The fact that both the state and federal administrations were worrying about their PR while this was all happening is just fucking sick. It really highlights how out of touch politicians are with reality.

Documents Show Katrina's Political Storm

By CONNIE MABIN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 19 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - As Hurricane Katrina roared ashore and thousands of people waited days amid the floodwater for rescue, a series of letters passed between the governor and the White House that reveal delays, claims that requests for federal help weren't received, and concerns on both sides about public relations.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco late Friday released 100,000 pages of memos, handwritten notes, e-mails, phone logs and other documents requested by congressional committees that are now investigating what happened behind the scenes in the frantic days surrounding the deadly Aug. 29 storm.

Among those documents are the back-and-forth communications between Blanco's office and the White House, starting with a letter Blanco sent
President Bush a day before the hurricane hit.

"I have determined that this incident will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the state and the affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary," Blanco wrote.

Three days after the storm, Blanco wrote Bush asking that the 256th Louisiana National Guard Brigade be sent home from
Iraq to help. The governor also asked for more generators, medicine, health care workers and mortuaries.

Five days later, Bush assistant Maggie Grant e-mailed Blanco aide Paine Gowen to say that the White House did not receive the letter.

"We found it on the governor's Web site but we need 'an original,' for our staff secretary to formally process the requests she is making," Grant wrote. "We are on the job but appreciate your help with a technical request. Tnx!"

The stack of documents also includes a timeline put together by Blanco's staff detailing the state response; notes expressing frustration about missing items such as a communications center for police and rescuers promised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and police reports, including logs of calls from people trapped amid the floodwater. Other documents show how Blanco's aids were inundated with requests from celebrities and dignitaries wanting to visit the city.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Saturday that she hadn't seen the documents.

"There are many reviews underway to look back and review how the events unfolded during that week and all levels of government have to take stock of what happened, act on that and make sure that it doesn't happen again," Perino said.

Other exchanges between the governor's staff and the White House show public relations was a priority for both administrations.

Grant, Bush's aide, e-mailed Gowen Sep. 13 asking if Blanco would be attending a Washington, D.C., service marking the president's "National Day of Prayer." If she didn't, Grant wrote, "We'd love to have someone like (
Homeland Security) Secretary (Michael) Chertoff attend a service with her."

For the state's part, Blanco's chief of staff Andy Kopplin e-mailed employees Sept. 4 saying they needed to get national supporters to say "that the federal response was anemic" and asked them to point out budget cuts to levee programs.

While Blanco's office wanted to blame the federal government, the documents show that her staff didn't want it to appear as if the federal government was seizing state power.

When Bush visited New Orleans on Sept. 5 Blanco was initially supposed to visit evacuees in Houston, but Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher didn't like the idea of Bush being in the state when the governor wasn't. "Reinforces the notion that she's not in charge and LA needs to be federalized," she e-mailed Kopplin.

Blanco's communication's director Bob Mann agreed, the documents show, and Blanco stayed to meet Bush.

The Democratic governor's staff also griped that Republicans were attacking Blanco. "Rove is on the prowl," says one unexplained Sept. 3 message from Kopplin to Mann, a reference to Bush adviser Karl Rove.

They're always worried about their PR, that's why they're politicians. You'd think the experts at this would realize that the best PR they could have had might have been to not let New Orleans descend into chaos, but hey, what do I know?

That's my thought too. So what do we both know?

I've grown so cynical anymore that all I can do is laugh. The older I get the more I realize that we are just pawns in a game bigger than we can comprehend. The welfare and safety of citizens is on the bottom of a long list of things that are "more important". I mean honestly, how does it take 4 or 5 days to get food, water, and healthcare to NOLA when we knew the mother of all storms was coming. It kills me, but also makes me rely on myself and my family. I believe that no govt. cares about its citizens unless it is in its own interest to do so. Unfortunately the poorer minority of this country wasn't much of a concern.

Well, no shit Bush didn't get the letters. Maybe he didn't leave his Crawford forwarding address with the White House.

Did anyone see that she had e-mails from Castro and Chavez offering to send help.

And yet people let them run the education of their children. Some people even want politicians to run their healthcare.

It may be disgusting, but image is everything in our world. Innocent or guilty, brilliant or incompetent, doesn't matter. It only matters what appears on the surface.

I think there's a difference between "government" running programs and "politicians" running programs. The nice thing about bureaucracy is that once a program is created by the politicians, the actual program is supposed to be run by professionals who know what they're doing. Apart from the inherent inefficiencies of bureaucracy (a separate subject entirely), many problems occur when the politicians continue to try to RUN the programs after they've been established instead of leaving operations to the pros.

I'm guessing you don't work with government agencies on a daily basis.

Yeah I'm going to back away from the anti gov't stance that many pearl jammers like to take, and blame the people.

There are no people in government?

Yesterday my wife and I were watching Meet the Press with 2 members of the 9/11 commission going off on the Federal Gov't. not doing anything to prepare for the next terrorist attack (not if, but when it happens).
And we thought that what made the inept response to Katrina so troubling for everyone was not only the suffering of the victims, but the piss poor reaction of all levels of the government.
I think we all kind of figured that after 4 years after 9/11 responding to a disaster of any sort would be quick and efficient. Or at least improved. But what happened was WORSE than responses to past disasters. How could it be that after all the talk and look of determination put out by the government that things got worse? It doesn't make sense. What have they been doing all this time to ready the country for disaster?

No, you got it all wrong. God just hates NO, its a city of sin, and it refused to repent so God has smote it.

why on earth would they let that information out? wouldnt they want to keep that on the DL so the terrorists have no fucking clue what to expect?

There are covert ops taking place around the world to prevent the next hurricane.

Maybe they botched the Hurricane recovery so it would appear we aren't prepared to deal with a disaster.

When I say that I want the government to supply services, I mean I want a non-corrupt and competent government to supply services. If the only government that exists is corrupt and incompetent, then I support anarchy.