 |
| |
|
| |
|
|
MosesPresley
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
http://www.economist.com/agenda/dis...368975&fsrc=nwl
Not many Presidents have the guts to engage the country in long-term projects that, while risky, can make the world a better place. Fewer still have the tenacity and moral clarity that allows them to stick with such projects even when circumstances and poll numbers are working against them.
I doubt everyone will find these to be positive qualities in a leader, but I know some of us do... |
Is that the only thing that you can come up with, that he has the guts to take risks? Why is risk taking considered an admirable trait in a world leader? If I went into an interview and told my potential employer, that I was a risk taker, but don't worry, in the long term the company will be better for it, I don't think I would make it to the second interview.
When Bush was running for office, he never said anything about running on a platform of risk taking.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Guynemer
|
|
I can not believe some of the stuff coming about about "Brownie" these past couple days... the horse association stuff is nothing.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
MosesPresley
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Precisely. And when Hillary claims she will support the military and try to create jobs from those that have gone overseas. That will mean she will look to pull the baby killing militant storm troopers (in her hippy baby booming lefto pinko vietnam biased against the military mind set) troops from Iraq here to the US. |
What does Hillary have to do with Bush's ineptitude?
George W. Bush is the best argument against dynasties. There should be a constitutional amendment against any immediate close family members of a president being allowed to run for POTUS for at least one or two generations.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Guynemer
|
|
Chertoff is giving "Brownie" the non-firing firing right now.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Chemical Ollie
|
 |
Bored of this board
Jan 2002
time: 06:37
|
|
Not all bashers are hippie democrats
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4229238.stm
quote:
Powell criticises storm response
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said he fails to understand why better preparations were not made before Hurricane Katrina struck.
Two-thirds of Americans think President George W Bush could have done more to tackle the floods and damage in the south, one opinion poll suggests.
---
President Bush is to begin a third visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, with stops in both Mississippi and Louisiana, a spokesman said.
American political figures in both the Republican and Democrat parties have accused the authorities of responding slowly.
There were "a lot of failures at a lot of levels - local, state and federal", Mr Powell told ABC.
"There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans - not enough was done," he said.
Mr Powell's views will be heard with particular interest as he is a highly respected figure and a prominent black American, the BBC's Justin Webb reports from Washington.
The Pew Research Center, which ran the new opinion poll, also indicated that two-thirds of the African-Americans questioned believed the government reaction would have been faster if most of those affected had been white.
But Mr Powell said so many African-Americans were left unprotected be cause they were poor, rather than because they were black.
It "should have been a blinding flash of the obvious... that when you order a mandatory evacuation, you can't expect everybody to evacuate on their own", he said.
Debate still rages in Washington into how independent the inquiries being launched into Katrina - led by President Bush himself and the Senate - will really be.
US Under-Secretary of State Karen Hughes stood by the president's response to the crisis.
"He's the president of all the people that we saw, who so desperately needed help and... wants to make sure that we get everyone the help they need, that we get New Orleans cleaned up and that we get about the business of rebuilding," he told the BBC.
---
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Jack_www
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Well, that's the thing. local and State governments have a LOT of priorities, a lot of things to do: thinking about how they will deal with Catastrophes of biblical proportion is really NEVER what will be in the front of their minds, simply because in that case, you are really screwed. You are correct, given how everyone saw this coming, the Lousiana authorities should have had a more comprehensive plan. But this is the deep south, and these are poor people we are talking about, lets not kid ourselves about just how much was going to be planned for the poor.
|
This diaster was predicted by many many experts. People knew that New Orleans was one of the areas that was at high risk of getting hit by a hurricane. Not being prepared for it, there is no excuse.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ogie Oglethorpe
|
 |
Marietta, GA
Dec 1999
time: 05:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Not all bashers are hippie democrats
|
I would agree.
quote:
Assigning blame
Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- In less enlightened times, there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews).
A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush.
This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the evacuation of New Orleans is not that National Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans, but that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration budget requests for New Orleans flood control during the five Bush years exceed that of the five preceding Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing revenues would have been spent wisely by Congress, targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and reconstruction would have been completed in time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when you realize that, as The Washington Post notes, ``the levees that failed were already completed projects."
Let's be clear. The author of this calamity was, first and foremost, Nature (or if you prefer, Nature's God). The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in descending order of culpability by the following:
1. The mayor of New Orleans. He knows the city. He knows the danger. He knows that during Hurricane Georges in 1998, the use of the Superdome was a disaster and fully two-thirds of the residents never got out of the city. Nothing was done. He declared a mandatory evacuation only 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. He did not even declare a voluntary evacuation until the day before that, at 5 p.m. At that time, he explained that he needed to study his legal authority to call a mandatory evacuation and was hesitating to do so lest the city be sued by hotels and other businesses.
2. The Louisiana governor. It's her job to call up the National Guard and get it to where it has to go. Where the Guard was in the first few days is a mystery. Indeed, she issued an authorization for the National Guard to commandeer school buses to evacuate people on Wednesday afternoon -- more than two days after the hurricane hit and after much of the fleet had already drowned in its parking lots.
3. The head of FEMA. Late, slow and in way over his head. On Thursday he says on national television that he didn't even know there were people in the Convention Center, when anybody watching television could see them there destitute and desperate. Maybe in his vast bureaucracy he can assign three 20-year-olds to watch cable news and give him updates every hour on what in hell is going on.
4. The president. Late, slow and simply out of tune with the urgency and magnitude of the disaster. The second he heard that the levees had been breached in New Orleans, he should have canceled his schedule and addressed the country on national television to mobilize it both emotionally and physically to assist in the disaster. His flyover on the way to Washington was the worst possible symbolism. And his Friday visit was so tone-deaf and politically disastrous that he had to fly back three days later.
5. Congress. Now as always playing holier-than-thou. Perhaps it might ask itself who created the Department of Homeland Security in the first place. The congressional response to all crises is the same -- rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add one extra layer. The last four years of DHS have been spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and real estate) instead of, say, a workable plan for as predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane.
6. The American people. They have made it impossible for any politician to make any responsible energy policy over the last 30 years -- but that is a column for another day. Now is not the time for constructive suggestions. Now is the time for blame, recriminations and sheer astonishment. Mayor Nagin has announced that, as bodies are still being found and as a public health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels. Asked if it was appropriate to party in these circumstances, he responded: ``New Orleans is a party town. Get over it.''
|
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
09-09-2005 09:34
ACK!
|