How the Republicans washed out under Katrina

Photographers rarely are allowed into the forward cabin of Air Force One, but consigliere Karl Rove and other aides summoned them so they could snap pictures of the Boss gazing out the window as the plane flew over the devastation. Republican strategists privately call the resulting image—Bush as tourist, seemingly powerless as he peered down at the chaos—perhaps among the most damaging of his presidency.

"I'm unsatisfied with where we are right now," Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist told NEWSWEEK, "because I cannot be assured now that if a similar event were to happen today, that anything would be different."

Katrina seems likely to blow away much of Bush's agenda, already burdened by an expensive and increasingly unpopular construction project in Iraq. Congress already has shoveled out $62 billion in relief money alone, with several times that likely to be spent on rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Democrats declared Bush's costly Social Security-reform plan dead (again), as well as his plan to repeal the estate tax. Few Republicans disagreed. Frist didn't shut the door on a tax increase, saying, "I'm not going to rule it out nor am I going to endorse it." But he noted that Congress faces "the most expensive redevelopment project the country has ever seen. I would think, and predict, that it is going to cost money."

"Voters see not just a failure of execution, but of the Bush brand of conservatism," he said. The alternative? Senator Clinton offered one, informally launching her 2008 run by touting the last president's record on disaster relief. She wasn't proposing another Johnsonian Great Society, but, at least for Democrats, she was offering a flashlight in the dark.

A friend of mine runs a conservative Blog. He has heard all the partisan finger-pointing that has been going on since about the time the levy first started to crack, and still is the liberal's main contribution to the relief effort. There's plenty of blame to go 'round, but he has no time to sling mud right now, 'cause he's at the Astrodome actually doing something to help. I am signed up and waiting my turn to go to the "Big Easy", and work very hard. This is the most I've ever said on the subject, because I think it's kind of ghoulish to take advantage of these tragic deaths to argue a personal point of politics or say "I told ya so".

Besides, I need all my fingers to help sort through and package up all the donated clothing my town's local churches are preparing for shipment to TX and LA.

They have had four years and more money than at any time in history to ensure that any large scale emergency response here in the US is well coordinated and effective.

I have seen plenty of uncalled-for stuff from both sides, but I have to ask Lurch; wouldn't the you consider the "liberal's" contribution to the relief effort include to the replacement of Mike Brown, and can you at least have respect for the "finger-pointing" that prompted that change?

A friend of mine runs a conservative Blog. He has heard all the partisan finger-pointing that has been going on since about the time the levy first started to crack, and still is the liberal's main contribution to the relief effort. There's plenty of blame to go 'round, but he has no time to sling mud right now, 'cause he's at the Astrodome actually doing something to help. I am signed up and waiting my turn to go to the "Big Easy", and work very hard. This is the most I've ever said on the subject, because I think it's kind of ghoulish to take advantage of these tragic deaths to argue a personal point of politics or say "I told ya so".

Besides, I need all my fingers to help sort through and package up all the donated clothing my town's local churches are preparing for shipment to TX and LA.

Al Gore blasts Bush; personally airlifted Katrina victims

TERENCE CHEA

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Former Vice President Al Gore urged Americans on Friday to hold the Bush administration accountable for failing to adequately prepare for and respond to Hurricane Katrina.

"When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold ... the leaders of our nation accountable," Gore told environmentalists at the Sierra Club's national convention.

Gore had been scheduled to give a speech to state insurance commissioners in New Orleans this weekend about the likelihood that global warming will spawn increasingly deadly hurricanes. He decided to take his speech to San Francisco after that conference was canceled.

"The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis, it is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences," Gore said.

Bush administration officials have said Katrina's damage could not have been anticipated, but Gore rejected that.

"What happened was not only knowable, it was known in advance, in great and painstaking detail. They did tabletop planning exercises. They identified exactly what the scientific evidence showed would take place," Gore said.

In his Sierra Club speech, the former senator from Tennessee didn't mention an act of mercy that he was personally involved in - his help airlifting some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans to Tennessee on Sept. 3 and 4. He did that at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of his son years earlier.

Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and accompanied him on the flights, told The Associated Press that "Gore told me he wanted to do this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."

An account of the flights was posted this week on a Democratic Party Web page. It was written by Greg Simon, president of the Washington-based activist group FasterCures. Simon, who helped put together the mission, also declined an interview.

On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

"The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute - food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.

Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.

"None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews," Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."

He also recruited two doctors, Spickard and Gore's cousin, retired Col. Dar LaFon, a specialist in internal medicine who once ran the military hospital in Baghdad.

Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape, personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in New Orleans.

About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on Sept. 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga.

---

Associated Press Writer Duncan Mansfield in Nashville contributed to this report.

ON THE NET

Simon's account: https://http://www.democrats.org

Dear MoveOn member,
In the face of the enormous tragedy unfolding in the Southeast, the response from MoveOn members and the general public to our volunteer housing efforts has been amazing and heartwarming. Since last Thursday, offers of over 150,000 beds have been posted at hurricanehousing.org, with over 50,000 of those spots in the Southeast.

The thanks that mean the most, of course, are those of the people who have found a place to stay. Here's what Mary, one of the Katrina survivors, had to say: "I bought a condo in Biloxi just 10 days before Katrina to be closer to family after my husband's death last Jan. No motels were taking reservations so I looked on the web...that is how I came across hurricanehousing.org. What a blessing in this time of need. I'll be staying with wonderful Susan and her cats for one week."

Over 1,500 people like Mary have responded to the postings, seeking housing for 11,000 hurricane victims—even as most relief organizations are still focused primarily on saving everyone they can from the most immediate dangers. With over a million people displaced, as attention shifts to finding medium-term solutions for those crammed into churches and other makeshift shelters, we expect that the housing offered so far will be snapped up.
That's where you can help:

Offer housing: If you can shelter someone in need, even if you're nowhere near New Orleans, you may be able to make a difference for someone who has lost everything. The need is most urgent in the following locations: all of Texas and Louisiana; Washington, DC; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Memphis and Greensboro, North Carolina. But victims are also being moved to cities further afield, including Boston, Chicago, and even St. Paul, Minnesota. Post your offer of a spare room, or a bed, or even a couch here:

http://www.hurricanehousing.org/?id=...bSPTsnRs.hA0jQ

Donate: We've also partnered with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As part of their effort to help victims of Katrina, they're working to match victims to available housing, and providing additional transportation out of New Orleans and emergency supplies to those affected. They're strapped for funds to do this important work, and need our help. You can donate online right now at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=864&t=4

We're doing everything we can to get these offers into the hands of those in need. We've set up a toll-free hotline so people without internet access can call in and get help finding housing. Celebrities—from Rosie Perez to Moby to Tim Robbins to the Beastie Boys—are helping us publicize the website and hotline through public service announcements and other outreach.

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org Political Action is readying plans to hold the Bush Administration to account for its failures in preventing and then responding to this disaster, and make sure that Congress provides the aid that's needed.

Here are a couple more stories from the victims and their families:

I went out of town for the weekend. When I found out about the hurricane, the airline wouldn't let me return home to get my things or my dog. So I had to sit and watch in horror as the waters came in and see everything from the television. I'm distraught not only because I want my dog, I want to be home, but because I only had three classes left to graduate. [Through your site] I found a place. It was a miracle. The guy renting his apt was moving and I have 30 days to stay here and that gives me time to find a job and more permanent housing. He also hooked me up with a job. I will be attending the University of Houston Monday. I can't tell you how grateful I am to people like him and others who responded and opened their homes to me.–Dara

We moved to New Orleans in 2003 and bought a house which was under 12 feet of water following Hurricane Katrina. We evacuated safely but were at a loss as to where we would go while waiting for the endless water to drain from our city. We applied at hurricanehousing.org and got two responses within 24 hours.–Ann

Today's New York Times also includes a story of a family that was placed through hurricanehousing.org. The Mixons, from a New Orleans suburb, have plenty to worry about with the mortgages on their home and a now uninhabitable rental property adding up and the possibility that their business won't survive. The offer by Shannon O'Leary and Alex McKinney in Cummings, GA, provided not just shelter near family members, but a new friendship for both couples and their 4-year old daughters in a time of trouble.

Precisely how many deaths did Bush cause here? Anyone care to place an actual number on it? So far, I see 40. Does anyone want to go for 50?

edit: I missed the sarcasm in the last sarcastic thread, so I'm not sure if this thread was meant to be sarcastic or not. But I guess I'm going to have to assume it's sarcastic because what I'm seeing here is beyond irrational. Its beyond delusional. A hurricane hits and breaks levees that take decades to build, flooding a below-sea-level city in the worst national disaster in the history of the US, and the resulting deaths are somehow politically aligned? I suppose you guys blame Clinton for the Northridge Earthquake, right?

If Brown were the real target, maybe they could get credit for that - but everyone here knows that Brown was only being used as ammo for the sake of attacking Bush.

Precisely how many deaths did Bush cause here? Anyone care to place an actual number on it? So far, I see 40. Does anyone want to go for 50?

edit: I missed the sarcasm in the last sarcastic thread, so I'm not sure if this thread was meant to be sarcastic or not. But I guess I'm going to have to assume it's sarcastic because what I'm seeing here is beyond irrational. Its beyond delusional. A hurricane hits and breaks levees that take decades to build, flooding a below-sea-level city in the worst national disaster in the history of the US, and the resulting deaths are somehow politically aligned? I suppose you guys blame Clinton for the Northridge Earthquake, right?

While I see conservatives... saying how they shouldn't help the Katrina victims anyway because they're poor and black and got what they had coming.

C'mon now, do you have a link to some quote that says that?

Kyleb, I can see your point, and it's not that I don't think Brown needed replacing, but no, I can't really say that I "respect" the finger-pointing at this particular time. The change of personel didn't put food or drinking water in the hands of the victims, it didn't provide housing for the displaced refugees. It could have waited till a later time, these people are in desperate need right now, and replacing one face with another in some distant office somewhere isn't the best way to help. It just seems as though some folks are less interested in the human needs of the victims, and more interested in the political symbol they can provide to rally followers to their own cause.

But we could turn this around. In the engineering thread, people are talking about what cuold be done in the future to prevent such a disaster, or at least limit its effects. Maybe we could start telling about the relief efforts we've seen and (for those of us who are able) perhaps even talk about our own participation. Look how much time we all spend discussing the theoretical; we already have a strong sense of community. This might be a chance for the people of this site to unite for a common goal in the real world. Kind-of a "PFer's reliefers" squad, y'know?