Posted by
Kari Berele on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 12:29:04 AM
The Democratic plan---find a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina for example)---locate the nearest Republican (Bush, for example) and hook that baby to his hip forever. Did Bush lock people in their New Orleans homes and refuse to let them leave? Did he remove the distributor caps off of all those parked school buses to keep them from being used for evacuations? The truth is that Katrina was more devastating than expected and people did not take personal responsibility to prepare. (I live in Florida and I’ve seen it happen; we are told repeatedly to buy water and supplies --- the hurricane hits --- after the hurricane, news crews film people standing in long lines for water and complaining about the inefficiency of the government.)
Now, the Obama administration has made what I consider an “oh-my-I-wish-he-hadn’t-said-that” statement. I found it on the official White House website under the Katrina section (YES—there is a section called Katrina! It is among such topics as Faith, Arts, Child Advocacy, Science, Sportsmen, and Transportation). Among other things, it says,”President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will NEVER AGAIN (my emphasis) allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.”
We all know what happens when someone says “never.” Does the overused phrase “epic proportions” mean anything? To boldly proclaim that we will never again have catastrophic failures depends on first of all, a government that has money, and secondly, it depends on having a manageable disaster. Even Obama and all his wisdom might not foresee what lies ahead.
At least when the next calamity hits, we can stop talking about Katrina.