Whereas JJ has presented examples of deflected spending.

If, year after year, Louisiana fought desperately to defend N.O. from The Big One, there ought to be some stuff you can link to.

Why is it obvious?

If it is so obvious, can you cite just 3 thigns that indicate it?

Are you a member of congress?

Have you ever lived in New Orleans and listened to the various Sens and Congs speak?

Please... If it so obivous to the world, can you tell how you know?

Bottom line you have no clue what you are talking about. -- I don't blame you for not knowing -- I don't know what it is important to the congressional delegations in Utah. -- But I do blame you for being a jackass and claiming it is so obvious when you have clue what you are talking about.

Paul, I'm sure LA's legislators were asking for more hurricane protection, like I ask for world peace every year at Xmas. I'm just not aware that anyone, with the honorable exception of the Times-Pic, was really being urgent about it. When was Hurricane Betsy, 1965? 40 years later and there's what? OBVIOUSLY the LA delegations were not raising Cain over this.

(I'm confused about the "floodwaters" comment too, though. The more I think about it, the mayor actually gets the best grade of anyone. He wasn't especially prepared, but he did get the city evacuated and he did get the stay-behinds to safe ground. Hence the remarkably low death toll.)

To put the record straight, My comment to Andersons comment referes to a statement made by Anderson where he said

"politicians at all levels prefered voter friendly short term spending to less glamorous long term spending"

I have always associated the term "short term spending to a period of time around 5 years or less. And by long term to a period of time of 5 years or more.

In that Clinton was in office during that period of time between 5 and 10 years prior to Katrina, I considered the period of time between 5 and 10 years to be on Clintons watch.

We are now heavly engaged in rehtoric about the failings of politicians during their period of time when they are on watch. Now Bush is on watch and getting heat and blame for everything happening on his watch, so, I feel that is only fair to place responsibility for the failure to watch over the federal spending on the levies on the person whose watch the spending occured. In this case, it was on Clintons watch.

I must admit though, that while not blaming Clinton directly, I did put the inference there.

While I am at it, I can also state that Louisiana politicians have to take a little more than their share of the blame for their failure to also insure that the levies were built to a safety level that would have prevented the disaster.

For the record, Wizbang has been all over this since before the breaches in the floodwalls were even closed. It was obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the situation, we just had to wait for confirmation. Again, the local...

Anononon's friend's reasoning not withstanding, there are legitimate reasons for FEMA employees taking vacation right now. First, it's use or lose season for annual leave and it was a busy hurricane season. So all those deferred vacations start to pile up this time of year. Secondly, the Gulf coast is a longterm effort. It is good planning to husband your employees so that they aren't all burned out immediately.

I remember watching the news coverage of the hospitals in New York on 9/11. It was reported that doctors and nurses were showing up wanting to work when they were off duty. Admirable but shortsighted. Had there have been a flood of trauma patients, who would have been rested to take over from the immediate providers the next day or week. It's a bitter pill but in a disaster, those not immediately needed must stay away and try to rest even though every fiber in their bodies wants to be on-site. They must prepare themselves to man the second wave of response. Big catastrophes such as 9/11 and Katrina require a long term effort that requires discipline to manage the resources (responders) without exhausting them.

Perhaps some took vacations to delay going to the coast but just maybe FEMA is scheduling leave so that there are fresh resources ready to relieve those in the area in order to continue the sustained effort.

James, WTF are you talking about? Can you give me a link? When did people come back to be "trapped by the surging floodwaters."

You ignore the fact you were on the wrong levees and switch the topic to the fact the Corps also does projects that do not DIRECTLY go to flood control...

Even so- History has told us this story is meaningless. Even if every penny cited in this story went DIRECTLY to flood control the outcome of Katrina would have been the same. Every home would have been flooded.

Louisiana has been lobbying for years to get "Cat 5" levees. The requests have been ignored. Pointing out that some Corps funding did not go DIRECTLY to flood control does not change that.

The military spends million (billions?) on morale. BILLIONS on humanitarian aid. This money does not go DIRECTLY to defense. Does that mean that all military money is wasted?

Just because the Corps does other things that are not DIRECTLY related to flood control does not mean Congress approved Cat 5 levees. Good God man you are a freaking political scientist, I don't have to tell you this.

You can dance on the head of a pin but you can not ignore the fact the Corps flooded New Orleans thru negligence.

We were told these were "state of the art" floodwalls and they crumbled like fortune cookies. Guess that's all the damn Louisiana politicians fault huh?

geeze.