New Whitehouse.gov Takes A Shot At Bush On Katrina

The new White House website unveiled by President Barack Obama's team Tuesday includes a shot at former President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Under the "agenda" portion of the site regarding Katrina, it reads: "President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[NoSocialism.com]

Yet where is the Criticism for Obama's failed Kentucky Response in this Ice Storm?
http://www.nosocialism.com/2009/02/obama-fails-katrina-test.html

[Chapeau]

+

It is about time NOLA got an apology from somebody from the Federal Government!

... just sux that it had to wait until Obama took office...

+

[MsAttitude]

I wonder how many whites were helped by the black caucus....­BTW: when will that rac.ist group be dismantled?

[anthonytaurus]

as soon as the defacto old boy system that's been in effect for the last 5 centuries is acknowledged AND dismantled.

[ContraEgoiste]

Right, because whites have been disfranchised by blacks through out history. I mean, just about 60 years ago they were not allowed to vote. And how about those white slave plantations. And the non-personhood status they had to endure even after being set free. I mean it's not like blacks need political cohesion groups to advance their equality when through history they have always held the power.

heh

[wdw505]

name me one slave.....­...or one person that has ever been a slave.....­..and is still living....­..

[Adrienne Williams - Huffpost Blogger]

Very nice change on the design front. I knew they stated at 12:01 a.m. the site would change hands... Now I can finally start looking at the site and keeping up to the days business. LOL Mr. President, if you need another IT person, just call me up. I so want to be on his new IT/Web team!

[pjburke]

A whole lot of rethug know-nothings have been squawking about state and local responsibility for Katrina.

Supposedly, this absolves the federal government -- and hence their beloved President Bush (who just happened to be on vacation..­. again) -- of responsibility.

How pathetic.

Even the Bush Administration's General Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports fault FEMA's inadequate, ineffective and slow response..­. recognizing that under the Stafford Act, FEMA has primary responsibility for coordination and management of emergency response in ALL cases such as Katrina.

But no doubt they will squawk on an on, in their fact-free way.

[wdw505]

it is 3 years later in does not matter now

[Bienville]

I suppose it's the same for the World Trade Center after over 7 years. It doesn't matter now.

[kareemachan]

I bet it matters to the victims still living in formaldehy­de-exuding trailers.

[ContraEgoiste]

Ahhh yes, after nearly destroying the country and through out the years that the public will have to endure the fallout of their legacy, something that is going to take a herculean effort to fix by the new administration, the recurring chant comming fron the right in an attempt to wipe away their criminality will sound:

"..... not matter now."

Expect to hear it quite often. heh

[GeorgeKaplan]

Spoken Like A True T R O L L!

[Enid]

One giant flushing sound. _PLEASE

[haval2]

The Rethugs can dish it out for 8 years and now are the Party of sour grapes. Heck of a bunch!

[atlantajoe]

pretty pathetic but not surprising. Notice the dems that were most responsible for the fiasco were not listed. Then they re-elected Nagin, let them swim out next time.

[Grunty1]

They weren't playing air guitar as the hurricane hit land.
In fact, they were pleading for aid prior to that.

[atlantajoe]

They had 48 hours to leave. The mayor chose not to use the evacuation plan in place, then the people were trapped and it was all Bush's fault.

[GeorgeKaplan]

Your membership card to the human race is being revoked.

[wdw505]

only the issuing authority or court can revoke....­....you are neither

[Formulaplot3]

Look the decider was on vacation before the Katrina Disaster and AWOL after the Disaster. His appointees were clearly political cronnies that did nothing but order up rooms at the best hotels while an entire American coast was destroyed and New Orleans drowned. What kind of responsible decision making did Bush exercise when he picked an amatuer horse judge for this very important public safety appointment. This is a critical safety & emergency planning agency - FEMA. After the deluge we saw many thousands of people paddling through swamped streets, pleading for help at flooded hospitals and suffering from lack of aid at a major sports arena. The Federal government under Bush allowed obstructionist opposition to Federal Programs for two terms. The small government mantra and cronnism transformed FEMA into a dis-functional government agency.

Like the lack of security planning before 911, I can only bet that this administration held NOT ONE emergency disaster planning meeting with FEMA.

Federal aid response after ANY disaster on American soil is a primary obligation for any president. It is not an insult to characterize the Bush administration Katrina response as an absolute failure. It is simply the truth. So don't blame it on the states & local governments. No one at the Federal level had their backs...

[PDXTransplant]

Sounds like SweetChocolate1 has a chocolate chip on their shoulder..­.

Moving forward!

[Rhia]

I am saddened and disappointed on the Obama team. Why bash an outgoing president in a website that's only supposed to provide information about the white house? There's another blog/ website to that.

[apduncan1]

Because the sorry piece of humanity that left EARNED the bashing!!!

[frantaylor]

How can one say that one is going to "do better" without making reference to what came before?

[PDXTransplant]

If you're that saddened by the Obama team over the truth - then you must be devastated by the Bush administrations lies and deceit? Am I right?

[WheelofVoter]

Bush deserves every ounce of criticism for Katrina and it marks the beginning of the end for the neo-con era. His approval ratings only went down from that date never to recover (they were already below average at that point). With that said, Obama is walking a fine line of officially communicating past W misdeeds which are sure to alienate the 25% dead-enders (those who still think Bush did a good job) and pacifying the righteous anger of those at the lower quadrant of SES (socio-economic status) and specificaly, Katrina victims. After reading remarks from the dead-enders themselves on this site, I think Obama may want to tone down the anti-Bush rhetoric and move forward. The dead-enders will never agree on the job performance of their hero. With that said, Bush has done a great job of unifying the remaining 75% of us who know darn well that the previous administration dropped the ball everytime on everything at every turn, perhaps for Exxon-Mobil purposes. Also, Bush should avoid travelling abroad to avoid arrest for war crimes. He also may want to avoid watching the media for the next 40 years as he will constantly hear about how much better the new president is doing. Bush's punishment is that he gets to be reminded almost everywhere he goes outside of his teeny-tiny bubble. That is HIS water-boarding. Have a pretzel!

[wdw505]

how does 52% jump to 75%

[Grunty1]

By doing a good job.
In contrast, doing a bad one takes you from 90% to 20%, like Bush proved.

[rabiddog6708]

Where is "Your doing a heck of a job" Brownie these days? The Repubs would probably want him back on the job because they don't see anything wrong with Dubya's response to Katrina.

[ArmyCav22]

The truth is all 3 branches of Governments failed in this occasion.

[doublels]

Hey--Bush was the "decider" & ruled all. I can buy Congress failing on this but how did the Supreme Court play in on that?? They would have nothing to do with it.

[deeppeace]

And his appointees determined the urgency of the response. Wasn't it Michael Brown who complained that, doggonit, he didn't have time to finish his dinner because of the whiners the government abandoned at the Superdome?

[SwissChocolate1]

For decades, the federal government alloted money to rebuild the levees. The money was used for "other reasons" by the democratic governors in Louisiana over the years. How in the world can this be Bush's fault?

[ForObamaInDallas]

Proof, please.

[SwissChocolate1]

Google it. Inform yourself. I am from Houston, and I have heard that the levees have needed to be shored up for at least 30 years (as long as I can remember). You are from Dallas....­where the heck have YOU been?

[Sundialsvc4]

When the Federal government is responsible for a certain thing ... such as the infrastructures that shield an entire city from flood-damage ... then as they say, "failure is not an option." If money is allotted to build levees, then that isn't a state's personal piggy-bank and the Federals are responsible for making sure that it doesn't become so. The Federal mandate is simply, "get 'er done."

It does not do anyone any good if they are "face-down in river water" while someone high-and-dry in the Beltway, or in the state capitol, is pointing fingers.

And, it's just not wrong ... not wrong at all ... for the executive management team to flatly insist that when the Federal government is responsible for doing something, that "something" must be done. Period. End of sentence.

[SwissChocolate1]

These were monies allotted to the state that the governor had discretionary spending ability over.

Bottom line, the dems (who have been in power in La for over half a century) let the people of New Orleans down, not President Bush.

[Bienville]

The state and local government have no say in how the Corps of Engineers spends its money. Federal flood control money is not allocated to the discretion of local authorities.

In fact, the locals have to come up with 30% of the cost of any Corps project.

If anything, the truth is that the federal government misspent local money on levee projects, rather than the reverse.

[SwissChocolate1]

Then why was it that I have heard over many years that the corps of engineers was always saying that the levees needed to be shored up? If THEY were responsible and were responsible for the failure, why were the funds mis-spent? I live in Houston, and FOR YEARS I have heard that the levees were in dire need of a face-lift. Why wan't it done?