The other George W. Bush

Well, I saw that speech, and I didn't much like it. Oh, it was very well delivered, but the content was less than I had come to expect from this man. Lots of people liked it, for the wrong reasons. But it was a mediocre speech, lacking good ideas, and implying bad ideas.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. New Orleans is a bad idea. It should never have been built below sea level. That was stupid. Some have suggested rebuilding on higher ground. I say fine, if they can find a suitable site, but what are the odds? A more promising approach is to fill in that hole and then build atop the fill.

But Bush didn't suggest either of these things. He called for new, stronger levees. That's not a real solution. Here we have a golden opporunity for a do-over. We can fix this horrible design. But Bush is already squandering the chance.

I think what's going on here is there are two of him.

I wasn't impressed with Dubya in 2000. I didn't even vote for him then. Then there came that stupid No Child Left Behind nonsense together with the senator from Chappaquiddick. But after 9/11 hit, we saw a differnet Bush. We saw a leader, a risk taker, a problem solver, not a mere manager or politician.

Some people didn't like that. 9/11 was a wake-up call to the nation, that we needed to get rid of terrorism entirely. Some of us woke up, and some of us put pillows over their heads and tried to sleep. I woke up. George W. Bush woke up. In the end, the world will be better for it.

But Dubya the politician never went away. He resurfaced the other night. He tried to pass himself off as President Bush, the leader, by using the same courgeous phreaseology. But I wasn't fooled. I've been around too long to be distracted by style. The substance was pure politics. No vision at all, no imagination, and an opportunity to lead squandered, for the sake of some opinion poll points.

Here's hoping this Dubya goes back underground soon. The world does not need another politician. What the world neads is leaders.


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New Orleans - The un-missing National Guard

I may have to do a whole section on the lies surrounding Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans. But for now, I'll just draw attention to what redstate.org has pieced together

Excerpts:

As of August 31 there were 3,748 Louisiana Army National Guardsmen and Army Reservists and 193 Air Guardsmen and Reservists on active duty throughout the world. The lion?s share of them, about 3,500, are with the 256th Infantry Brigade in Iraq. This leaves some 8,000 Guardsmen and an unknown number of Army Reservists available for disaster relief. The skill sets in those units, with the exception of the single combat engineer battalion, have no particular utility in disaster relief. So the argument that the absence of the 450 men of the 1088th Engineer Battalion were somehow critical to response to this disaster, or that the 3,500 troops missing could not be more than adequately replaced by other troops from neighboring states is just not true...

So did the equipment the 256th Infantry Brigade take with it to Iraq, equipment provide some unique immediate response capability that could have mitigated the damage from Katrina?

Arguably someone could make the case that the M1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley, and M109 Paladin howitzers belonging to the infantry, armor, and artillery battalions could have been filled with QUIKRETE and pushed into the break in the levee. Absent this scenario, it seems ridiculous on its face to object to the deployment of this equipment to Iraq.

The brigade?s engineer battalion, the 1088th Engineer Battalion, is in Iraq with its parent unit. It is a combat engineer battalion. Combat engineer battalions don't have a lot of heavy equipment. Each of the three lettered companies would have six M-9 Armored Combat Earthmovers (ACE). The ACE is much more useful for combat than disaster relief. The idea that 18 armored bulldozers would have been of critical assistance, unless they were dumped in the levee break on top of the tanks and personnel carriers in nothing short of ludicrous.

On the other hand, the unit left behind, the 225th Engineer Group, (Combat), and its four organic Engineer Battalions (Combat)(Heavy), is well suited for disaster relief...

And here's some more from James Robbins

Excerpt:

The New York Times has called the military response 'a costly game of catch up.' Catching up compared to what, one wonders. National Guard units were mobilized immediately; 7,500 troops from four states were on the ground within 24 hours of Katrina - a commendable response given the disruptions to the transportation infrastructure. The DOD response is well ahead of the 1992 Hurricane Andrew timetable. Back then, the support request took nine days to crawl through the bureaucracy. The reaction this time was less than three days officially, and DOD had been pre-staging assets in anticipation of the aid request from the moment Katrina hit.

I say:

By the way, think there should have been more buses sooner? Me, too. Let's take that up with the mayor of New Orleans.

Well, at least some people show some initiative.

Dare we hope that when they rebuild that city they'll do it right and use landfill? Not lilkely. This is a the Big Easy after all.


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