I don't often comment on politics on my blog, but I just can't resist this time. You may have seen that President Bush gave his final press conference yesterday.
He strongly defended his Presidency and the choices that were made. I'm sure that he has insight to the issues that the nation faced that he cannot openly talk about. I understand that he has his own perspective on the long and short term accomplishments of his administration. With this in mind I wasn't really concerned with anything that Bush said or defended... until he got to Hurricane Katrina. When asked about the slow Federal response he responded:
"Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. ... Could things been done better? Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?" he said.
ROTFLOL!
The work of those pilots and rescue workers was absolutely of critical importance and they rightfully deserve much praise. But there should have been more relief on a much larger scale. No one could have predicted just how devastating the storm actually was, but everyone knew this was a huge storm, everyone knew that the levees were in danger. The government could have done so much more both in the immediate hours following the storm and in the weeks and months afterward.
I'm ashamed to admit that I voted for him twice [in my defense, it's not like I had much choice in 2004. I mean, seriously... John Kerry??]
2 comments:
Like you said, I think everything comes down to our limited perspective and knowledge of situations and 20/20 hindsight. And, I think it's easy for people who weren't responsible for responding to criticize the response. Who's to say John Kerry or John McCain or Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton would have responded any differently? Fortunately for them, the world will never know.
I voted for him twice, and though I disagree with a lot of the decisions he's made, I'm not a bit ashamed. He's made some pretty crappy decisons (in my opinion), but also some amazing things for our world, many of which have been completely overlooked.
I feel a blog post coming on . . .
you are totally right. there is no way that we can say that anyone else would have made different decisions if they were in his shoes over the past 8 years.
But to me there is no defense for the way hurricane katrina was handled.
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