Carter deserves to be set on fire - he's ruined more lives than any U.S. President since LBJ & Nixon's South Asia adventure, and in far more places than LBJ & RMN.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 1, 2005 10:31 PM

If you are asking the hypothetical question I think you are, my answer is I wouldn't either.

does anyone notice that Clinton just got suckered into being a 'face' for the New Orleans efforts?

it's gonna be a little hard for Hillary to jump ugly on the Admin in the sure-to-follow recrimination period which seems to have started yesterday -- at precisely the moment the Big Creep was standing there, biting his lower lip, at the announcement ... too funny!

Jon: Thank you very much. I've been tempted all morning to break BrothersJudd etiquette to point to the Captain's Quarters post "Thank You, Mr. President." President Clinton -- now our best ex-president -- is quoted unambiguously defending the government's response against CNN:

CLINTON: Let me answer this. The people in the Superdome are in a special position. And let me say, I've been going to New Orleans for over 50 years. There's no place on earth I love more. They went into the Superdome, not because of the flooding, but because we thought the hurricane was going to hit New Orleans smack dab and they'd be safe in there if they didn't leave town.

What happened was, when the levee broke and the town flooded, what did it do? It knocked out the electricity and it knocked out the sewage. They're living in hellacious conditions. They would be better off under a tree than being stuck there. You can't even breathe in that place now.

So I understand why they're so anxiety-ridden. But they have to understand, by the time it became obvious that they were in the fix they were in, there were a lot of other problems, too. There were people -- they were worried about people drowning that had to be taken off roofs.

This may be a warning to other Dems. Trying to turn Katrina into a patisan blame fest, will hurt you.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 2, 2005 10:45 AM

Bush is on the offensive now damning local efforts as unacceptable and the full force of the United States will be on view for the world to see. Very nice work. The media would have been jumping up and down and tilting the globe off its axis if Bush had navy battleships steaming to the area. Now they're forced to concede they're necessary.

Republican politicians better get on board too and start assigning blame for our continued dependency on foreign oil directly where it belongs -- on Democrats who have also controlled New Orleans and Louisiana politics since the year dot. The woefully inadequate response by local authorities, the lawlessness of the natives and the looting by New Orleans police officers must be made public so this area can be cleaned up politically as well as cleaned up physically.

Here's a New York Times article reporting that the levee that failed had been upgraded. Maybe my suspicions aren't that far off base.

Posted by: erp at September 2, 2005 11:24 AM

erp:

The cost-benefit analyses on the design (to Category 3) for much of the levee system dates back to the 50s and 60s.

I'll bet if the 82nd had jumped onto the Superdome and Convention Center and shot just 5 (armed) people, two things would have inevitably happened: 1) no more wilding, and 2) the left would have gone bat-crazy. Order depends on strength, not the robes of a judge or the skin color of either the criminals or the mayors.

The problem for N.O. is that there haven't been riots or armed bands of looters/criminals in Biloxi, Gulfport, Slidell, or other equally devastated communities (to my knowledge). Why not? Can Ray Nagin or Kathleen Blanco answer?

I would even if he wasn't.

No argument there Jim.

Posted by: erp at September 3, 2005 9:15 PM