Petrelis Files

Cheney's Silence, Laura "Proud" of Victims, DoD Asks Civic or Convention?

Tid-bits of news about some of the Bush administration's responses and statements regarding the Katrina disaster and its thousands, maybe millions, of victims that have caught my attention today.

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Veep's site

September 8, 2005
Vice President Dick Cheney's Katrina statements on his official web site

"______________________________," said Mr. Cheney.

Yep, two weeks into the disaster and the Veep's silence on his web site may be indicative of a real crisis about Katrina at the White House.

If the administration can't post any remarks from the Veep expressing sorrow and concern on his web site, I guess it means they _really_ are focusing in on the aftermath.

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First Lady's site

Compared to the Veep's site, First Lady Laura Bush's official web site is just brimming with concern, long remarks and photos about Katrina.

While Cheney's site lacks any comments from him, the First Lady's posts two transcripts of her recent talks on the catastrophe.

She spoke today in Des Moines at a back to school event and the transcript is here.

On September 2, she visited the Cajundome and spoke with some displaced people. She complained a bit about TV coverage and expressed pride in the people trying to recover. I wonder if she's as proud of how those displaced persons lived before the storm and her husband's policies that put them in grave and deadly danger.

[snip]
MRS. BUSH: Today this is the only place. I just came straight to Lafayette. Well, I -- one thing I have to take back is that this doesn't really look like what we're seeing on television. And I'm proud of the people here. I'm proud of the people who are having to live here like this, whose lives are in shatters around them [...]
[snip]


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DoD site

This is just too much! Gen. Myers isn't even sure of the name of the one of the hell-holes were thousands of desperate Americans were trapped for days, without food, water, medicine or information. What TV stations wasn't he watching last week?


September 6, 2005

DoD Press Briefing on the Katrina disaster
w/Secretary Donald Rumsfield and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers
[snip]

Gen Myers: [...] we're talking about by Friday things were pretty much resolved not only in the Superdome but also in the - I think they call it the civic center or convention center -- they were pretty much -- by Friday night, Saturday morning, pretty much resolved [...]