Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff just made a remarkable claim:
I can tell you that not an hour goes by that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the people who are actively suffering in all of these parts of the Gulf.Exactly what else SHOULD he be thinking about? How clueless can he get?
Michael Chertoff is giving another clueless, tone-deaf press conference. Everything is going great. The plans they had in place have worked terrifically -- if they HADN'T developed these plans, the response in the past would have been much slower, so what you're seeing is a "validation" [his word] of the great work and planning the Bush administration has done. And who could have expected a hurricane AND a levee break. (Uh, everybody?)
He's throwing out a lot of gobbledygook: the National Guard are "citizen-soldiers" (a phrase they've suddenly leaped on in the past day) and it takes time to mobilize them. (Which is exactly why people are angry Bush waited SO LONG to mobilize them in sufficient numbers and he is STILL mobilizing more today long after it was painfully obvious there were not enough boots on the ground.
Another continuing Bush tactic: "legal issues" stopped them from doing their job. We've posted below the legal documents signed by the governnor of Louisiana asking for help. But do they really want us to accept that some form was signed off on and THAT'S why the response has been so incompetent? Do they want us to think a single person in this country would have objected if Bush had acted sooner, if Homeland Security had lived up to its stated mission to take control in catastrophic natural disasters? (Read their own website below.)
And golly, we're diving into national stockpiles to fulfill prescriptions for only the second time in history. Ain't that great? What the hell does he think those stockpiles are for?
