Blanco decided to hire Democrat crisis management consultants instead of managing the crisis
We have said that we thought there was a Democrat PR element to capitalize on Katrina. The appearance a week ago of FEMA head under Clinton, James Lee Witt, is suggestive that the boondoggle was not limited to a plan to make a little hay out of whatever hurricane hit the Democratic state of Louisiana, but to capitalize on the specific problems of Katrina for partisan PR purposes. Note the order of events. Here is a WaPo story from last Sunday, September 4, showing that while the deplorable Blanco was dithering about federal troops, she had no problem making the decision to hire the Clinton FEMA chief:
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly…..
Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.
It is even worse than the Post makes it out to be. Blanco contacted Witt on Thursday, September 1, according to the Boston Globe. Then on Friday, September 2, Mayor Nagin made his famous direct appeal to President Bush aboard Air Force One — the one in which Blanco said she needed “24 hours” to decide if she would accept federal troops. Here, once again, is what Nagin said of that meeting:
The president looked at me….He said, “No, you guys stay here. We’re going to another section of the plane, and we’re going to make a decision.” He called me in that office after that. And he said, “Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor.” I said – and I don’t remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision….She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn’t happen, and more people died.
Clearly, Mayor Nagin was desperately reaching out for help, which the governor refused to decide upon. She had no problem deciding on other matters, however.
The deplorable Blanco had no problem deciding to contact and hire a Democrat crisis management firm, but somehow had great problems making simple and obvious decisions to actually manage the crisis, like letting Federal troops in — if those decisions let in the Bush administration for action and, we suppose, credit. We really want to know who Blanco needed to talk to in the 24 hours after Mayor Nagin’s desperate plea: the result of Blanco’s 24 hours of deliberation was to hire a Democratic consulting firm and to shun real, tangible, large, and direct federal assistance. We would really like to see Blanco’s phone records for that period. (Big HT: Larwyn)
September 11th, 2005 at 8:33 am
How can the Washinton Post, LATimes, New York Times give this woman a pass? We saw for ourself what happened there Truth will set GWBush free.
September 11th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Blanco should have called the people of eastern North Carolina concerning calling Witt(??) for help. She would have received a LOUD—NO! We still remember the “un-response to Floyd.
September 11th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Dear Jack,
Perhaps you don’t read my emails or comments. I began sending this out
on Sept 7th – this is a file copy i sent to myself from a posted comment.
Jeeze at least a HT is in order. Not a crazy old lady. Post this as comment
in one of yours yesterday with updatesl
INTERESTING THAT JAMES LEE WITT IS AWOL!!
MY disability prohibits physical activity – but does not inhibit my mind and gives
me the time/opportunity to monitor all cable news plus blogs at least 17-18 hrs,
a day – older we get less sleep needed.
Subj: THEY HAD TO KEEP BUSH OUT
Date: 9/8/05 4:43:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Greerwynn
To: Greerwynn
It is so SIMPLE, too CYNICAL for we
Greys to immediately consider. We are
not into that “cut off our noses to
spite our faces” mentality.
Bush made a lot of political hay in
Florida during the relief efforts
after each of the four hurricanes
that struck this important state in
2004.
Kerry lost Fla, Praise God! Bush won
Louisiana and Dems are worried about
holding Governorship in future. They
could not allow Bush/Republicans to
be heros. FEMA did great in Fla because Jeb had all local and state
first responders organized.
THEY HAD TO KEEP THEM ALL OUT.
Had the levees not breached, the
Governor could have been made a star
by the LSM. THEY HAD TO KEEP BUSH
OUT!
The Dems had to keep him out. And now
I will go one step further – perhaps
too far – but wonder what would be revealed if we had the phone records
of James Lee Witt, Blanco, Landrieu
brother and sister,Clintons (or close
minion) from August 23rd thru today.
And speaking of Mr. Witt, who was all
over the news nets and was given extra long segments with softball and leading questions to guarantee he
expressed all his concern and how he and Bill would have done it all so much better.
I have not seen him for past two days.
You see, I am disabled and have the time to make my remote circuit of CNN FNC CNBC MSNBE CSPAN CSPAN2 CNN HL
often enough that I only hear commercials when I am reading or
responding to Blogs.
The Louisiana FEMA director is AWOL,
Blanco is now dead meat.
Nagin has ratted Blanco out, do you think she’ll try to finger her
“advisers”? Her appointed LA FEMA
DIRECTOR?
larwyn | Email | Homepage | 09.07.05 – 11:11 pm | #
September 11th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Blanco is a total idiot! Totally incompetent. How did she ever get elected to be Goivernor??? Couldn’t be because LA is a notoriously corrupt state in its “governing abilities” could it? Hmmm My husband comes from MS and knows all about LA; he has lots of relatives there or some who have “escaped” long, long ago!
He’s a Repub and has NEVER voted for a Dinocrat in his life!!
September 11th, 2005 at 9:48 pm
Thanks for the “Big HT”.
I’m getting pretty good at picking out the dots.
I have the benefit of a remote set to the CNN, FNC, CNBC, MSNBC, CSPAN,
CSPAN2, % CNN HL
Sadly my cable provided does not supply Bloomberg, BBC or CSPAN3
on basic cable. Would gladly trade for all the ESPN’S MTV’S etc etc,
but that is battle for another day.
Everyone is finally spotting the worm turning in the Left Stream Media
and Reid and Pelosi idiotic reasons for not participating in Congressional hearings.
So according to the Democrat Leadership everything that has ever been done to
this date from the first sessions of CONGRESS are NULL and VOID unless,
the voters had placed 50% of one party and 50% of the other as members
of each house of the U S Congress.
Pelosi sailing away on some “mystery ship” – so bad that the NRO Buzz reports
that some moonbat blogs now think she is “Republican plant”.
And Drummond at PoliPundit has a chronology of President Gore.
This is dead serious business we are involved in – but the left and the Dems and
the Left Stream Media are just so damn pathetically funny!
Does Ted Kennedy continue to use terms that refer to water just to get an almost daily mention by James Taranto? Pathetic!
September 12th, 2005 at 10:51 am
Blanco hails from the Lafayette area of LA, which is where I live. She did not carry her own home town or parish in the election. We know her too well to be that stupid. She was elected by the same people she left outside for days at the SuperDome and Convention Center. That’s who voted for her and elected the Dunce.
While it’s disheartening to see people suffer in NO for days on end in the hot sun, they can only blame themselves and the wonderful Govenor they elected. Don’t think for a minute she would let Bush, Vitter or Jindal come in and look the hero.
BTW, her husband is a big wig in the Acadian Ambulance Company (largest operator in LA and signs deals to operate in parishes. )
The two I’m loving get trashed are the Landrieu’s, Mary and Mitch. Mary is about as incompetant as Blanco. Mitch is LT. Gov so god help us if something happens to Blanco until the next election.
What most people do not realize is that this ordeal has changed politics in LA forever. The welfare is no longer in NO and there goes the Dems base. Blanco, the Landrieu’s, Bill Jefferson and the rest of the NO Dem cronie’s days are numbered and they know it!
September 12th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Maybe Blanco thought a FEMA chief with experience would do better than one without. Based on what happened in NO, would you hire Brown for his counsel? The mayor, the Govenor, FEMA, and Homeland Security all screwed up royally and absolutely no one owns up to any wrong doing. They’re all victims.
Hell, I think we ought to ship the whole damn bunch over to Mississippi for lessons on how to serve the people that elect them. For example; do not let people fry like eggs on concrete highways. Not one of these yahoos could figure out how to drop water and food on a bridge for five days. Are you kidding me? They not victims, they’re stupid.
Even more frightening … these are the people that are going to manage the rebuilding process.
September 13th, 2005 at 6:16 am
Almost 4 years to the day, America has waited in vain
for Islamic leaders to denounce Islamic terrorism,
and now clerics worldwide are hunted down just like
their Islamic beheading buds.
Is this deja vu with American black leadership? They
seem unable to denounce the human depravity viewed
by the world coming from mostly black malcontents
taking advantage of the horrific conditions in the
Big Easy.
Alabama and Mississippi have suffered equally in
Katrina and yet we don’t see the rapes, murders and
lawlessness. Let’s face it, Biloxi, MS is gone.
Liberal and black leadership efforts to blame Bush
for the meltdown in the BIG SLEAZY will only make the
RED STATEs REDDER. Federal disaster relief was
granted 2 days prior to Katrina ever arriving.
Local and state officials failed New Orleans. That
is obvious to the the RED STATES. What New Orleans
and Lousiana needed was an effective and well
executed Emergency Disaster Plan.
Shut up Ray Nagin you are embarrassing yourself. If President Bush had not demanded an evacuation of New Orleans you would have even greater of your own incompetence on display. Go back to Cable Broadcasting.
PS The latest racial divide in the polls back me up. Vast numbers of reasonable thinking Americans (read RED STATES) are not buying the demo(n)cratic bilge.
September 15th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
I remember the way the Blanco machine smeared Bobby Jindal in the race for governor prior to her election.
Clearly, the voters chose poorly. You get what you pay for.