Conservative Papers Rip Bush's Hurricane Response
- From: Voter <voter1@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 21:45:15 GMT
Editorials, Including Those at Conservative Papers, Rip Bush's Hurricane
Response
By E&P Staff
Published: September 02, 2005 12:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Editorials from around the country on Friday -- including at the
Bush-friendly Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times -- have, by and
large, offered harsh criticism of the official and military response to the
disaster in the Gulf Coast. Here's a sampling.
Dallas Morning News
As a federal official in a neatly pressed suit talked to reporters in
Washington about "little bumps along the road" in emergency efforts, New
Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued an urgent SOS. The situation near the
convention center was chaotic; not enough buses were available to evacuate
thousands of survivors, and the streets were littered with the dead.
Moments later, President Bush took center stage and talked at length about
the intricacies of energy policy and plans to keep prices stable.
Meanwhile, doctors at hospitals called the Associated Press asking to get
their urgent message out: We need to be evacuated, we're taking sniper
fire, and nobody is in charge.
Who is in charge?
Losing New Orleans to a natural disaster is one thing, but losing her to
hopeless gunmen and a shameful lack of response is unfathomable. How is it
that the U.S. military can conquer a foreign country in a matter of days,
but can't stop terrorists controlling the streets of America or even drop a
case of water to desperate and dying Americans?
President Bush, please see what's happening. The American people want to
believe the government is doing everything it can do -- not to rebuild or
to stabilize gas prices -- just to restore the most basic order. So far,
they are hearing about Herculean efforts, but they aren't seeing them.
***
The Washington Times
Troops are finally moving into New Orleans in realistic numbers, and it's
past time. What took the government so long? The thin veneer separating
civilization and chaos, which we earlier worried might collapse in the
absence of swift action, has collapsed.
We expected to see, many hours ago, the president we saw standing atop the
ruin of the World Trade Center, rallying a dazed country to action. We're
pleased he finally caught a ride home from his vacation, but he risks
losing the one trait his critics have never dented: His ability to lead,
and be seen leading.
He returns to the scene of the horror today, and that's all to the good.
His presence will rally broken spirits. But he must crack heads, if
bureaucratic heads need cracking, to get the food, water and medicine to
the people crying for help in New Orleans and on the Mississippi coast. The
list of things he has promised is a good list, but there is no time to
dally, whether by land, sea or air. We should have delivered them
yesterday. Americans are dying.
***
Philadelphia Inquirer (and other Knight Ridder papers)
"I hope people don't point -- play politics during this period." That was
President Bush's response yesterday to criticism of the U.S. government's
inexplicably inadequate relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina.
Sorry, Mr. President, legitimate questions are being asked about the lack
of rescue personnel, equipment, food, supplies, transportation, you name
it, four days after the storm. It's not "playing politics" to ask why.
It's not "playing politics" to ask questions about what Americans watched
in horror on TV yesterday: elderly people literally dying on the street
outside the New Orleans convention center because they were sick and no one
came to their aid.
The rest of America can't fathom why a country with our resources can't be
at least as effective in this emergency as it was when past disasters
struck Third World nations. Someone needs to explain why well-known
emergency aid lessons aren't being applied here.
This hurricane is no one's fault; the devastation would be hard to handle
no matter who was in charge. But human deeds can mitigate a disaster, or
make it worse.
For example: Did federal priorities in an era of huge tax cuts shortchange
New Orleans' storm protection and leave it more vulnerable? This flooding
is no surprise to experts. They've been warning for more than 20 years that
the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain from emptying into the
under-sea-level city would likely break under the strain of a Category 3
hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4.
So the Crescent City sits under water, much of its population in a state of
desperate, dangerous transience, not knowing when they will return home.
They're the lucky ones, though. Worse off are those left among the dying in
a dying town.
The questions aren't about politics. They are about justice.
http://tinyurl.com/7pxsu
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