re: #23 marjoriemoon

I don’t agree with that at all. Not that I want to argue about Katrina, but the safety of Americans IS the concern of our government, whether from natural disaster or say maybe a terrorist attack.

If someone exploded a bomb in New Orleans and the Bush response was the same, would that have been acceptable?

Bush spent 487 days at Camp David. I believe that marks more vacation time than any president before him.

The safety of New Orleans citizens was first and foremost the responsibility of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Mary Landrieau. Bush could not have taken over that relief effort (Landrieau and Barber refused the offer to nationalize their guard units) short of violating the Posse Comitatus statutes. As soon as the Feds had permission they were there under General Honore.

Revisionist history aside Bush did not fail to respond to Katrina for reasons of race or political party.

There were organizational issues with FEMA and coordination issues with military units which were revisited and directives were revised in case of future large scale regional disasters.