Snippets from CNN, via dailykos
We saw mothers. We talked to mothers holding babies. Some of these babies are 3, 4, 5, months old living in these horrible conditions. Putrid food on the ground. Sewage, their feet sitting in sewage. We saw feces on the ground. These people are being forced to live like animals. When you look at some of these mothers your heart just breaks. We’re not talking about a few families or a few hundred families. Thousands of people are gathered around the convention.
I want to warn you. Some of these images that you will see they’re very very graphic. But people need see this. The people that are down there have been down there for days. People need to see what it is really like here. We saw dead bodies. People are dying at the convention center and there’s no one there to come get them. We saw an older woman, someone’s mother someone’s grandmother, in a wheelchair. Her dead body pushed up against the side of the convention center with a blanket over it. Right on the ground next to her another dead body wrapped in a white sheet.
People are literally dying. Right in front of us as we were watching this a man went into a seizure on the ground. It looked like he was dying. People tried to prop his head up. No one has medical training. No ambulance can come. It is just heartbreaking that people are just sitting there without food or water waiting for the buses to come tak ehtem away. People keep asking us – when are the buses coming. And I just have to say, I don’t know.
Jack Cafferty on CNN:
The thing that’s most glaring in all of this is that the conditions continue to deteriorate for people who are victims and the efforts to do something about it don’t seem to be anywhere in sight. [...]
The questions that we ask in The Situation Room every day are posted on the website two or three hours before we go on the air and people who read the website often begin to respond to the questions before the show actually starts. The question for this hour is whether the government is doing a good job in handling the situation.
I gotta tell you something, we got five or six hundred letters before the show actually went on the air, and no one – no one – is saying the government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamatous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I’m 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can’t sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don’t think the world isn’t watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it’s fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it’s handled this thing.
We’re going to talk about something else before the show’s over, too. And that’s the big elephant in the room. The race and economic class of most of the victims, which the media hasn’t discussed much at all, but we will a bit later.
Just in case you were wondering, this 
is what your president was doing, while this 
was happening (via boingboing). Current (very sketchy) estimates are that tens of thousands of people (mostly black and poor) were not able to leave the city. Those that are still alive and stuck there are dying, now.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:03 pm
What an immensely overpowering post. There are no words left to describe the travesty of mismanagement. Thank you Rita for reminding us that it isn’t about blaming, it is about accountability. If any of us managed our realms with such callous disregard for life we would be long gone. Hold the man and his administration accountable!!!! Apply a version of his NCLB–no country left behind to his works and deeds. Refuse to accept idiotic excuses for lack of prepartion, given the first hand experience and training that came with sending our personnel and resources into Asia following the tsunami. Refuse to allow them to reframe the discussion away from their own essential responsibilities. Put these deaths to the test of the International Criminal Court.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:07 pm
I missed spelled Risa’s name. For that i apologize. Lost in tears i am..
September 1st, 2005 at 8:28 pm
Bush is trying to show us that government is the enemy. He’s the point man for anarchy. New Orleans is his laboratory. All those unfortunate people are his lab rats. His non-leadership is the new leadership.
Have any super-rich died in the catastrophe? I didn’t think so.
September 1st, 2005 at 8:52 pm
this is a force of nature…..simply that…never before experienced…i too am upset and demanding of some action…why are not people being looked after? but…i believe the best effort is being made to help …i cannot sit here at my computer and judge…but can only see the eyes of the people trying to save lives…trying to save, trying to help….i cannot believe that anyone is blocking efforts….its just a matter of reaching those who need help…everyone wants to help…bottom line….i only wish the help was now…and i do not have answer to how to help…does anyone? besides what you are demanding of state and govt?…they are not withholding of help…but just are not perceived as helping…i cannot judge as i am not there…but give all the support i can…perhaps money to red cross or offer home to those displaced….this is horrible…but my focus will be on helping those in need, not tossing blame….that can come after we help those in need.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Criticism of the lackluster response to this tragedy is more than warranted, though I do not believe that any of us truly comprehends the challenges being faced by the responders here. (Having your helicopters shot at by gang-bangers certainly doesn’t help.) However, it’s truly pathetic to see the Left trying to make political hay out of this distaster. Is there no shame?
Why, in just the last 24 hours I have learned that Republicans want black people to die, and see this as their big chance. (I credit readers of this blog for introducing the idea of dragging Bush to the ICC over this — very original!) Moreover, I learned that even if Republicans did want black people to live (a big if), there are no NG troops to help them because they are all in Iraq, subcontracting for Bush’s oil cronies, who will use this tragedy to further gouge the American consumer. And, finally, I learned that this hurricane would have likely never happened had Bush sent the Kyoto protocols to the Senate for ratification (since apparently no hurricanes ever struck the US prior to that illustrious conference).
So, the next time you want to push that tripe about “America needing a uniter, not a divider”, please take a good hard look in the mirror.
Your pal,
Zero
September 1st, 2005 at 10:13 pm
Uhm, who pushed the tripe about being a “uniter, not a divider”? Why I believe that was Al Gore’s campaign slogan. *rolls eyes*
This administration ripped the funding out a FEMA and dumped it in a wholly unmanageable bureaucracy headed up by a brave man of action, a lawyer. The lack of federal response is embarrassing and verging on criminal. I can’t imagine the funding mess when this is added to the optional, expensive war and the unprecedented tax cuts during war time.
You stand by this doofus if you like. The me-first ideology of this administration will on the curb with the rest of the trash after the next election.
And just keep chanting: “the recession of 2006 was Clinton’s fault.”
September 1st, 2005 at 11:12 pm
However, it’s truly pathetic to see the Left trying to make political hay out of this distaster. Is there no shame?
Is there any way to criticize the President without having you dismiss it as partisan whining? Or do you really consider his side gig as a pop idol defensible during the current crisis?
Mr. President, if you MUST ignore a national emergency and play the guitar, do it in the Oval Office where there are no cameras to make you look like a dumbass. At least be a dumbass out of the public eye.
Why, in just the last 24 hours I have learned that Republicans want black people to die, and see this as their big chance.
You just learned this? Where’ve you been?
September 1st, 2005 at 11:49 pm
Oh, and just wait, actually you don’t even have to wait- the feds are blaming Blanco, the Democratic governor of Louisiana, for this mess. Someone got to them after the first interviews and gave them talking points- watch the interviews with the head of FEMA from earlier in this tragedy, then the more recent ones. All of a sudden it’s “oh, um, we weren’t the ones in charge- we were waiting to hear from LOCAL officials as to what they needed” (I paraphrase, but that’s the gist of it.)
Even in the midst of this tragedy they are figuring out how they can position themselves so that another state can be swung over to the dark side. It’s truly sickening when you can see through their spin.
Shudder.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:56 pm
I was glued to the television today, watching this horror unfold and one line from a CNN reporter (sorry, forget the name) summed it up best, at least for me:
`This is not the America I grew up in.’
In the America I grew up in, people would have been evacuated by now, food water & supplies would have been dropped from helicopters, the National Guard would be stationed here in the US and would already be there to keep law & order, and it would be possible to stand up and criticize the government’s mishandling of the situation without being accused of being a radical leftie.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:05 am
National guard?
Why the hell isn’t the general infantry in there, on every street corner, with an M-16?
Hell, parachute in the 82nd airborne, if you have to. Yesterday.
This would be absurd if it weren’t so unimaginably awful.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 am
Anderson Cooper, I believe. At least, I certainly heard him say that on Tonight with Aaron Brown.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 am
JoAnne, just caught it on CNN:
–Did you ever think in your life, that you would stand on American soil and see the things you’ve seen this week?
David Mattingly: I’m just trying not to think about it. This is not the America I grew up in.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 am
Can you say new third world country…. I don’t get it. This is America!! That is what is it looks likes to the rest of the world. Time to take care of our own!! race, color creed, it dont matter!!! And this is a “small” piece of our country. Lets get busy at preserving our “world power satus” Truely emarrassed
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:51 am
Anti-Zero said: Is there any way to criticize the President without having you dismiss it as partisan whining?
Yes. There is plenty of intelligent criticism out there. But also a lot of foaming-at-the-mouth hatred. Let’s try for more of the former, less of the latter.
Joanne said: …it would be possible to stand up and criticize the government’s mishandling of the situation without being accused of being a radical leftie.
Free speech goes both ways, Dr. Joanne.
Zero
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:48 am
24 hours. 24 hours. 24 hours is the acceptable response time to any disaster of any scope- 24 hours to get ice and water to the displaced. Food and shelter within 48. That’s it. This president is taking DAYS to do what should have been done in a matter of hours. He didn’t even bother to end his vacation until 2 days after the storm hit. This is completely unacceptable, and while I was no fan of his before, now there IS foaming at the mouth hatred like I’ve never felt before, and if that offends you, too darn bad. There is no room for civilized discourse when there are American people DYING from his lack of response. He’s been saying “be patient”- yeah, I’ll be patient when my baby is dying in my arms from dehydration, which is the image on MSNBC that most haunts me. What would I do in that woman’s position? I have small children, and I went through Andrew, so I can put myself in her shoes. There but for the grace of God, as the saying goes. Bush Sr. said that his response was acceptable after Andrew and that Bush Jr.’s response is acceptable now- tell that to the people at the convention center in New Orleans. Tell that to the families of the dead in the convention center. Tell that to the people stuck on the highway overpasses. Tell that to the doctors, nurses, and patients in Charity Hospital. Tell that to the survivors of Andrew from Cutler Ridge and Country Walk. That’s crap- he’s crap, and yes, I’m foaming at the mouth.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:08 am
There is plenty of intelligent criticism out there.
“Don’t play the guitar while New Orleans is experiencing Armageddon” seems like intelligent criticism to me. This President really does not know how to project commanding leadership in the face of a crisis. Remember his immediate reaction to September 11? If you’ll recall, he found it most strategic to finish a children’s story.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 am
I think it goes without saying that if the Bush administration had handled this crisis well, all of us would have been deeply thankful. Our shocked and disgusted response has nothing to do with politics – watching people left to die needlessly should make you foam at the mouth, shouldn’t it?
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:04 pm
Lubos Motl writes about Katrina on his blog
http://motls.blogspot.com
and he mentions this blog and in particular post (not favorable).
Some of his remarks seem bizarre to me, e.g. when he suggests in the first paragraph
that a majority of people in the region will benefit from this in the end.
“My packets of compassion go to all who have been really affected – especially those whose relatives have died (not the casualties themselves because I doubt that it is allowed to read
my blog in the Heaven or the Hell); those who have stayed in the critical area; and finally to the
CEOs and CFOs of insurance and re-insurance companies who will have to make sure that
most of the people in the area will actually benefit at the end.”
September 3rd, 2005 at 1:27 am
Bizarre remarks? Lubos?? That can’t be right.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:31 am
Those insurance and reinsurance companies deserve to go out of business if they haven’t been computing the odds correctly and collecting insurance premiums accordingly.