Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

UPDATED: Wizbang with more . AJ at Strata Sphere with his usual flair, attacks!
UPDATED 2: Bryan Preston goes off, right there with you the local radio stations are doing the exact same thing as the Times-Picayune. Its genetic, people in Louisiana get exactly the sort of Government they deserve.

After the criminally negligent mishandling of virtually every aspect of this disaster by every single Louisiana politician, one bright spot emerged last night at 4:00am September 3. My wife finally got her mom out of the hands of the worst bunch of incompetent public officials to have ever existed in a state known for incompetency. At 4:00am, the buses that left New Orleans at 5:30pm arrived in Dallas. Buses that had to be lent to the city since our ever-idiotic officials managed to allow every single bus both public transportation and school buses to be caught in the flood while they were busy crying on National TV instead of making tough decisions.

Thank god for President Bush for pushing Gov “Cry Baby” Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation…too bad he couldn’t have been here to hold her hand, that might have helped her get a grip and start giving rational orders instead of crying on TV. We could have also wished that he might have been here to explain to her that when you have a city with one of the highest crime rates in the Nation and you have a hurricane of terrible power bearing down on your state you call up the Guard. Get them ready even if you are not 100% positive that the hurricane is heading your way and not only that but you expect looting and give appropriate orders to the Guard. If nothing else they might have been able to help our neighbors since it was certain a massive terribly powerful hurricane was going to hit somewhere near us, it was obvious Friday, and there was absolutely no doubt by Saturday we were the target. Still our leaders refused to make the sort of decisions that leaders are supposed to make; instead, it took President Bush to get her to make a decision. Having to depend on President Bush to run our state shows exactly how poor we are in leadership. Perhaps the best thing we could do is to request that Texas admit us into their state.

Let’s face some very uncomfortable facts for those of you too genteel to understand reality. Blacks are 7 times more likely to be the victims of homicide and 6 times more likely to commit homicide according to 2002 statistics provided by the US Department of Justice. . This is not rocket science folks, when you take a look at the crime statistics you cannot escape the conclusion that the single largest group, poor black folks, that was left behind by incompetent city and state officials was exactly the group that are the most victimized by crime and the most likely to commit crime. If it was a surprise to government officials that the city descended into anarchy then that surprise should be used as evidence of gross negligence at their criminal trial. A FEMA expert was surprised at the violence, say what? In a city that was known at one time as the Murder Capital of the United States and even now is one of the most dangerous cities in the Country and he was surprised, this man is in charge of Federal Management of Emergencies? I am with Brendon Loy on this one, the man is either an idiot, liar or combination of both.

So when you put together a shelter for last resort only someone in denial of reality or an idiot or a combination of both would forget to add the sort of security required to keep that mass of people under control. Furthermore we have covered this stretch of misery before on a much smaller scale when the Superdome was first used as a shelter of last resort during Hurricane Georges. The 14,000 that took shelter there exhibited EXACTLY the same behavior as those who took shelter this time with rampant crime and other destructive behavior leaving the Superdome a shambles.

In the shelter of last resort there were no stockpiles of food or water, and apparently no security. All of these plans were not the responsibility of President Bush, no the sole responsibility for the complete failure at the Superdome lies soley with State and City officials. Gov Blanco and Mayor Nagin failed, but it would be folly to lay all the blame at their feet. They are undoubtedly incompetent, but exactly who was it that elected them? Who was it that refused to pay enough attention to the shambles of Louisiana politics that incompetents like those two were allowed into positions of responsibility?

This is not to dismiss the errors and mistakes that occurred at the national level where we got the sort of officials who are good at harrumphing when the Boss says harrumph so that they can “protect our phoney-baloney jobs ” On the national level we have a bunch of the sort of bosses that fill in checkboxes to cover their asses while avoiding the sorts of decisions that expose those very same asses.

On September 11 our government failed us by allowing the worst terrorist attack in history to happen in our greatest city and the nations capital, no one was fired. Not a single Government official was held responsible in any meaningful way. Now the worst natural disaster has just destroyed one of the most beautiful cities in the country and it we will await the results to see if anyone is held responsible. And if our worst fears are borne out thousands died not during the Hurricane but afterwards while Government officials dithered. Criminal Charges must be brought against those shown to be negligent, nothing less will satisfy those thousands of poor innocents who suffered at the hands of thugs and criminally negligent city officials.

The Governments primary responsibility is our protection against criminal behavior and foreign invaders when it forgets or bungles that primary duty heads must roll. They have not rolled yet over 9/11 even though a substantial amount of fault can be directly laid at both specific people and entire bureaucracies. They have not rolled yet in regards to the coverup that was the 9/11 commission. We shall see if they roll because of this much larger tragedy. My suggestions for being fired immediately would start with the Michael Brown of FEMA.

In the end we all must take responsibility for allowing this failure. The managing of the government is our affair and we ignore it at our peril. Both 9/11 and Katrina have shown that the threat to us is not merely theoretical. When you decide that instead of keeping a close eye on those who control our safety, to watch a ball game, to sit dumbly in front of the Tube watching others live make believe lives, you threaten us all because our government depends on the participation of us all. In the end we have all failed because of a belief that we could get away with not paying attention. Nothing does well when it is ignored. Our allowing something they realized was as destructive as a government to function without our interested oversight would have appalled our founding fathers.

Now someone tell me how to start the process to have Louisiana dissolved into Texas.

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