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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Today's statement of the obvious

Gee, do ya think?

But according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the bigger problem appears to be John McCain's ties to President Bush.

In the survey, 43 percent of registered voters say they have major concerns that McCain is too closely aligned with the current administration.

Trash the federal government's Katrina respsonse a few more times, John. See if you can't get that down to 30 percent.

Comments

Doug
Thu, 05/01/2008 - 10:56am

Re: Katrina response -- I seem to remember there being an unfortunate picture of President Bush and Sen. McCain cutting a cake on one of the first few days when Bush wasn't responding to Katrina.

A J Bogle
Thu, 05/01/2008 - 1:15pm

The one I liked was Bush fishing in the flood waters!

A J Bogle
Thu, 05/01/2008 - 1:16pm

They don't call him McSame for nuthin'

tim zank
Thu, 05/01/2008 - 5:03pm

Yeah, who would think of eating cake within a few days of a natural disaster. They never got the memo about all birthdays and celebrations by republicans and/or white people were to be suspended until Kanye West gave the go ahead.

gadfly
Thu, 05/01/2008 - 5:20pm

The Katrina response was displayed on national television as incompetent by the incompetent media. Read Popular Mechanics incredible article on the rapid response and the heroics of the responders. here is an excerpt:

"GOVERNMENT RESPONDED RAPIDLY

MYTH: "The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."--Aaron Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 4, 2005

REALITY: Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.

Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations that first day--some just 2 hours after Katrina hit the coast. Hoistless Army helicopters improvised rescues, carefully hovering on rooftops to pick up survivors. On the ground, "guardsmen had to chop their way through, moving trees and recreating roadways," says Jack Harrison of the National Guard. By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard personnel saved more than 33,000.

These units had help from local, state and national responders, including five helicopters from the Navy ship Bataan and choppers from the Air Force and police. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries dispatched 250 agents in boats. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state police and sheriffs' departments launched rescue flotillas. By Wednesday morning, volunteers and national teams joined the effort, including eight units from California's Swift Water Rescue. By Sept. 8, the waterborne operation had rescued 20,000.

While the press focused on FEMA's shortcomings, this broad array of local, state and national responders pulled off an extraordinary success--especially given the huge area devastated by the storm. Computer simulations of a Katrina-strength hurricane had estimated a worst-case-scenario death toll of more than 60,000 people in Louisiana. The actual number was 1077 in that state."

Of course, we could have saved billions of dollars if the local residents had fled the storm as they were ordered to do.

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