[at-l] Another point of view

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 07:05 PM 9/5/2005 -0400, Martin Fors wrote:
>With finger pointing going only one way on this list thus far, here's an
>alternative view sent to me by a thru-hiker friend.  rusty

Ya know, I've been watching NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, reading local and regional 
newspapers and various web sites on the catastrophe and although many of 
them are asking the question "What took so long?", it is the people they 
are interviewing that are prompting the question and frankly, it's a damn 
good question.

Even GWB was shown saying that the response wasn't acceptable. And while 
Bill O'Reilly can give rational explanations for why the bureaucracy moved 
so slowly, to people standing to in putrid water, sitting on rooftops or 
crowded into shelters with no food or water, they sound a lot like excuses. 
Many of the interviewees lumped the president, the governor and the mayor 
all in together for blame.

The news casts I've seen point out Bush's reductions in funding for levee 
improvement but they also pointed out that it's been going on for the last 
20 years and that even if Bush had approved all the funding the work 
wouldn't have been done yet and the projects it was designed for were only 
intended to withstand a category 3 hurricane anyway.

When you're the top dog and something goes wrong, you are gonna get heat. 
Which president was it that said "If you can't stand the heat, get out of 
the kitchen"? Bush's apologists should stop whining (they have a lot less 
to bitch about than the folks along the Gulf) and start figuring out how to 
fix those things that caused the delay. If somebody doesn't take the 
initiative to fix it the same thing will happen the next time and whomever 
is in office will take the heat over that one. OTOH this is a golden 
opportunity for Bush to show what he's made of if he can fix the situation.

Like everything else in life, it's a matter of attitude, even for 
presidents. Is he going to step up to the plate or complain about being 
unfairly blamed for things he couldn't control. Time will tell.