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McCain has been taking some sharp jabs at the Bush Administration in the past couple days during his visit to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the hardest hit area of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A video report from ABC News:
Here’s a report on it from AOL News as well:
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain on Thursday sharply criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and vowed, “Never again.”
McCain, putting some distance between himself and fellow Republican President George W. Bush, said if he had been president during the 2005 catastrophe he would have immediately visited New Orleans during the initial shock aftermath of the killer storm.
“I’m just saying I would’ve landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally,” he said.
Two days after the hurricane made landfall in August 2005, when immediate recovery efforts were chaotic, Bush surveyed the damage during a fly-over in Air Force One while returning from a trip to the West Coast.
On Thursday, McCain went on a tour of the lower Ninth Ward, a New Orleans neighborhood still struggling to recover from Katrina 2 1/2 years after the storm struck.
“I want to assure the people of the Ninth Ward, the people of New Orleans, the people of this country: Never again, never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it was handled,” McCain said.
Later, talking to reporters on his campaign bus, McCain said “all levels of government are to blame for the catastrophe that took place.”
“I’m not specifically singling the president out … but he shares the blame, obviously,” he said.
I’m not sure who can disagree with McCain on this, there was failure at all levels of government, from local to federal and in between. He’s really trying to win points with his statement that he would have landed his “airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally,” who knows.
Certainly McCain needed to do this in order to distance himself from any charges that the Bush administration was the main failure during Katrina, whether that’s true or not, McCain’s clearly trying to put forth that he would have done things differently as President.
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You know Nate, Bush bashing is so popular now, and of course there was plenty of blame at the federal level. But my sister, my son, and my nephew all lost their homes in Katrina, and the first blame in New Orleans definitely went to the New Orleans Mayor, the second to the state govenor. But once it rolled upstairs to Bush, it just stuck there.
I agree, disasters like that start on the local level, they are most prepared, or should be, to respond. The federal government is good at handing out money, not responding to local civil disasters. The local and state governments are the first lines of defense in that case.
I think discovering that Micheal Brown was so horrifically under-qualified for his job as head of FEMA probably paved the way for this. His previous position was Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, from which he had been forced to resign, yeah?
It seems as if he could only have gotten his position through nepotism, and having Bush commend him on a job well done didn’t help. There was plenty of blame to go around, but when corruption like that becomes so obvious, then people look for the most prominent officials to point their angry fingers at.
Michael Brown lying on his resume kept the local and state governments from acting before the federal government?
Brown was incompetent for sure but I’m not sure that caused the incompetence at the local level from the city of New Orleans or the State of Louisiana. They were simply incompetent under their own power, despite Brown’s lacking credentials.
Not at all, as I said there was plenty of blame to go around. As almost everyone says, I think it was a massive failure at every level. There were particular people who were heroes, but it was an all-system failure. My point was simply that I do think Brown was the biggest attraction of attention to Bush, and the reason why at the end of the day the fingers are pointed most upward at him.
People don’t like to disperse blame. It’s too complex, so they remember the guy at the top of the food chain - because he failed too. But the truth is that everyone failed in a pretty awful way, and the local and state’s governments failure shouldn’t let FEMA off the hook any more than the other way around.
You’re both right, but let me interject, from personal experience, that no one expected Katrina. No one was prepared because we had had too many hurricanes for too many years that just were cat 1 or 2’s, and we all (my entire family is scattered along the coast) became lazy about preparations. The local government also became lazy in training, and were lost when here comes the meanest storm ever by some standards. Trust me, pictures or videos on the news didn’t do it justice. Should local and state governments have been more prepared? You betcha, they did a miserable job on most levels - except for the US Coast Guard - and most of the local and state officials acted like they were in a daze over the whole thing. The federal government could only respond to the needs the local and state government said they had, and they were in mass chaos and couldn’t put together a rational sentence. To top it off, New Orleans got all the press while Biloxi looked like the victim of a “shock and awe” attack.
I would like to know what McCain would have done differently. To say he will do better, and not explain HOW, is not satisfactory to me.
Christopher, I don’t remember Obama or Clinton saying what they would have done differently, either. In fact, and you can remind me when if I’m wrong, when has either of them addressed it? I know Obama went through there during the primaries, but I don’t recall any statement from him. Do you?
You’re absolutely right, Babs. None of these three candidates have given explanations of what they would have done differently. The most irritating thing for me about all three of these candidates is their propensity for promising things without explaining how they’ll carry them out. Fred Thompson actually explained HOW he would solve problems, which is one of the reasons I believe he is qualified. I don’t know about you, but I detect arrogance in practically everything McCain and Huckabee have been saying.
The way I see it, and I know many don’t agree, is that these candidates want you to look to the future and forget the principles that made America great. They don’t tell you HOW they will solve messes (Nancy Pelosi and the gasoline prices, for example). They focus on the past only to convince you of how bad it is, as Obama has done with his statements about bigotry from small-town America. They’ve also done that by blaming Bush for the Hurricane Katrina mess, while not saying HOW they will improve things. Their plans, based on their records, are socialistic, and they don’t want to explain them in depth because most Americans would find them outrageous. Bigger government is less helpful and more harmful, as we know.
Your last statement said it all. And one of the reasons I support McCain is because he is for less government at the federal level and more at the local and state level. And I think until that gets done, none of their answers matter anyway, because half our problems will only go away when much of the government is returned to the level it belongs to.
Bigger government equals more harm?
Tell that to the thousands of americans that have died since February 18, 1971, because of Richard Nixon handing ALL the healthcare in the United States to the big companies like Kaiser Permanente and similar HMOs.
I don’t believe that government should put his hands in many things, but to let the big companies to handle the healthcare of the american people and let thousands umprotected (they let some to die, as we have seen) just because it would be more profitable for them… that’s a monstruosity that no one… not even you, Christopher, should support.
To erase ALL the power of the government in the welfare of the people is something irresponsible to do.
Don’t support that and speak in such terms of absolutes. It’s supporting a crime.
Michel, read before you write. No one said big companies. And don’t tell others what they should or shouldn’t support, or tell others what terms to speak in. Hello, this is America.
America is a place of values. Is a country of good ways, of ways than can be perfected and improved. Is not only the country of free speech. Free speech is there for a reason, not just for using it in itw own terms. Free speech is there to allow us to gather ideas and make things better, just when we see how other people think and can identify with the ideas of others.
If I say such things is because I hope you and Chistopher have some of the same values I have (good will to others, for example) and then I can protest against what I believe it is an “absolutist statement”. Is some areas (many areas), more government control is more harmful than helpful. But in some matters the government is required to intervene to balance things and allow a better life for everyone.
And one of those areas, I believe, is health-care. I don’t want you to think like me. I just want to state things that I consider very important because I’m trying to appeal to the part of most human beings (you and Chris, for example) by talking about the deterioration of healthcare after putting it away from the state incumbency.
I want to say that, sometimes, in some places like healthcare, bigger government is better for the people.
And I’m sure you and Christopher want what is best for the people.
But I’m willing to listen to your possible counter-arguments.
After all, that’s why we have free speech.
To arrive to the best possible alternative,
not just for itself.
Basically, the reason that government-run health care will fail is because it doesn’t encourage competition. Competition among businesses, with minimal government involvement, gives people incentives for being better than the competing businesses. If health care is one business, run by the government, we will have specialists who are unhappy with their inability to get a better salary. They’ll be discouraged from their inability to get better pay or position, and they’ll become lax. (It is a component of communism.) Paperwork, the bane of every bureaucracy, will be more important for keeping your job than excellence and promptness.
I’m gaining a healthy fear of government. As Fred Thompson said, a government that’s big enough and powerful enough to give anything to you is also big enough and powerful enough to take anything away from you. It becomes unable to solve problems like Hurricane Katrina. Let people become masters of their own fate with free enterprise :).
I don’t think government-run health care is the solution. But I do think there should be an Universal healthcare plan. In countries like Canada where there is free medical care service, there’s also private practice. I think we should have both in this country, and then there would be REAL competition. That would help to balance the prices on some medications and insurances that are way too much expensive and vital to the life of many citizens that can’t afford them.
Canada, the UK, France, even third world countries of Latin America, have free medical service alternatives for those who need them. In many undeveloped economies these services are not as good as the private ones, but in others like the UK they are as good as those ones. And neither Canada nor France (and specially not the UK) are socialist states. They are as capitalista as any other capitalist country.
But the US are the only country in the western world without free universal health care. And that costs lifes.
Much of the information you may need to see an opinion on the matter favoring the free health care alternative is in the documentary “Sicko”, as you may know. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly suggest you do. It’s the best pro-free healthcare argument out there. It doesn’t advocate total control on the matter. If you don’t agree with it, at least you’ll know you’ve heard some well-thought arguments and comparisons.
And, judging from what I’ve seen in your comments, I believe you are reasonable enough to be umbiased about it and watch the film with an open mind. If you still disagree after that, then I know you’ll do it because you still believe in your reasons. And that’s very upstanding.
Have a good day
Regarding McCain and his healthcare plan, here’s an interesting anecdote. Tell me what you think:
http://blogs.wsj.com/wash.....insurance/
And, in what seems to be a surprising turn of events (ate least it surprised me), now McCain is changing his stance in healthcare and contradicting his previous views on the subject. Check it out:
http://www.politico.com/n.....Page1.html
With this McCain is showing a great deal of flexibility and has scored some major points with me. He seems to notice quickly when he may be disinformed about a subject, and it’s a very good thing he’s trying to correct it. Even if it is for his campaign’s sake, I think is very admirable.