He has taken less vacation time at this point in his presidency than either Reagan, Bush, Clinton, GW Bush – your post is ridiculous and shows you to be terribly ignorant of the facts – typical, just throw out the insults that have no basis whatsoever.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_katrina_obama

The weekend that storm hit in force, the entire administration was out of office. Bush was in Crawford, Cheney was in Wyoming, Condoleeza Rice was in New York on a well publicized trip shopping for shoes. Rumsfeld was off somewhere as well.

There were foreign leaders/dignitaries watching this from a far that were calling the White Hose with no one in power to answer their calls.

The following week Bush went on a tour of military bases across the country for a photo-op tour that include getting a guitar from some country singer.
It was almost a week before he visited N.O.

No I don’t care how partisan you or how much you may have liked Bush. He was hands down the most out of touch disinterested incompetent President we have had in recent memory. Contrast Clinton’s FEMA with James Lee Witt with the gutted version of the Bush Administration.

I would agree that Obama has seemingly done squat for New or leans as well.

The governor requested help days in advance just in case. She up’ed the request when the storm started heading here.

Regarding the troops, yes she waited – she almost signed because the situation was so bad in Louisiana. Barbour said no straight out. The paper they were asked to sign was to turn over power of the LA guard to the president. This has never been done in an emergency situation before and it is unclear why it was attempted during Katrina. Her concern was that they would no longer be able to enforce state law nor be under her direction. The concern was that there were places outside of the city of New Orleans that might not be on the federal radar. They needed help too and she needed to be able to get it there. The original emergency declaration cleared the way for bringing troops in from other states. They started arriving within hours. Zepher Field and other locations were used for staging. They had no orders hence they could not act. That went on for days.

Some problems involving FEMA? Minimal? Are you kidding me? You have not had to deal with them. Example: My mother lost her house in the storm. In December we requested a trailer for her to be delivered to my house in Metairie. I can’t count the phone calls and letters I sent about it – at least 3 trips to the recovery center and no results. Finally, a really nice guy picked through their paperwork and found that because her house was destroyed they tried to start the trailer process in Novemember for her. They called three times and we did not answer so it was assumed that no trailer was needed. WE HAD NO PHONE SERVICE TILL JANUARY! I needed to fill out a different set of paperwork if we had already been cleared from the list. It took 15 months to get her a trailer and she was only allowed to stay in it for 3 months before Metairie removed all trailers. That might have been a good thing. When she moved in she went to dinner and played canasta with friends every friday night. She went to the casino with other friends once a month or so. She shopped and did plenty of other normal things. After 3 months in the trailer that all stopped. Never played another card game and only went to dinner a handfull of times. I did not join the lawsuit but I have no doubt that her short time in the trailer killed her last summer. FEMA got us coming and goin. Name something they did right?

I have huge amounts of blame for Nagin and Blanco. They failed too all over the place. Bush was a figurehead and at best he could have cut the red tape. Those below him were really responsible for the failed federal response.

I’m not at all surprised at how little Obama has accomplished. I suspect that he didn’t write his own speeches so he probably doesn’t recall what they said.

Perhaps the visiting constitutional lecturer, Dr. BO-Spam, thinks I am plagerizing, since I have said the same thing millions of others have said.

“Just words” is BO’s Albatrose. “…water water every where, nor any drop to drink.”

I recall Rev. Wright visiting the pastors of these lands very early in the primary on BO’s behalf.

Thanks for the update!

Congress did authorize billions. Most of it went to rescue and debris removal right after the storm. No money for rebuilding was released at all until last summer but most if it is still hung up in red tape. Shameful is the only word for it.