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Headline: Troops Arrive in New Orleans With Shoot-To-Kill Orders: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco says that the guardsmen are allowed to open fire on hoodlums taking advantage of from the devastation by Hurricane Katrina. These troops are fresh back from Iraq,...

I'm up in South Dakota right now for my birthday weekend, so expect blogging to be light. I'm also going to be helping my grandmother move today, so there's that. However, fear not: the drive for our local Sheriff's Relief...

Time for a Katrina blogburst. Instapundit wants a post recommending relief efforts to donate to, and here are the two I like: The American Red Cross. Soldiers' Angels, which has set up a special fund for servicepeople in the disaster...

United States of Shame

DISCLOSURE NOTE: The above is Maureen Dowd(y)'s header on this column of tripe.

Whys do the libs make it so easy to rip their spiel to shreds? This is a primo case in point, as the Chief will humbly demonstrate:

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens. America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

The very first sentence - no resemblence to reality. I guess the rest is to compare New Orleans, LA to Baghdad. Not much resemblence in reality, but why should THAT be a hindrance to a good slam at the administration.

Ms. Dowdy need to be swatted with a cluebat here: FEDERAL troops are NOT sent in UNTIL REQUESTED by state and local authorities. National Guard is under the direct control of the state governor, unless they are "federalized". In both cases Maureeen, why aren't you asking your fellow-lib moonbat Gov. Blanco why she was asleep at the switch on this one? NOTE: In Mississippi, and Alabama there was no problem with getting the troops out. It seems the Governors THERE did their jobs...and while there was a major disaster there - worse in Mississippi than in Louisiana, there was no anarchy, since (GOP) GOv. Haley Barbour knew how to get his ducks in a row.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.... Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Maybe because the excuses are just a statement of fact - which I realize is an alien and difficult concept to the denizens of the NYT.
If this was such a big problem for so long, why didn't the State of Louisiana and City of New Orleans as least make SOME attempt to beef up the flood defenses. One would think that this would be their first concern. Over the years, this issue was discussed by them, with the ultimate decision being not to bother with spending THEIR money on the situation. So why then is it a problem for the rest of the country?

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

...unless the Clintonista Jamie Gore-lick's "firewall of separation" prevented the relevant official from getting the word as to what was being planned. Remember that? No? Oh, that's right, THAT wasn't the President's fault, so it doesn't exist in the minds of MSM pseudo-wonks such as yourself.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl. In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

"...doing anything we can..." except putting your money where your mouth is. HEY! If you have a problem - fix it! All roads don't automatically lead to Washington for taking care of local infrastructure.

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done.

Again Dowdy, we are a FEDERAL republic...the first responsibility is at the local and state levels. Also, the state and local emergency response plans stated in plain English which one would (apparently falsely) assume you can understand, that there was a 72-96 hour inherent delay in the application of Federal resources to a disaster situation.

Lacked empathy? Why? Because they didn't go running around like a bunch of headless chickens making a ruckus as moonbats are wont to do to exhibit the "symbolism" of "doing something" instead of giving the plans the required time to be implemented. Also...the Chief admits bafflement as to the responsibility of Secretary of State Condie Rice in this...I wasn't aware that New Orleans was in a foriegn country, at least since the 1804 Louisian Purchase. I mean the State Dept. IS tasked with FORIEGN relations, no?

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

That bit with the hotel guests was managed by the Black mayor of NOLA. Yep, he's shameful!

But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could should make this administration Louisiana and New Orleans leadership implode.

IN SUMMARY: What a total load of dreck, but, all too typical for the NYT and its inimitable Maureen Dowdy.

If they gave Pulitzer's to Internet blogs, NROs The Corner would get one for its Katrina coverage. I would encourage readers to give it a look and see what smart, caring, and fiesty conservatives are saying. I don't claim to...

I haven't been anywhere near a computer today, so I hope everyone was keeping an eye on Instapundit's blogstorm and lining up a good relief effort or three to donate a little dough to. Or, you could have picked either...

Regarding John Thune and Ellsworth I used a quarterback analogy. The quarterback gets too much blame when the team loses and too much credit when the team wins. I guess the same goes for presidents. Bush is getting more blame...

Chad Schuldt takes some east coast conservatives to task for suggesting that we rethink how much money the federal government spends on agriculture and highways. As I mentioned earlier today, it is not all that surprising that Chad uses these...

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