Jack Cafferty Tells It Like It Is

Posted on September 2, 2005

As the aftermath of Katrina continues to unfold in all its horror, there was one journalist who simply said what a lot of people were thinking today. During The Situation Room (Wolf Blitzer's F/X-laden new show that I'm becoming quite fond of), Jack Cafferty really let fly with what he thought about the incredibly disorganized and slow response to Hurricane Katrina:

Jack Cafferty: "The thing that's most glaring in all this is that the conditions continue to deteriorate for the people who are victims in this, and the efforts to do something about it don't seem to be anywhere in sight. I want to read you something, Wolf. This is a quote from an editorial:"
'A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource. The cool, confident intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months following 9/11, has vanished.'
"Now that's not from some liberal rag; that is an editorial from one of the most conservative newspapers in the country, New Hampshire�s Union Leader. The New York Times, not unexpectedly, kind of chimed in. They said the president showed up a day later than he was needed and they excoriate him for appearing 'casual to the point of carelessness.' Harsh words coming from FEMA's former disaster response chief, Eric Tolbert: 'The government was not ready and shifted its attention from natural disaster to fighting the war on terror.'
"The questions we ask on The Situation Room every afternoon, Wolf, are posted on the website 2 to 3 hours before we go on the air, and people who read the website often begin to respond to the questions before the show actually starts. The question this hour is: How would you rate the response of the federal government to Hurricane Katrina?"
"I've got to tell you something, we got 500-600 letters before the show even went on the air. No one -- no one -- says the federal government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamitous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I'm 62, I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco. I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans."
"Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people who are in that Superdome down there? I mean, what is going -- this is Thursday. This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn�t watching. This is the government the taxpayers are paying for, and it's fallen right flat on its face, as far as I can see, in the way it�s handled this thing."

The absolutely blistering editorial in The New York Times mentioned by Cafferty can be found here. But here's a snippet to give you a feel for the piece:

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

You get the idea.