First off Bill - that article has quite a few false statements in it - I guess the one that stands out is that the state of emergency wasnt declared "as of Saturday" - this is misinformation being promulgated through the Bush press aides - she did declare a state of emergency at 5 pm on Friday - the rest can also be disproven with actual statements that were put out on publicly broadcast tv statements in New Orleans.
This writer BTW is rewriting an article that came out on a blog written by a guy in Florida who made the whole thing up.
As far as the state not wanting aid - that is from what Im seeing not a correct statement either - according to news reports before the storm hit when asked, the governor stated she had not been in contact with the white house
Overall - I am trying to avoid most of the blame stuff because there is so much BS being put out (some even by reknowned journalists that arent checking their stories) and the spin machine is in full force int he white house obviously - since Bush is the one dropping in the polls by a long shot.
As far as local politics - the mayor issued a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning - whether any large city could really evacuate all of its people in 24 hours is debatable - I tend to think its impossible - and anyone that thinks that it really could have been done any better with that timeframe should be in that position instead - but even if you had 1000 busses waiting, airplanes ready, troop transports standing by in the roads of New Orleans, the same people that didnt leave before still wouldnt have left - they DIDNT WANT TO! and still dont!
As far as your statement about FEMA and their response - that is a normal response from FEMA under the homeland security umbrella - that is why every former director of FEMA has said that the setup now is stupid - secondly - a lot of people are hammering the director for ineptness - which may be true - but its not his job to do immediate response - that responsibility is with the 6th district of FEMA located in Texas - and they did respond per their plan - as did numerous other governmental agencies (ie FBI, ATF etc who were in the city as soon as the storm was over) - but they were doing what they are supposed to do per their plans - which is to protect government interests in the city ONLY! That is the fault associated with the new Homeland security department - it places all of the initial "disaster recovery" on local fire depts, police and sheriff depts - the amount of money they were given to prepare for response was incredible - of course most departments just bought new command busses, coffee dispensers etc. FEMA also provided locals with money to train for these type of disasters, as FEMA was transferring the "job"
I hope you understand that I dont like what I see - but being my age and having been through riots, bombings and other amazing things I saw as a teen (like seeing Washington DC on fire) - and watching the transfer of power under the homeland security department and knowing what would happen with an additional layer of red tape - I fully expected this to happen - just didnt think it would happen so close to home
