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Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears Calendar

By Jeralyn, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 11:43:35 AM EST
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BBC is reporting that thousands of residents are returning to New Orleans to inspect the damage to their homes and pick up belongings before leaving again. Authorites warn against staying too long, saying the city has been destroyed:

The Superintendent of the New Orleans police department, Eddie Compass, has warned people remaining in the city to leave. "Our officers are basically telling people there is absolutely no reason to stay here... We advise people that this city has been destroyed."

More than 1 million people have been displaced by the hurricane.

In related news, Bush has cleared his calendar for September to focus on Katrina-related issues. And it looks like Congressional hearings into what went wrong may begin this week. President Bush may become the "lamest of lame ducks."

It has not happened yet, but there remains a real possibility that Katrina will swamp the Bush administration and leave it wrecked beyond repair.

On both sides of the political divide, there is an acceptance of the fact that if Mr Bush is seen to have failed personally to provide leadership, then nothing can be salvaged from his second term in office - he will be the lamest of lame ducks. On the face of it, the inquiries - which will start this week on Capitol Hill - would appear to be a big threat to the president.

As for the impact of the disaster on Bush's second Supreme Court nominee, BBC reports Bush might be forced to pick a less conservative choice than the radical right might want:

Conservatives will hope for a rigorous right-wing candidate, but it may well be that Mr Bush's political difficulties will point him in the direction of compromise....The floods could lead, indirectly, to a less conservative Supreme Court than the president might once have hoped for.

Update on those returning to New Orleans: Here and Here.

< Advance Copy of Senate Dems' Press Release on Katrina | Poll: Americans Want Nominee's Position on Issues Disclosed >

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    Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears Calendar | 10 comments (10 topical)
    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#1)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:17 PM EST
    Bush has cleared his calendar for September to focus on Katrina-related issues
    I hope so. However, I'll be stunned if he doesn't get in a couple of fundraisers or a few rounds of golf.

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:17 PM EST
    'Fundamental shift' It has not happened yet, but there remains a real possibility that Katrina will swamp the Bush administration and leave it wrecked beyond repair.
    ...a bewildering array of competing fiefdoms hampered the management of this crisis and may well need to be swept away - a change requiring a fundamental cultural shift in how the US is governed.
    Fundamental shifts, phase shifts, are extremely threatening to the status quo. Terrifying especially to those with power and/or privilege. But they are moments of greatest opportunity, and also moments of greatest danger. Will we thank Katrina in future for the opportunities she handed us, or hate her for the dangers, pain, and death she brought? Much of both, I suspect. I think it's time that we started to look at what we, as a planet wide society, and as a human race, might have coming down the pipe that we are going to have to live and deal with, as repercussions from this awful catastrophe... and from the "fundamental shifts" that we can now only glimpse the most tenuous shadows of, like the low, far off rumble of an approaching social and political tsunami of monstrous proportions. We can't change what has happened, and the future just might get very ugly, or very beautiful. We will need our artists, poets, and musicians to once again, as 40 years ago they did so well, to paint, and write, and sing us lessons again. And we'll need our philosopers and scientists, thinkers, dreamers, and leaders, to point out paths, and lead the way. It will take all of us, together, to go forward and upwards, or over the cliff. Either is our choice, and our responsibility. Either way, change is painful, and involves the death of something to make way for the birth of something new. Will we be the butterfly emerging from it's chrysalis, or just the caterpillar building a shell around itself for protection from a threatening outside world? ...Don't give up, Tampa Student. Please...

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:17 PM EST
    "This changes everything! ...George Walker Bush

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#4)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    I'll be stunned if he doesn't get in a couple of fundraisers or a few rounds of golf.
    bush played golf after his first round of photo ops in the dusaster area. Fire brown, fire chertoff, impeach bush.

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    Is Cheney still doing fund raisers and vacationing in Wyoming?

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#6)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    Nope, last I heard he slithered back into the DC bunker...currently working on getting the Halliburton levee rebuilding no-bid contract written up.

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#7)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    Ernesto-Haliburton has gotten only $500 mil in NOLA cleanup biz so far. link via robot wisdom

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    This would probably be more impressive if Bush had anything on his calendar.

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    Bush has cleared his calendar for September to focus on Katrina-related issues.
    Oh, how jolly good of him. It's really such a shame that so much of Bush's bike riding and brush clearing time will now have to be wasted on all those poor colored people who did this to themselves, you know. Why don't they just pull themselves up by their underwater bootstraps already.

    Re: Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears C (none / 0) (#10)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:18 PM EST
    Molly: This would probably be more impressive if Bush had anything on his calendar. Drinking away your problems and crying in your beer, while petitioning the lord for salvation, is "hard work".

    Thousands Return to New Orleans, Bush Clears Calendar | 10 comments (10 topical)