The USS Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders.

"Utilizing the USS Bataan -- Think how many lives 'could have been saved'  had DHS-FEMA utilized the USS Bataan properly. (Chicago Tribune)

Talk about a 'break-down' in the Bush Admin.-DHS-FEMA's chain of command and control process. 

• six operating rooms 
• beds for 600 patients  -- all were 'empty'
• can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day 
• a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults 
• has helicopters 
• doctors,the ship had taken on a substantial medical staff 
• hospital beds, 
• a real 'cross-section of a major hospital' -- they covered a wide swath of medical specialties onboard from surgeons and pediatricians to heart specialists, a psychiatrist and even a physical therapist 
• toilets
• food and water. 
• they have electricity, and the police could have charged up their radios"

Thanks to "J" for this.

______________

A Brave Man's Sorrow - Broussard

Washington is full of men and women who think that a solemn face and dark,expensive clothes mark them as members of the ruling class.

Perhaps they do. If that is the case, it is no wonder we are such a dull, self obsessed lot in this town.

On Sunday Tim Russert spoke on "Meet the Press" with Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard who has literally been in the "soup" for the last week, trying to deal with the life and death problems of real Americans, not the phony squabbling over influence and contracts that makes of so much of life in the capital of the United States.

Watch the video (at Crooks & Liars) to see a "government man" who lives with his people.

_____________________

"Bush vs. Blanco"

In my earlier post, "Posse Comitatus and the Use of Troops," I maintained that federal armed forces assistance is available to the governments of the states in an emergancy if application is made for such assistance under the "Stafford Act." This act creates an exception to the "Posse Comitatus" act on the basis of a state's desire to be helped. Continued BELOW: