Wow, that's convincing

Mike Slaven recently posted to his blog newsthoughts.net complaining about "accountability" over the response to Hurricane Katrina. I thought I might respond to some of it.

Title: It's called accountability, you f%$#s.
Well, I'm convinced already. With such a strong vocabulary, who can aruge a point like that?

Apparently blaming President Bush for an inadequate federal response is now "partisan mudslinging" or "the blame game."
One point that Mike has been trying to make is that the blame lies solely with the federal government. Yet, somehow, Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco are let off the hook. Why is that? Let's go in a little further.

Where is FEMA during all this? States and localities have relied upon FEMA for years to bolster their responses to disasters when local infrastructure has been destroyed. But we can't ask what the hell took them so long. That would be "pointing fingers."
Mike has been very reliant on the media here, so maybe he'll believe this article written by Jack Kelly (whom I linked to earlier today).

The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne.

A faster response than some of the most devastating hurricanes of the last two decades, yet FEMA is too slow? Hmm, interesting.

Have you seen the picture of buses sitting in a lot? He was just trying to avoid questioning on why they weren't evacuating people - never mind the question of where he was supposed to find drivers as the entire city was evacuating.
I've heard this argument a few times. Simple solution; the obvious start are the normal bus drivers. Now, obviously, we cannot expect that all of them will want to focus on others; they may have family members whom they want to get out. So, with a few days warning, could Mayor Nagin have not found volunteers to learn how to drive a bus? It should not be too hard to find some people who are willing to learn, and my guess is, if they can drive cars, surely these volunteers could figure out how to drive a bus, even if just to get them a few hours drive away.

When I see the images of people starving to death at the convention center, can I ask why?
Might want to ask the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security; they only prevented Red Cross from getting in to help.

Well, questioning a government response so awful that the misery was palpable on TV isn't called partisanship. It's called accountability, you f#@%s.
Again, he's convinced me. Mike's knowledge of four letter words obviously trumps anything said by myself or anyone else who believes that the state and local governments should be held accountable.

And the next person who accuses me or my dispossessed Democratic friends from New Orleans of just trying to jab the president is going to find himself jabbed in the face.
Threats of violence. Pitiful. I know Mike is smarter than this, but it'll be hard to convince others of this by such a statement.

It's funny. For a party that says it's all about accountability, the Republicans don't have any ability to even think that they should be held accountable for what went wrong when they were in charge.
We are about accountability. The only failures have come at the local and state levels; the thing is, we probably would not have said anything were it not for lefties Kanye West, Mary Landrieu, and Al Gore. Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy to say the least; the nation should have been united in the efforts to help the people of New Orleans. Instead, the left's first (and only) target has been the federal government. The local and state governments had everything they needed to minimize the loss of life (just ask Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, a.k.a. The Hurricane State), and this might have been forgiven. Going after the federal government when they were not responsible for the primary actions is irresponsible.

But what would I know; I'm just a f^%@.