The Blame Game: No Blame! (Blame the Environmentalists!)
The feds and The Administration, fresh from their "don't play the blame game" stint, due to millions of Americans asking why they didn't do a damn thing in the aftermath of Katrina, have decided to switch gears. Any Commie-Pinko-Hippies who legally opposed the building or maintentence of the levee system on New Orleans for "environmental reasons," they would like to point out that you hate America and that you support terrorism and that you're responsible for the failures of the levees and the lack of food airdrops and the horrible conditions at the Superdome and the rapes. Your fault. Damn hippies:
And, in fact, as the immutable Times-Picayune reported on the same day that Brownie retired from FEMA, Sept. 13, the levees themselves likely weren't even the real problem. All the levees remained intact for the most part. However, the floodwalls, which were built out of thick slabs of concrete and should not have faltered, burst in 3 places and caused the massive flooding of the cities.
If The Administration were serious about any of this, about really understanding what went wrong, they wouldn't stoke political blame. They'd be investigating, instead, those construction companies; they'd be seeking to information about the systems that contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers and why there seem to have been significant structural flaws in that work.
But they don't care. Pass the buck, cover your ass, do whatever you can. Except for solve the problems.
The Clarion-Ledger said Friday it obtained an internal Justice Department e-mail sent out this week to U.S. attorneys that asks: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."And so, once again, with The Administration's attempts at rebuilding public support for their moronicisms, they're also attempting to subvert any actual investigation and understanding into what happened. They are, of course, ignoring the fact that New Orleans is an environmental disaster as well as a humanistic one. 4 Superfund sights were flooded. New Orleans is the central location now of the worst oil spill to have ever occured in America.
Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, told the newspaper she could not comment on internal e-mails.
The newspaper quoted unidentified federal officials as saying the query was prompted by a congressional inquiry.
Shown a copy of the email, David Bookbinder, senior attorney for Sierra Club, said: "Why are they (Bush administration officials) trying to smear us like this?"
And, in fact, as the immutable Times-Picayune reported on the same day that Brownie retired from FEMA, Sept. 13, the levees themselves likely weren't even the real problem. All the levees remained intact for the most part. However, the floodwalls, which were built out of thick slabs of concrete and should not have faltered, burst in 3 places and caused the massive flooding of the cities.
If The Administration were serious about any of this, about really understanding what went wrong, they wouldn't stoke political blame. They'd be investigating, instead, those construction companies; they'd be seeking to information about the systems that contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers and why there seem to have been significant structural flaws in that work.
But they don't care. Pass the buck, cover your ass, do whatever you can. Except for solve the problems.
posted by General Stan at 2:53 PM
1 Comments:
Apparently, the environmental groups were also protesting a different set of levees than the ones that broke.
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