06 September 2005 Blog Home : September 2005 : Permalink
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Dear Mr Mooreon.
Any idea what "military" means? it refers to items used for fighting wars. You may not have noticed this but wars don't just stop because a hurricane shows up. Moreover in case it escaped your notice the helicopters that were buzzing around New Orleans were being shot at. Given that this is not Afghanistan the US military is not going to call in a JDAM srtike to calm things down. Thirdly as John Hinderaker notes quite a lot of US Navy helicopters (and other military equipment) were in fact in action on August 30/31.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Just ignoring the fact that thousands of National Guard folks were there, if those National Guard soldiers signed up thinking that their primary job was NOT fighting with helping with national disasters being a secondary one then they must be almost as stupid as you. Perhaps the fact that they are equipped with tanks, guns etc. would be a hint here.
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I'm glad to see that you apparently live in a state with compentent disaster management. Just in case you missed the critical word there, I'll repeat it: STATE. Mr Mooreon you live in a country where primary responsibility for disasters devolves on the state. However just to totally ruin your hypothesis, Mr Mooreon, the president declared a state of emergency at least 24 hours before the hurricane hit Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Also the president was apparently on the horn to the mayor of New Orleans etc insisting on a mandatory evacuation. Maybe that helps explain why he ignored some grief demented mother who was being used to score cheap political points.
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
Since it is not the president's job to stick his finger in the dike staying out of the way of the people who ought to know what they are doing and who had the responisbility to do it sounds like common sense. Imagine the headlines about how the presidential visit disrupted critical activities had he been there.
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
I yield the floor to EU Rota to smash that lie into the ground. The criticism of the pork involved in what was generally understood as doomed attempts to stop New Orleans from drowning sometime was bipartisan and included just about everyone not in the state of Louisiana.
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
See note above about (not) getting in the way. It seems likely that an aerial view actually gives the best view of a swathe of destruction that was hundreds of miles across.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
Mr Mooreon there is, as I write, a typhoon pounding western Japan which is of similar dimensions and slightly less powerful. Perhaps you might like to actually ask hurricane experts before blaming this one on global warming. It may surprise you to note that almost all (as in something like 99%) of them state that category 5 hurricanes are common, come in waves (e.g. there ware more in 1941-71 than 1971 to 2001) and are not apparently caused by global warming. Also perhaps you missed the note that this kind of disaster for New Orleans has been predicted for decades - with documents stating effectively that it was a question of "when the big one hits" not "if".
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
In case it escaped your notice Mr Mooreon, New Orleans has been poor for decades if not centuries. You can blame every president back to Lincoln for this. As far as the lack of transportation goes, I think the Junkyard bloggers have the skinny on who dropped the ball. The charge of racism is total BS.
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Since you seem so attached to helicopters, let us end on that note. Mikey there are times that I just despair. I fear that you don't understand basic mathematics. Helicopters can transfer maybe a couple of tons of supplies or a dozen people and they burn more fuel per mile than any SUV: Busses and trucks on the other hand can tranfer tens of tons of supplies or 50-100 people for far less fuel burned per mile. More to the point there are hundreds of people with bus or truck driving skills for every qualified helicopter pilot. Sure some helicopters are useful but lets get practical here, helicopters are not what is required. Oh and to go back to your global warming ideas. Just assume that hurricanes are caused by global warming, what do you think is going to cause more global warming: thousands of helicopter flights or hundreds of busses?