[lit-ideas] Bush spin
- From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 10:48:14 EDT
Hi,
Here's the Washington Post article on the spin from the Bush admin:
Best,
Marlena in Missouri
An emerging power struggle
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to
wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D).
Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a
proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the
evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations
center said Saturday.
The administration had sought control over National Guard units,
normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the
request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration
of
martial law. State authorities 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 is an adviser and 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.
Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed
response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put
responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The
magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have
strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of
our citizens simply are not getting the help they need,especially in New
Orleans. And that is unacceptable."
In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said
one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our
constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with
the
governor."
And FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, a frequent target of New Orleans Mayor
C. Ray Nagin's wrath, said Saturday that "the mayor can order an evacuation
and try to evacuate the city, but if the mayor does not have the resources to
get the poor, elderly, the disabled, those who cannot, out, or if he does not
even have police capacity to enforce the mandatory evacuation, to make people
leave, then you end up with the kind of situation we have right now in New
Orleans."
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