media was in New Orleans days before any Federal assistance made an appearance, and there was a lot of assistance on stand-by waiting for the word that never came.
If he had wanted to really score points he should have offered a Navy dive team to assist in the recovery effort. It would have been good training, good PR, and useful.
]]>“People will be looking after me,” she objected. “So perhaps they’ll miss some poor child that might have been found under the wreckage.”
The same thing with her parents, when they went down to visit the East End of London during the war–they always waited until the rescue and recovery efforts had been concluded, so as not to get in the way with a lot of fuss and protocol. That’s a trick that the Busheviki have never learned. Any time there’s an official visit by the head of state, there’s an enormous amount of work that has to be taken care of, and myriad details that do nothing to aid in the search for and rescue of survivors. Ergo, the truly caring (and smart) head of state stays away until s/he’s sure s/he won’t be in the way. Clinton knew that–and he generally followed through on his promises (not to mention the fact that he hired people for FEMA who actually knew something about disaster work, instead of using it, as Bush has done, as a reward for political hacks who couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag with a map and a platoon of Marines).
And I have to think that showing up and flying over the scene of the disaster, as he’s done numerous times in New Orleans, isn’t really going to gain him any popularity points. It’s certainly not going to do anything to help fix the mess, but we already knew that. Consequently, I think if you add up all the factors, Bush really should have stayed home, at least until all hope of finding anyone alive was past.
]]>-Badtux the History Penguin
]]>I’m having a hard time believing that the quarter of the population that supports him can figure out how to vote.
That may be the one skill they’ve been able to master, Bryan. Regrettably, it isn’t hard–unless someone is trying to make it so.
]]>I’m having a hard time believing that the quarter of the population that supports him can figure out how to vote.
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