another ‘Bushism’… What else can you expect?

January 20th cannot come fast enough.

That number is accurate. The Coast Guard was about the only federal agency that did get it right but it had nothing to do with Bush (who on more than one occasion has tried to claim their success as his own).

Basically they didn’t wait for orders or ask permission…they just went out and did their job.

This Time article explored their role:
http://tinyurl.com/8vjre5

I explain a bit more on this at First Draft:
“Bush Steals Coast Guard’s Success….Again”

http://tinyurl.com/8h8r84

The Coast Guard definitely gets props. Bush’s number is in the ballpark.

“The scale of operations during the Katrina response defies imagination and the statistics generated are almost unbelievable. Search and rescue operations alone saved 24,135 lives from imminent danger, usually off the roofs of the victims’ homes as flood waters lapped at their feet. Coast Guardsmen “evacuated to safety” 9,409 patients from local hospitals. In total, 33,545 souls owed their lives to the men and women of the nation’s oldest continuous-going sea service, nearly equaling the number of persons the Coast Guard saves during a calendar year.”

Well, I think that number is way inflated. It originated as an “estimate” of 22K by a Coast Guard photographer, Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Kendrick, and nobody every looked back on that number, as far as I can tell. The 22K then became 24K, which then got some 9000 nursing home evacs added to it. I’m not saying they didn’t do a great an exemplary job. And I don’t disagree that Bush is awful cheeky in taking credit. But the number itself is very “soft” as far as I can tell.

meant to include a link to the beginning of the chain

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501418.html

I agree that the Coasties did an incredible job, for days and days and days - but like Mac, I think that number is inflated, too.

If the population was 450,000 (more or less) that would mean 1 out of every 15 New Orleanians were “pulled off roofs,” which just seems really high, particularly considering the tens of thousands who were at the Dome and the Convention Center. The figures don’t make sense to me.

Scout, your First Draft piece on Bush’s attempts to hide behind the heroics of others was excellent.

More to the point: how does that logic work? Because there were 30,000 people stranded, the federal response time was just fine?

Of course, this comes from the man who encouraged the world to conflate Al-Qaeda with Iraq simply by using them in the same sentence. Repeatedly.

As much as I’d love to give him the benefit of the doubt, Bush is the walking embodiment of a non-sequitur. He’s like Yogi Berra, but with very dire consequences.

Thanks Kevin. I suspect those numbers would apply to all the Katrina affected areas not just New Orleans and so may make more sense?

Well just saw MSNBC did a fact check with the Coast Guard and they report out of that number only 12K were rescued by air.

The funniest part of the press conference was that W. kept referring to “Coast Guard helicopter drivers”…I believe they’re called “pilots.”

Pilots very often refer to themselves as drivers, jockeys, etc., but prefer everyone else to refer to them as pilots or aviators. Bush the Lesser, being an ex-Air Force pilot - a USAFR F-102 jock to be exact, simply is using the familiar vernacular. The fact that he is an idiot is secondary to his choice of words.