Driving to work I thought I should have re-cast my comment to something more like- why blame Bill Clinton fo something the Bush Administration was unable to do as well?
Exactly--and why blame the Bush administration for failing to do what the Clinton administration would have been equally unable to accomplish? The severity of storms in the Gulf is cyclical and, as it happens, we are coming out of a 30-year lull in activity. Sooner or later, a severe hurricane was going to strike NOLA and, as it happens, it occurred on Bush's watch.
The incompetence at FEMA certainly made an unavoidable natural disaster a far worse human catastrophe than than it should've been and the Bush administration deserves a heaping measure of blame for that. What I object to is letting anger, disappointment, and guilt about the treatment of refugees lead us to make poor decisions about how best to aid them and prevent future disasters.
Emotionally, I'm in full sympathy with them: I wouldn't want to be told to leave the neighbourhood where I'd spent my whole life and start again elsewhere either. Rationally, though, I have to acknowledge that this may be the lesser evil. Is it asking too much that political leaders at least entertain the possibility rather than follow Nagin's example and reject it out of hand?
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2005-12-08 07:23 pm (UTC)Exactly--and why blame the Bush administration for failing to do what the Clinton administration would have been equally unable to accomplish? The severity of storms in the Gulf is cyclical and, as it happens, we are coming out of a 30-year lull in activity. Sooner or later, a severe hurricane was going to strike NOLA and, as it happens, it occurred on Bush's watch.
The incompetence at FEMA certainly made an unavoidable natural disaster a far worse human catastrophe than than it should've been and the Bush administration deserves a heaping measure of blame for that. What I object to is letting anger, disappointment, and guilt about the treatment of refugees lead us to make poor decisions about how best to aid them and prevent future disasters.
Emotionally, I'm in full sympathy with them: I wouldn't want to be told to leave the neighbourhood where I'd spent my whole life and start again elsewhere either. Rationally, though, I have to acknowledge that this may be the lesser evil. Is it asking too much that political leaders at least entertain the possibility rather than follow Nagin's example and reject it out of hand?