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How President Bush should have said it....
Citizens of the United States, I want to offer my sincerest apologies for the nature of the federal response to the hurricane Katrina disaster. My administration and I have completely failed to predict how stupid and inept the local and state government was in Louisiana. Frankly, I expected a response more along the lines of that from Mississippi, in which the locals were able to support themselves for a few days until we brought in the cavalry. However, it is clear that the state and local government leaders in Louisiana are incapable of such self reliance and emergency planning. So, as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here and I take complete responsibility for failing to recognize that we were dealing with idiots in Louisiana, people who cannot manage their own state. I am embarrassed to admit this, because after all, a simple review of the state's history and position should be more than enough to demonstrate that these people are absolute morons that need to be completely supported from day one. Sometimes I am not very good at seeing the obvious.
I should have predicted that the local government would release the criminals being held in prison into the general population instead of evacuating them. Likewise, I failed to predict that Louisiana citizens would begin shooting at and attacking the very people who were trying to help them. Along a similar vein, I should have recognized that we would need to move the people along with the wide screen televisions, clothes and other items they had stolen from local stores. Many people were heard screaming "I just stole this and now you want me to leave it behind!" I frankly cannot believe that I failed to predict such activity in and around New Orleans.
Also, I should have recognized that the federal plan would be too complicated for Governor Blanco. My failure to "dumb down" the proposal, my failure to recognize my audience, likely resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives. The extra 24 hours she needed to understand the plan was critical, I should have predicted that she was too stupid to be able to make an executive decision in short order. (said tearfully) Had I only offered a more simple minded plan, more people would have survived.
Likewise, I want to apologize for buckling under pressure from democrats to limit what they called pork barrel spending. When Senator Kennedy publicly criticized my spending bill, asking me to reduce the federal spending on local projects in New Orleans, I caved in and reduced expenditures on the levee system that would have strengthened it to a point of being able to withstand the forces of a category four storm. I will never know if my spineless response to Senator Kennedy's harassment was instrumental in the failure of the levee system .
However, I can assure the American people that I have learned a valuable lesson. I will no longer allow the ineptness of local and state governments to circle around and cause hardship for the local citizenry. I will step in sooner to save them from their stupidity. I am frankly accustomed to being in a room with people who are smarter than me. I have little experience working with people who are even less intelligent than I am.
All I can hope is that the American people forgive me my shortcomings, God Bless America.
Citizens of the United States, I want to offer my sincerest apologies for the nature of the federal response to the hurricane Katrina disaster. My administration and I have completely failed to predict how stupid and inept the local and state government was in Louisiana. Frankly, I expected a response more along the lines of that from Mississippi, in which the locals were able to support themselves for a few days until we brought in the cavalry. However, it is clear that the state and local government leaders in Louisiana are incapable of such self reliance and emergency planning. So, as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here and I take complete responsibility for failing to recognize that we were dealing with idiots in Louisiana, people who cannot manage their own state. I am embarrassed to admit this, because after all, a simple review of the state's history and position should be more than enough to demonstrate that these people are absolute morons that need to be completely supported from day one. Sometimes I am not very good at seeing the obvious.
I should have predicted that the local government would release the criminals being held in prison into the general population instead of evacuating them. Likewise, I failed to predict that Louisiana citizens would begin shooting at and attacking the very people who were trying to help them. Along a similar vein, I should have recognized that we would need to move the people along with the wide screen televisions, clothes and other items they had stolen from local stores. Many people were heard screaming "I just stole this and now you want me to leave it behind!" I frankly cannot believe that I failed to predict such activity in and around New Orleans.
Also, I should have recognized that the federal plan would be too complicated for Governor Blanco. My failure to "dumb down" the proposal, my failure to recognize my audience, likely resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives. The extra 24 hours she needed to understand the plan was critical, I should have predicted that she was too stupid to be able to make an executive decision in short order. (said tearfully) Had I only offered a more simple minded plan, more people would have survived.
Likewise, I want to apologize for buckling under pressure from democrats to limit what they called pork barrel spending. When Senator Kennedy publicly criticized my spending bill, asking me to reduce the federal spending on local projects in New Orleans, I caved in and reduced expenditures on the levee system that would have strengthened it to a point of being able to withstand the forces of a category four storm. I will never know if my spineless response to Senator Kennedy's harassment was instrumental in the failure of the levee system .
However, I can assure the American people that I have learned a valuable lesson. I will no longer allow the ineptness of local and state governments to circle around and cause hardship for the local citizenry. I will step in sooner to save them from their stupidity. I am frankly accustomed to being in a room with people who are smarter than me. I have little experience working with people who are even less intelligent than I am.
All I can hope is that the American people forgive me my shortcomings, God Bless America.
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