The Washington Post: “Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking [Gov. Blanco] to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.”
If there was an ultimatum issued and troops and aid to save lives were delayed because of this power grab, then the real investigations need to begin right now. Sickening. (via MeFi)
It is mind boggling to me that you immediately seek to impeach Bush over a “power grab” when it is clear that the Feds were trying to unify the chain of command. How can Blanco and Nagin demand more federal help and bemoan the poor reaction of the feds and then insist that they continue to retain partial control of aspects of the relief effort?
Interesting how Bush is the bad guy no matter what happens.
And it’s mind-boggling to me how you can sit there and remain passive and defensive when there is a clear case here for a quid pro quo rather than action without any Faustian sort of deal. First off, I never said that Blanco and Nagin weren’t part of the problem. (In fact, Nagin even confessed that he screwed up — something that I don’t think we’ll ever see come from Dubya’s lips.) Second, Bush’s slack response is indefensible when one considers similar response time with Ivan, Betsy or the 1906 earthquake. Because of this, lives have been lost, babies hae died. While it will be some months before the facts come in: How dare you. How dare you indeed.