100,000 pages of notes from Governor Blanco's office were put online Friday just as the GOP is forgetting about their responsibilities and promises to NOLA. It's always the same story with Bush regardless of the subject. There are always so many promises and then a complete failure to follow up on anything unless it's a juicy handout to his friends. Poor people just don't contribute enough to the GOP coffers I suppose. I guess this is what the GOP calls compassion conservatism.
"We need everything you've got," Blanco is quoted in a memo as telling President Bush on Aug. 29, the day Katrina made landfall. But despite assurances from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that 500 buses were "standing by," Blanco's aides were compelled to take action when the FEMA buses failed to materialize, documents show. "We need buses," Andy Kopplin, chief of staff to Blanco, said in an e-mail to Blanco staffers late on Aug. 30, the day after the storm hit. "Find buses that can go to NO [New Orleans] ASAP."
Two days later, on Sept. 2, Blanco complained to the White House that FEMA had still failed to fulfill its promises of aid. While cloaked in customary political courtesies, Blanco noted that she had already requested 40,000 more troops; ice, water and food; buses, base camps, staging areas, amphibious vehicles, mobile morgues, rescue teams, housing, airlift and communications systems, according to a press office e-mail of the text of her letter to Bush.
He added that Bush's "entire effort on behalf of the federal government has been reflected in his and his people's nonchalant attitude to the people of LA. You may give him this to read."
