Newt Gingrich goes off the deep end

[docwebster]

"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane." (emphasis mine)

Comments, anybody? I'm just at a total loss for words, here.

Comments

[bassbone.livejournal.com]

There were breakdowns throughout every level of government from the federal to the state to the local. And yes, even the people weren't blameless. At least some of them weren't. A lot refused to leave when told to evacuate because they feared people stealing their stuff.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

The most utterly inexcusable failure was the federal government. I could go on for days - fire departments brought in for photo ops, ice being delivered *to the wrong state*, injured people being flown to the wrong states for treatments multiple times, those yabbering morons at FEMA, fire departments and rescue teams sent to hotels to basically sit around and do nothing, the list goes on and on. I refuse to buy into the "hey, look over there the state/local/citizens did this and this and this" mentality. When you have a breakdown on that kind of epic scale, you start from the top down kicking asses, not from the bottom of the pile. As far as I can see, that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps you'd care to have a look at this. Those miserable bottom dwellers currently squatting at 1600 Pennsylania were, to quote the Associated Press, "In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage. Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster."