[X] can say anything he wants, [X] failed when his city needed him the most.

Setting Ray Nagin completely aside now, JasonG, your notion that words don’t matter puts you on the wrong side–with the Left, animals, and plants.

If Katrina had hit South Beach or Orange County, I’d dare say the state would be prepared enough that the Feds would not have to intervene.

A little oversimplified, but that pretty much sums it up Muslihoon. It wouldn’t have had to be a primarily FEMA operation though. Competant local and state government would have handled almost everything and FEMA would, as usual, come in to help organize rescue and relief efforts. Not have to clean up a mess they were unprepared to deal with, after given Nagin/Blanco too much credit… assuming they weren’t the biggest POSs in the country.

Having just returned from New Orleans, theres a temptation to bemoan the state of affairs in a city that just a little over a year ago, was underwater, but unfortunately, its nearly impossible for us to say that we thought……

Then again, prior to Katrina landfall, I well-remember a reporter asked Ray about using school buses. Ray, in a huffy tone, answered that the prospective evacuees were adults, not children, deserving of coaches and not school buses. Hmmm… The only coaches I see on election days belong to out-of-state operatives.

Tulane Greenie from CenLA

Or are they simply examples of politicians telling a group what they think it wants to hear, whether or not they themselves actually believe it?

Living in Atlanta I can tell you they believe it. During the Rodney King riots there was a family of Koreans who owned a store in a very bad part of town. It was BESEIGED and the Police REFUSED to go in and help them. The family took refuge on the roof of the building when the mob broke into the store and began rampaging, looting and threatening them. The news helicopters captured the entire thing. This was a family who was NOT known to be rip-offs and who had worked with the community for years extending credit and employing people. But because they werent black, they were the enemy that day and “deserved” to be looted.
I like Andrew Young as a person. I think he has a quiet dignity that is refreshing BUT he isnt above having prejudices reinforced daily by the Jesses and Sharptons.

“Dumb and Dumber”

BTW, it would be nice if we had a preview option here. ;o)

- It was in NOLA’s own evacuation plan to use school and city buses to evacuate people. Nagin chose not to.

- Bush asked them to issue a mandatory evacuation at least once (but I think two or three times). They chose not to, and others were partying at the bars still hours before the storm came in. I’ll never forget Shep asking people questions like “you know this huge Hurricane is coming, why are you still here” and one guy answering “none of your fu**ing business!” So there were a lot of idiots who CHOSE to stay, just like they always do in any natural disaster. I understand the “it’s my home, and I’m not going anywhere” mentality, but don’t race bait when you made your own decision.

- Katrina was only a category 3 at landfall, and NOLA actually only experienced between category 1 and 2 conditions.

- My own personal issue is the whole “Katrina” label, when what happened was actually a result of faulty levees, NOT a devastating storm… and even the failed levees weren’t a result of the massive category 5 everyone thinks hit.

- The levees should have held. No one warned about breaching/breaking levees. Everyone talked about overtopping which would have caused flooding, but nothing near what happened when the levees broke. The levees were supposed to be able to handle category 3 conditions according to the corps. of engineers, which is why overtopping was minimal. But there were design and construction flaws that caused the levees to break. No one warned about this, even in the case of a category 5… the concern was massive storm surge overtopping the levees if such a storm hit.. but again, a MUCH weaker storm did.

- Blanco failed to ask for the National Guard in a timely fashion which she must do.

- Blanco spent a lot of time in front of cameras playing the blame game, while the Red Cross sat on the outskirts of the city with a convoy of supplies. Blanco told them not to enter because she didn’t want to create a magnet at the Superdome.

- etc. etc. etc. (insert everything the MSM won’t report here)

Here’s the bottom line though… What was the outrage over? Not over broken levees, but about all these poor refugees evacuees stranded. Why were they stranded? Because local and state officials failed to act.

I wish we could do simulation on what would have happened if the state and local officials called for a mandatory evacuation a few days before landfall, used their buses to evacuate everyone (of course there would be some who would refuse to leave still though)… Then the outrage would have been over the levees, but it would have been WAY toned down from Geraldo and Shep bawling on TV about lying reports of bodies piling up at the Dome, etc.

But there is a local and state government set up for a reason, to be first responders, etc. When we all saw what the incompetence of the local officials had caused, a normal FEMA operation was no longer doable. By that time the city was in chaos and in it’s condition there was no way for any fast evacuation or anything like that. Had that been planned for, it could have been done. Such a blunder by local and state people couldn’t have been predicted (unless you saw the D’s next to their names), so the Feds were left looking like clueless a-holes. You could argue that the feds needed to prepare for the worst and for incompetant local officials, but that doesn’t excuse who was truly at fault here.

It boggles the mind how the black community continues to allow its leadership to keep them down. People like Bill Cosby that tell them to help themselves get shouted down while Sharpton and McKinney who are promoting hate get lifted up

I do my part to unseat the dynamic duo.

after the flood wiped out the city, the McDonalds heiress gave a bunch of money to them

That makes me feel better about all those Quarter Pounders I’ve eaten.

Citizens were filling sand bags trying to hold back the water and after the flood wiped out the city, the McDonalds heiress gave a bunch of money to them and that was that.