Hey, George, don't worry about this little hurricane situation, and the fact that your poll numbers have now dipped below 40%! Just invoke 9-11! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Bush seeks to rekindle national unity on Katrina
Sat Sep 10, 2005 3:44 PM BST
By Jason Webb
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Emergency workers collected the dead of New Orleans on Saturday, as hopes rose that the toll from Hurricane Katrina would fall short of the calamity once feared.
As police and soldiers prepared to remove the bodies -- many in homes marked with paint to identify their presence when floodwaters were high -- President George W. Bush invoked the spirit that united the nation after the September 11 attacks in the face of this latest crisis.
"Today, America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life. This time the devastation resulted not from the malice of evil men, but from the fury of water and wind," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
"America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it," he said on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington that killed some 2,700 people.
Bush, who successfully rallied the nation after those attacks, has faced criticism for the federal government's performance -- described as slow and inadequate -- following the August 29 hurricane.
"Chaos and dysfunction," said former Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer, a member of the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks.
"We have had our first post 9/11 test and we have miserably failed," Roemer said on CNN. He said several key recommendations made by the commission to better prepare the country to handle major disasters, whether natural or man-made, had not been implemented.
The Bush administration on Friday recalled Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown to Washington, handing his role in co-ordinating rescue and recovery to Vice Admiral Thad Allen, chief of staff of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Brown was widely criticised for FEMA's response to Katrina and faced new accusations of padding his resume. Critics charged he only got the job because he was a friend of a friend of Bush. Just a week ago, the president publicly told Brown he was doing a "heck of a job."
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-09-10T144354Z_01_MOL967931_RTRUKOC_0_UK-KATRINA.xml
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace