Patch

No Photographing the Dead
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 (Reuters) - The Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday that it did not want news photographers to take pictures of the dead as they were recovered in New Orleans.
FEMA rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats. (Would be a damn shame for Americans to see any more of how inept FEMA has become.)
An agency spokeswoman said that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect." ( That and FEMA cover up.)
(Rudy Giuliani.) We need someone to do for the federal government what Rudy did for New York's."
The mayor deserves all the praise he has received, the NYPD and NYFD deserve all their praise, BUT, WHAT IF; New York City was 90 % flooded no electric power, no communications? What if NYC had to be evacuated, what if Mayor Giuliani had to face half of what Mayor Ray Nagin is facing? What if the NY police and fire departments couldn’t have got within 2 miles of the World Trade Center?
AND WHAT IF; FEMA had reacted in NYC and Wall Street as it acted towards NOLA? Think heads would roll, think GWB would be making jokes and telling Mike Brown what a good job he was doing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07wed1.html?hp

With the size and difficulty of the task of rescuing and rebuilding New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas still unfolding, it seemed early to talk about investigating how this predicted cataclysm had been allowed to occur and why the government's response was so slow and inept. Until yesterday, that is, when President Bush blithely announced at a photo-op cabinet meeting that he, personally, was going to "find out what went right and what went wrong." We can't imagine a worse idea.
No administration could credibly investigate such an immense failure on its own watch. And we have learned through bitter experience - the Abu Ghraib nightmare is just one example - that when this administration begins an internal investigation, it means a whitewash in which no one important is held accountable and no real change occurs.
Mr. Bush signaled yesterday that we are in for more of the same when he sneered and said, "One of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game." This is not a game. It is critical to know what "things went wrong," as Mr. Bush put it. But we also need to know which officials failed - not to humiliate them, but to replace them with competent people.


The big question is; will we get an honest investigation or more cover up? Will we have anyone stand and take responsibility or will it be all CYA? Will anyone admit that Homeland Security and FEMA is not a place for political patronage or will we get competent people put in charge?