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Holy Crap Bush Takes Responsibility for Something ... Brace for End of the World
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| occrider |
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Bush Takes Responsibility for Blunders
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
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"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.
"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.
The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.
"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.
He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.
As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."
He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said.
Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.
It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster.
Bush planned to address the nation Thursday evening from Louisiana, where he will be monitoring recovery efforts, the White House announced earlier Tuesday.
Paulison, in his first public comments since taking the job on Monday, told reporters: "We're going to get those people out of the shelters, and we're going to move and get them the help they need."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff introduced Paulison as the Bush administration tried to deflect criticism for the sluggish initial federal response to the hurricane and its disastrous aftermath.
Chertoff said that while cleanup, relief and reconstruction from Katrina is now the government's top priority, the administration would not let down its guard on other potential dangers.
"The world is not going to stop moving because we are very focused on Katrina," Chertoff said.
Paulison, named to the post on Monday, said he was busy "getting brought up to speed."
He replaced Michael Brown, who resigned on Monday, three days after being removed from being the top onsite federal official in charge of the government's response.
Paulison said Bush called him Monday night and "thanked me for coming on board."
Bush promised that he would have "the full support of the federal government," Paulison said.
Chertoff said the relief operation had entered a new phase.
Initially, he said, the most important priority was evacuating people, getting them to safety, providing food, water and medical care.
" And then ultimately at the end of the day, we have to reconstitute the communities that have been devastated," Chertoff added.
He said the federal government would look increasingly to state and local officials for guidance on rebuilding the devastated communities along the Gulf Coast.
"The federal government can't drive permanent solutions down the throats of state and local officials," Chertoff said. "I don't think anyone should envision a situation in which they're going to take a back seat. They're going to take a front seat," he said.
Chertoff said that teams of federal auditors were being dispatched to the stricken areas to make sure that billions of dollars worth of government contracts were being properly spent. "We want to get aid to people who need it quickly, but we also don't want to lose sight of the importance of preserving the integrity of the process and our responsibility as stewards of the public money," Chertoff said.
"We're going to cut through red tape," he said, "but we're not going to cut through laws and rules that govern ethics."
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that some military aircraft and other equipment may be able to move out of the Gulf Coast soon.
"We've got to the point where most if not all of the search and rescue is completed," said Rumsfeld, who is attending a NATO meeting in Berlin. "Some helicopters can undoubtedly be moved out over the period ahead."
He also said there is a very large surplus of hospital beds in the region, so those could also be decreased. The USS Comfort hospital ship arrived near the Mississippi coast late last week. Rumsfeld added that nothing will be moved out of the area without the authorization of the two states' governors, the military leaders there and the president.
Elsewhere, workers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren't finding many sick people, even though the specter of diseases has alarmed relief and rescue figures. Instead, between 40 and 50 percent of patients seeking emergency care have injuries. The CDC has counted 148 injuries in just the last two days, Carol Rubin, an agency hurricane relief specialist, said by telephone from the government's new public health headquarters in New Orleans' Kindred Hospital.
While she couldn't provide a breakdown, Rubin said chain saw injuries and carbon monoxide exposure from generators are among them. Those are particularly worrisome because they're likely to become more common as additional hurricane survivors re-enter the city in coming days, she said.
The message: Those injuries are preventable, if people take proper precautions, Rubin stressed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050913...rina_washington
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Although the laws of probability dictate that the buck had to eventually stop at his desk at some point in time, I'm still frightened :nervous: |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Although the laws of probability dictate that the buck had to eventually stop at his desk at some point in time, I'm still frightened :nervous: |
John Kerry today (of all people) had a pretty good summation on this historical, parting-of-the-sea event by Bush:
"The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn�t get away with the inexcusable."
Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service (very non-partisan gov't group) did a review of the record to see whether or not Gov. Blanco took the necessary steps in a timely fashion to secure fed. assistance in the hurricane Katrina mess. The report was requested by Rep. John Conyers, and it came back yesterday. The marks were pretty good for Blanco, which you can read here:
http://www2.dccc.org/docs/conyersgaokatrina.pdf
The gov'ner no doubt will still have some blame, but this report does shed some nice light into her actions, as well as dispel some bull being thrown by the Right as they continue trying to take the blame off the fed.
(blatantly taken from J. Marshall's www.talkingpointsmemo.com |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
John Kerry today (of all people) had a pretty good summation on this historical, parting-of-the-sea event by Bush:
"The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn�t get away with the inexcusable."
Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service (very non-partisan gov't group) did a review of the record to see whether or not Gov. Blanco took the necessary steps in a timely fashion to secure fed. assistance in the hurricane Katrina mess. The report was requested by Rep. John Conyers, and it came back yesterday. The marks were pretty good for Blanco, which you can read here:
http://www2.dccc.org/docs/conyersgaokatrina.pdf
The gov'ner no doubt will still have some blame, but this report does shed some nice light into her actions, as well as dispel some bull being thrown by the Right as they continue trying to take the blame off the fed.
(blatantly taken from J. Marshall's www.talkingpointsmemo.com |
John Kerry. He just likes to listen to himself talk.
Clearly most people want to call this entire event a cluster. Everyone is going to get some blame for something that, in hindsight, simply wasn't done expeditiously enough or efficiently enough or what have you. However, bottom line(IMHO) is this: If things are disorganized and ed up at the local level, you can bet your last dollar that there will be disorganization and -ups at the state and federal level, if for no other reason, due to a lack of organization and efficient communication at the local level. IOW, Dubya can't save the day if Nagin and Blanco have their heads up their collective ass. If there is bad information and signalling coming from the local level, how can the federal government react properly, regardless of whether or not they have a gay horse judge heading the committee? |
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| St_Andrew |
Wow, I'm impressed as well! Some day perhaps he will admit Iraq was a misstake too! :nervous:
No seriously, that's great Mr. Bush!  |
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| Dervish |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Wow, I'm impressed as well! Some day perhaps he will admit Iraq was a misstake too! :nervous:
No seriously, that's great Mr. Bush! |
Interesting that tho I recon he's trying to show he can admit when he was wrong for this thing (which I think in time he (personally) will be seen as to have handled it not too bad).
And so by admitting to this he can prove that he still really thinks he was right on Iraq. |
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| Yoepus |
I was waiting when you guys would catch on to this today:p
I'm disappoint you all are like 4 hours late!:mad:
:D |
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| LiquidX |
| This is a slap to those that fought claiming Bush always right on spot... here you have the man recognizing guilt.. Spot On, Big Slap Slap.. something I give him a thumbs up for the first time. This made World Wide News hahaha |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
John Kerry today (of all people) had a pretty good summation on this historical, parting-of-the-sea event by Bush:
"The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn�t get away with the inexcusable."
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...and if the tables were turned? I wouldn't have held my breath lets put it that way... |
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| josh4 |
| I say Bush takes responsibility like that only when it would harm him more if it fell somewhere else. Where else is that? I don't know. I'm still waiting for an independent committee investigation. It worries me that Bush wasted no time to say he would head the investigation into what went wrong. I just have a problem with him seeing the results of the investigation before anyone else and then we have to rely on his word for what was actually found. |
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| DaveSZ |
Hehe, I couldn't resist posting this. |
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| trancaholic |
| ^^^^ You just made my day. LMFAO!:haha: |
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| DaveSZ |
Well, this made my day, so enjoy.
:)
| quote: |
Mr. President
by Bill Maher
Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more.
There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that.
You can't start another war because you used up the army.
And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become
the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.
Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare,
the credit cards maxed out.
No one's speaking to you.
Mission accomplished.
"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest
and walk away.
Like you did with your military service
and the oil company
and the baseball team.
It's time.
Time to move on and try the next fantasy job.
How about cowboy or space man?
Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things
that you as President could involve yourself in.
Please don't. I know,
I know. There's a lot left to do.
There's a war with Venezuela.
Eliminating the sales tax on yachts.
Turning the space program over to the church.
And Social Security to Fannie Mae.
Giving embryos the vote.
"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now.
Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives.
You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't
given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a ty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies,
the surplus,
four airliners,
two trade centers,
a piece of the Pentagon
and the City of New Orleans.
Maybe you're just not lucky.
I'm not saying you don't love this country.
I'm just wondering how much worse it could be
if you were on the other side.
"So, yes, God does speak to you.
What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'
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