Why do people (democrats) blame bush for Hurricane Katrina?

Question

If you are a person that blames Bush for Hurricane Katrina please ask yourself the following questions (probably will not help anything, but deep down maybe you'll realize that it wasn't Bush's fault)

1. Is this the first hurricane to ever hit the U.S?
2. Were the citizens warned that a hurricane was coming?
3. Would Bush really know about a number of busses parked somehwere in the city?
4. Is this the first hurricane to cause lots of damage and deaths?
5. Did Bush choose the basically doomed location of New Orleans?
6. Did Bush build or design the levees that were supposed to help?
I have another question, why, when we've donated billions of dollars to help the victims of Katrina, do many people claim they recieved no aid?

if anyone is at fault it would be the mayor of New Orleans. And no I am not that naive, however I think a lot of democrats would love to blame Bush for anything to goes wrong.

Answer 1

I have liberal views, but I don't think this is Bush's fault. Actually, did you know that Hurricane Katrina was predicted by meteorologists months before. And WHO listened? Nobody, of course. The government of Louisiana is to blame also. Geographically, almost all of New Orleans is below sea level. The slow response of the US gov. to actually help the civilians is another factor. And probably most of all, was the widespread looting, raping, and murdering after the disaster.

Answer 2

It was not his fault, he could have done alot more to get things rolling through the help agencies but it was not his fault.

as to your questions
1.) no but 9/11 wasn't the first time planes crashed into buildings it is about scale and damage here
2.) Many of the citizens had no way of leaving, or were unaware that ways existed
3.) No he probably would not but an Aide or a person from an aid organization should know and should inform him
4.) No its not, but it is one of the ones that did the most damage and deaths, yet again its the scale
5.) No, it is pretty stupid to live below sea level right beside a body of water isn't it? but this really isn't relevant
6.) No, yet again an aide or advisor could have made it known beforehand that maybe they should be reinforced, I don't think any people question this or #5 as his fault per se.

Because the billions of dollars may be being spent wrongly, the aid organizations need money to operate so not all is going towards the people themselves. There are approx 484,000 residence of New Orleans if 10 billion dollars was put toward aid that is roughly 20,000 which isn't very much if your entire house was just destroyed.

Answer 3

I agree with you. The first level of blame belongs to the city government of New Orleans. They were warned last year that if they were hit by a major hurricane it would be disastrous. The Levee board spent millions of $$$ to but themselves a private jet instead of upgrading the levees. Ray Nagin should have used those city and school buses to evacuate those who didn't have transportation. It is easy to blame an unpopular president when in reality the local and state government resent federal intrusion at any point in time. I know there are going to be critical responses to my answer but I survived a direct hit by Hurricane Rita and I have knowledge of what happens when a hurricane strikes. Our community bent over backwards to help Katrina victims and we got screwed by the feds because of all the money given to N.O. Also, Houston TX has a huge problem with Katrina folks living there who don't want to work. The mayor and county judge has told them to get a job or get out and I say good for them. Unfortunately there are people who like to abuse the system and love to take advantage. There are also lots and lots of hardworking honest folk who don't.

Answer 4

Blaming Bush for the hurricane would be insane. Unless God was added to his resume, he had nothing to do with the hurricane itself.

1. No this isn't the first hurricane to hit the US. But it is the first to hit a city the size of New Orleans, and it was one of the largest hurricanes to hit the country.

2. The citizens were warned, but some of them were so poor, and some were incompacitated, so they couldn't leave the city. Not to mention the traffic back up that was on the highways leading out of the city. If he would have thought ahead, he would have directed someone to have both directions of the highway leading out fo New Orleans so traffic would flow smoother and faster out. He also should have offered up some sort of transportation for the people that didn't have autos, and made it an order for all hospitals and nursing homes evacuated immediately. Knowing that they were predicting an extremely strong hurricane - one of the strongest to hit in many years - he should have acted instead of reacted. Any manager will tell you that is the way to run things smoother. He had the same info as the public, if not more intel on it.

3. He didn't have to - send some! You gonna tell me that he couldn't have gotten some buses to the city, or even sent Army personnel transporters in there to evacuate the ones unable to do it themselves. And don't be all nice to the ones that "wanted" to stay - get them the hell out! Arrest them and get them into a transport and get them out!

4. It is the first one in almost 100 years to hit the area. All other hurricanes don't hit an area that is so "fragile" due to the levees. And Hurricane Katrina is now the deadliest hurricane ever in history. They were saying that BEFORE it even hit land. Didn't he watch the Weather Channel?????

5. Again, unless diety has been added to the job description of the President of the United States, he had no control over it. That is agreed. But he had control over the goverment reaction to the entire thing. He appointed Michael Brown as the head of FEMA. He was the one making the final call - all he had to do was say "go ahead". There should have been mandatory evacuations going on, and preparation with supplies outside of the hurricane zone. Again, don't tell me that it couldn't be done. It would have been cheaper to react ahead of time and planned accordingly than what happened and dealing with it now. The days of delay due to the contamination from (among other things) dead, decaying bodies of people that decided to "ride it out", or had no other choice due to being poor or old.

6. Bush didn't build or design the levees, but funny that he had numerous reports given to him stating that the levees would not sustain a strong hurricane, much like the one that was on its way. Many different engineers stated such in reports, and the reports went to the White House. It wasn't the fault of the engineers that the White House didn't act on the information. The engineers couldn't just go out there and fix the issue. They were awaiting the go ahead from the government.

7. There are many reasons that people haven't received aid.
a. Hard time finding the people due to them being spread all
over the US
b. Scams and people ripping off the government
c. The government's slow reaction to the "aftermath"
d. Starting to give out the "credit cards", and then changing
the plan on how to hand out the money
e. Those damn trailers that were "purchased" for the people
of N.O., but they were not utilized

I am not saying that Bush is totally at fault, but it is "his" administration that was responsible for the reaction of the government. He needs to be held accountable for this, like the other things he has done, and is getting away with. But because it is a Republican Congress, he will be let off. Now, if it were a Democrat in the White House during all of this, and it went down the same way, Republicans would be screaming for his head, and there would be impeachment procedings and sentures being handed out left and right. Think about that for a moment before you go around and accuse the Democrats of falsely accusing Bush and his administration wrongly. The facts don't lie.

Answer 5

I don't think they are blaming him for the weather, they are blaming him for the response to the problems caused by the weather. Those in charge were improperly trained in emergency management to handle such a disaster. I am on a search and rescue team and was involved with the rescue efforts, although I did not go to the area. From the working I did and the instructions and discussions I heard coming out of the area it was clear no one was in charge that knew how to operate a large-scale incident. There is a command structure called the Incident Command System, or now NIMS. If it was better followed during the world trade center incident or Katrina there would have been a much better response. Unfortunately the rest of the country is still trying to catch up to California, who invented ICS after the Oakland Hills fires.

Answer 6

Er they don't blame him for the hurricane (unless they really ARE stupid) - they blame him for the fact that he did absolutely nothing for a day and a half, and then did very little for a long time after that. Hm I wonder why that is, could it POSSIBLY be that it's because lots of democrat voting black people live there? Surely not!

Bush severely cut the budget to rebuild and enhance the levees, despite being told that they were under a real threat of being swamped. So the money saved by rich republicans has been directly responsible for the destitution of hundreds of thousands of people, and the destruction of one of Americas most cultured cities.

Answer 7

Bunch of ignorant people here that haven't a clue about Katrina and the response by the federal government. Just for the record, Nagin and the Democrat governor at the time refused help. Further, the federal government gave 87 BILLION dollars for the gulf coast recovery.

Answer 8

Thank you, finally a person who agrees with me on this issue! Seriously, for all the people that posted above--after the hurricane people DID blame Bush for the hurricane. They also blamed his response to the hurricane but ridiculously also blamed him for the disaster itself. Didn't you all watch the news? People randomly being interviewed saying it was Bush's fault, and not only that but also liberals being interviewed in the news studio. They'll blame him for everything. What makes me mad is that Bush told the people of New Orleans and nearby areas to get the heck out of there but some of them just sat on their bums and didn't do anything about it. People can't always look up to the government like ignorant fools and expect them to do every little thing, it's ridiculous.

Answer 9

Some people will turn anything political. Shoot, acording to some of people he is single handedly responsable for global warming as well. One of the reasons I find myself liking Bush is because of the herculian feats he is suppose to be responsable for.

There was plenty of incompetence to go around on the Katrina response. I personally think the governor down there was most responsable for taking her time on the request for federal assistance (a lot of people forget how the governor didn't let the feds take over for over 24 hours). A lot of people also forget that while people were stranded in NO that the huricaine was still going on in Al and Ms cutting off a lot of the aid.

Bush can be faulted for a lot, but Katrina is not one of them. It is local and state who is in charge of emergency response, not the feds. You don't hear anything out of Boluxi, who got hit worse, or Gulf Shores. Those places were prepared.

Answer 10

Where have you been? You have missed the point completely. No one is to BLAME for the fact of Katrina. Bush and his appointees were responsible for dealing with it. You surely don't believe that this disaster was dealt with properly? Most Republicans can say yes to that question.

There were other failures as the person above says. Those other failures do not relieve Bush and his friends of their responsibility.