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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (250813)	9/10/2005 4:35:42 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573941

FEMA managed the evacuation. They worked with the states and the local government to see that it was done. I'm not sure what you mean by "managed". I think that it is accurate to say that FEMA played, if anything, a "consulting role" -- in particular, advising the locals on when to evacuate, etc. I'm not saying the process can't be improved. Perhaps FEMA's responsibility needs to be changed so that it can step in a priori. I think that Chertoff made a really good assessment of the first responder situation, and have no doubt he will pursue changes that permit FEMA to become more active, sooner, in the event the first responders are unable to perform. My entire point has been that given the circumstances, FEMA's performance has been reasonable. I still have seen nothing to indicate this isn't the case. But I would be shocked if something of this magnitude could be undertaken without finding many, many areas for improvement. Anyone who claimed otherwise would be a liar IMO. Still, the politicizing of this event by some of the Dems (Pelosi, for example) is unforgivable. And frankly, Mary Landreu's attack on Bush was totally unwarranted; she should take a long, hard look at herself first (I suspect the point of the attack was to take the focus off of her own failure to adequately push for financing levee system improvements). What I see is a group of largely competent federal officials being viciously attacked on a partisan basis in the middle of the worst disaster ever to hit the country. While I would agree that Brown's resume probably does not support the job he is in, he DID come with the recommendation of the previous FEMA executive and DID perform quite well last year, so the jury is out IMO on whether he did a good job until such time as an appropriate review can be undertaken. None of this changes the primary responsibility to FEMA, however. Local officials SHOULD have evacuated the place, and should have provided for suitable shelter facilities. Had these things been done, we would not be discussing the subject today.