Sunday, September 04, 2005

King and Katrina

King just doesn't get it. He wants to be Homeland Security Committee Chairman and he is completely clueless.
King was on WABC Radio's John Gambling show and said "The main problem in obstructing the relief operation - it's almost like a Mogadishu-like gang situation that's prevailing in New Orleans,"
This is of course more water-carrying for the complete failure of the Bush Administration, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. How many more excuses can Bush supporters make?
According to the New Orleans Time Picayune "Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach
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So how full of Bull---- is King? Really very full.

According to Newsday, Gary Flowers of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition denounced King's comments. "It is un-American to blame the victim. It was the citizens who were abandoned by the United States government,"

And King compares New Orleans to Mogadishu? Interesting that he picks a city in Somali, East Africa to make his point.
To go further with his analogy, let's examine what happend in Mogadishu; there was no help from the countries government to quell the violence. I am glad King sees Bush as ineffective as the leaders of Somalia which is to say there are no real leaders in Somalia.

King continues his uninformed comments with "It's hard to get federal troops in to bring about order when the local police have broken down,"
The local police are stretch to the limit evacuating citizens, trying to keep order, and trying to get relief to those left in the city. How much does King expect a force of 2000 or so to do? The fact is, federal troops would have had no problem getting into the city and helping in the relief efforts simply because journalists and relief aganecies were already getting in without a problem.

king caps off his jibber-jabber with this gem; "I just think the situation would have gone a lot better if there were a Rudy Giuliani down there - someone who could have set a firm tone from day one."
Yeah, right. You can't compare 9/11 with this new disaster. They are not the same. The incredible loss of life might be the same but the situations are very different. 80% of New York City was not devestated on 9/11. If that had happend and most of Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island had been wiped out, we would have seen mush the same situation as we do now in New Orleans. Unless adequete food, water, shelter and medical services reach teh affected people, there will be huge problems.

King wants to be Homeland Security COmmiteee Chairman. This committee overseas the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. If King is so ignorant as he has proven with these few sentences, imagine the mess he'll make as chairman.
He is making excuses for a complete break-down in emergency federal disaster response. We can't have an oversight committee chairman who will just make excuses to protect Bush.

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