The title of today's sermon was "How to Handle a Public Lynching" Otis Moss III is just as crazy as Jeremiah Wright....

Obama better find him a new church.....

CHICAGO — The new pastor of Barack Obama’s church delivered a defiant defense of its retiring reverend Sunday, comparing media coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to a modern-day lynching that resembles Jesus’ death at the hands of the Romans.

In a sunrise Easter sermon, Rev. Otis Moss III never mentioned Wright by name, but implied that his mentor, who has delivered sermons in which he likened the U.S. to the Ku Klux Klan and declared it damned for its “state-sponsored terrorism,” is facing the same challenges Jesus did.”No one should start a ministry with lynching, no one should end their ministry with lynching,” Moss said.

“The lynching was national news. The RNN, the Roman News Network, was reporting it and NPR, National Publican Radio had it on the radio. The Jerusalem Post and the Palestine Times all wanted exclusives, they searched out the young ministers, showed up unannounced at their houses, tried to talk with their families, called up their friends, wanted to get a quote on how do you feel about the lynching?” he continued.

The criticism surrounding Wright has not softened the services at Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama has been a congregant for 20 years. Instead, Moss defiantly defended their method of worship, referencing rap lyrics to make his point.”If I was Ice Cube I’d say it a little differently — ‘You picked the wrong folk to mess with,’” Moss said to an enthusiastic congregation, standing up during much of the sermon, titled “How to Handle a Public Lynching.”

"black liberation theology" is offspring of the nation of Islam stuff. So you know where to look if you want to know how looney this stuff can get.

That is the thought behind my "Not on My Watch" post. Not on My Watch was the title of his sermon. Instead of preaching about Christ on Easter Sunday, he choose to preach about how Mr. Wright was like Christ and the media was like the Romans. :


Mr. Obama has another "spiritual advisor", James Meeks, that has the same love of "The average white person" that Mr. Wright does. :yikes:

Its interesting how this "guilt by association" stuff comes up in just about every election...Just like pointing out that so many Rep. candidates...including Reagan made addresses at Bob Jones University?....Its mostly just the media looking for a story and is a distraction from the issues....Id rather see the issues debated than this being the main focus.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:..Just like pointing out that so many Rep. candidates...including Reagan made addresses at Bob Jones University?....

aside from the substance differences, how is giving a speech the equivalent of being a member for 20 years to a Black Nationalist crackpot Church the same exactly?

Hey, at least were not hearing Barack's a muslim anymore. You've found a chink in the armor and the right is trying to exploit it. I'm glad it's coming out now instead of Octber. This is just a bump in the road. A much to do about nothing.

GGniner Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:..Just like pointing out that so many Rep. candidates...including Reagan made addresses at Bob Jones University?....

aside from the substance differences, how is giving a speech the equivalent of being a member for 20 years to a Black Nationalist crackpot Church the same exactly?

Just pointing out the "guilt by association" theme that seems to come out over and over and that these incidents have less to do with the candidate and more to do with character assassination.

Fo-

Spot on, but do how can you blame them. They can't run on their record. The conservative philosphy of minimal govt. cutting taxes, and a strong military has produced the Katrina aftermath, deficits for our grandkids, and Iraq. It's such a monumental yoke as long as a tape doesn't show up with Barack in Black Panther party gear and once the Clinton camp bows out it will be just a bump in the road.

Machiavelli Wrote:Fo-

Spot on, but do how can you blame them. They can't run on their record. The conservative philosphy of minimal govt. cutting taxes, and a strong military has produced the Katrina aftermath

It is in every way impossible to try and assert that conservative belief in limited government (the founding fathers shared it by the way), letting people keep more of what they earn, and a strong military produced Katrina. Asinine.

Conservatism gaves us the largest and longest peacetime growth in American history. Conservatism returned this country to the place of second to none after JFK and LBJ's Vietnam, Nixon's stupidity and Carter's incompetence and made us a joke of a country with an economy to go along.

What has your liberal philosophy got us? The debt to our grandkids was started back with FDR, made worse by LBJ and culminated with the ineptitude of Carter.

Iraq was not a conservative philosophy. It's anything but.

Ninerfan1 Wrote:

Machiavelli Wrote:Fo-

Spot on, but do how can you blame them. They can't run on their record. The conservative philosphy of minimal govt. cutting taxes, and a strong military has produced the Katrina aftermath

It is in every way impossible to try and assert that conservative belief in limited government (the founding fathers shared it by the way), letting people keep more of what they earn, and a strong military produced Katrina. Asinine.

Conservatism gaves us the largest and longest peacetime growth in American history. Conservatism returned this country to the place of second to none after JFK and LBJ's Vietnam, Nixon's stupidity and Carter's incompetence and made us a joke of a country with an economy to go along.

What has your liberal philosophy got us? The debt to our grandkids was started back with FDR, made worse by LBJ and culminated with the ineptitude of Carter.

Iraq was not a conservative philosophy. It's anything but.

I dont dissagree with you on most of your points...Unfortunately conservatism has been high jacked and is not that of what Goldwater and Reagan understood it to be. Its now turned into some kind of Theofascist imperialism.

The current debt is directly attibutable to our Iraq boondoogle...We got lucky with the Dot.com boom and managed to swim out of debt..only to plunge right back in again by poorly informed POTUS and a congress that allowed him to exert way to much executive power...(so much for checks and balances) Unless we experience another tech inovaton boom...Im afraid we may not dig ourselves out again for decades.

I not a fan of Liberalism or Conservatism...I dont really see much difference between the two philosophies on the most core level..Both approve of the theft our wages and use the guns of govt. to achieve goals. Both are guilty of the slow and steady growth of government and the reduction of the liberties of our citizens.

What will be the tipping point that ends this union of thieves and allows citizens to live unfettered by the force of government?

Here's an excerpt of a passage. I think the popular press has it wrong when it says Bush is incompetent. I was trying to research things he has accomplished. It's the underlying conservative phiosphy that is bankrupt and it needs to be addressed.

The Conservative Agenda

Conservative philosophy has three fundamental tenets: individual initiative, that is, government’s positive role in people’s lives outside of the military and police should be minimized; the President is the moral authority; and free markets are enough to foster freedom and opportunity.

The conservative vision for government is to shrink it – to “starve the beast” in Conservative Grover Norquist’s words. The conservative tagline for this rationale is that “you can spend your money better than the government can.” Social programs are considered unnecessary or “discretionary” since the primary role of government is to defend the country’s border and police its interior. Stewardship of the commons, such as allocation of healthcare or energy policy, is left to people’s own initiative within the free market. Where profits cannot be made — conservation, healthcare for the poor — charity is meant to replace justice and the government should not be involved.

Given this philosophy, then, is it any wonder that the government wasn’t there for the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Conservative philosophy places emphasis on the individual acting alone, independent of anything the government could provide. Some conservative Sunday morning talk show guests suggested that those who chose to live in New Orleans accepted the risk of a devastating hurricane, the implication being that they thus forfeited any entitlement to government assistance. If the people of New Orleans suffered, it was because of their own actions, their own choices and their own lack of preparedness. Bush couldn’t have failed if he bore no responsibility.

The response to Hurricane Katrina — rather, the lack of response — was what one should expect from a philosophy that espouses that the government can have no positive role in its citizen’s lives. This response was not about Bush’s incompetence, it was a conservative, shrink-government response to a natural disaster.

Another failure of this administration during the Katrina fiasco was its wholesale disregard of the numerous and serious hurricane warnings. But this failure was a natural outgrowth of the conservative insistence on denying the validity of global warming, not ineptitude. Conservatives continue to deny the validity of global warming, because it runs contrary to their moral system. Recognizing global warming would call for environmental regulation and governmental efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regulation is a perceived interference with the free-market, Conservatives’ golden calf. So, the predictions of imminent hurricanes — based on recognizing global warming — were not heeded. Conservative free market convictions trumped the hurricane warnings.


Our budget deficit is not the result of incompetent fiscal management. It too is an outgrowth of conservative philosophy. What better way than massive deficits to rid social programs of their funding?




The part in italics, I don't agree with. The author goes off on a tangent there, but if the Louisiana National Gaurd was in Louisiana instead of Iraq things would have been different. If Nagin didn't go off like he did how long would we have waited to send help. A week, two. Only the true die-hards can't see the link between our inept pathetic response to Katrina and the Conservative Think Tank of shrinking our govt. The part in bold I definetly think is in play. Conservatives don't want a balanced budget. They would much rather have a tax cut then to balance the books. It's my major hang up with them. They still want to spend like a sailor at a port o call on nickel night but don't want to foot the bill.

Here's the article. Bush is not incompetent.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/resear...ncompetent

We don't need to get into another Katrina debate... but let's be honest.

The thinking against the Russians and Chinese was that we needed a large military backed by a Nuclear deterrent. The thinking against North Korea/Iraq etc was that we needed a smaller, more nimble military. Many technological advances save lives... like the predator and stealth bombers.

HOWEVER... the military was NEVER designed to be a war machine, AND a police force, AND prison guards, AND firemen, AND oil field workers, AND escorts, AND a construction crew. They were designed to get in, make dead, and get out. Most military people will tell you, if you don't want something dead, don't call me. If you call me, it will be quick, it will be dead and it will be ugly... but it will be done. We've turned the military into a jack-of-all trades, and are far too quick to use them... because we've forgotten what they are for. Sure, they have some assets that can be used by civilian, or para-military forces... but they are not relief workers.

We didn't imagine the kind of war where the opressed would prefer (or are so afraid) of their opressors that they wouldn't defend themselves against opression if given the chance. It's amazing what thousands of years of opression will do to some people. Look at Africa... we spend billions to fight opression there and save lives... but much of our money and aid gets stolen and turned into guns or warriors to further opress the people. This isn't any more Bush's fault than any other president since Nixon, except perhaps Reagan. We, as a people who were given an opportunity to fight our opressors, did so... and over such vile opression as freedom of religion and taxes. These people won't fight to keep from having their children stoned for the crime of being raped. When we found ourselves opressing others, we fought our own brothers to stop it. For these people, it is part of life. We don't react well to so foriegn a concept.

As far as Obama's pastors are concerned... I believe that racism still exists in America. I believe that there are some racist supporters of the Republican party. I also believe that there are some racist supporters of the Democratic party...

I do not personally blame Obama (or McCain) for the racist rants of their supporters. I DO raise an eyebrow when I see how close some of these supporters are... to the point of being advisors in some cases. While they may not like it, I believe that politicians owe a duty to explain exactly where certain people's advice starts and stops... and if they don't like it, tell their people to rein in their tongues. I mean, if a President can't control the public comments of a close advisor, then perhaps he shouldn't be President.

I am more troubled by the fact that racist advisors (on BOTH sides) are using their comments to encourage people with viewpoints outside the mainstream to become more active in politics. As an example... If there is someone out there saying (in effect) "vote for McCain because he'll keep the White House for white men"... that is a problem for me... and I don't want a bunch of people who ONLY support that kind of comment negating my vote.

Machiavelli Wrote:Here's an excerpt of a passage. I think the popular press has it wrong when it says Bush is incompetent. I was trying to research things he has accomplished. It's the underlying conservative phiosphy that is bankrupt and it needs to be addressed.

The Conservative Agenda

Conservative philosophy has three fundamental tenets: individual initiative, that is, government’s positive role in people’s lives outside of the military and police should be minimized; the President is the moral authority; and free markets are enough to foster freedom and opportunity.

The conservative vision for government is to shrink it – to “starve the beast” in Conservative Grover Norquist’s words. The conservative tagline for this rationale is that “you can spend your money better than the government can.” Social programs are considered unnecessary or “discretionary” since the primary role of government is to defend the country’s border and police its interior. Stewardship of the commons, such as allocation of healthcare or energy policy, is left to people’s own initiative within the free market. Where profits cannot be made — conservation, healthcare for the poor — charity is meant to replace justice and the government should not be involved.

Given this philosophy, then, is it any wonder that the government wasn’t there for the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Conservative philosophy places emphasis on the individual acting alone, independent of anything the government could provide. Some conservative Sunday morning talk show guests suggested that those who chose to live in New Orleans accepted the risk of a devastating hurricane, the implication being that they thus forfeited any entitlement to government assistance. If the people of New Orleans suffered, it was because of their own actions, their own choices and their own lack of preparedness. Bush couldn’t have failed if he bore no responsibility.

The response to Hurricane Katrina — rather, the lack of response — was what one should expect from a philosophy that espouses that the government can have no positive role in its citizen’s lives. This response was not about Bush’s incompetence, it was a conservative, shrink-government response to a natural disaster.

Another failure of this administration during the Katrina fiasco was its wholesale disregard of the numerous and serious hurricane warnings. But this failure was a natural outgrowth of the conservative insistence on denying the validity of global warming, not ineptitude. Conservatives continue to deny the validity of global warming, because it runs contrary to their moral system. Recognizing global warming would call for environmental regulation and governmental efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regulation is a perceived interference with the free-market, Conservatives’ golden calf. So, the predictions of imminent hurricanes — based on recognizing global warming — were not heeded. Conservative free market convictions trumped the hurricane warnings.


Our budget deficit is not the result of incompetent fiscal management. It too is an outgrowth of conservative philosophy. What better way than massive deficits to rid social programs of their funding?




The part in italics, I don't agree with. The author goes off on a tangent there, but if the Louisiana National Gaurd was in Louisiana instead of Iraq things would have been different. If Nagin didn't go off like he did how long would we have waited to send help. A week, two. Only the true die-hards can't see the link between our inept pathetic response to Katrina and the Conservative Think Tank of shrinking our govt. The part in bold I definetly think is in play. Conservatives don't want a balanced budget. They would much rather have a tax cut then to balance the books. It's my major hang up with them. They still want to spend like a sailor at a port o call on nickel night but don't want to foot the bill.

Here's the article. Bush is not incompetent.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/resear...ncompetent

The single greatest failure of George Bush has been his lack of leadership in the Katrina disaster...All he had to do was pick up the damn phone and get a General on the line and tell him..."I want supplies,food,generators and whatever else is needed to keep the citizens alive...Or you can find yourself another damn job"...NOW!!!
He should have risked the outcry from the Governors about not having the power to do it....The public would have forgiven him for exceeding his executive powers in this situation....I will never forget seeing the people at the SuperDome suffering...This giant area around the dome that choppers could have airlifted supplies into...just sat there waiting...and waiting...I will never forgive GB for this lack of leadership.

Machiavelli Wrote:Here's an excerpt of a passage. I think the popular press has it wrong when it says Bush is incompetent. I was trying to research things he has accomplished. It's the underlying conservative phiosphy that is bankrupt and it needs to be addressed.

The Conservative Agenda

Conservative philosophy has three fundamental tenets: individual initiative, that is, government’s positive role in people’s lives outside of the military and police should be minimized; the President is the moral authority; and free markets are enough to foster freedom and opportunity.

The conservative vision for government is to shrink it – to “starve the beast” in Conservative Grover Norquist’s words. The conservative tagline for this rationale is that “you can spend your money better than the government can.” Social programs are considered unnecessary or “discretionary” since the primary role of government is to defend the country’s border and police its interior. Stewardship of the commons, such as allocation of healthcare or energy policy, is left to people’s own initiative within the free market. Where profits cannot be made — conservation, healthcare for the poor — charity is meant to replace justice and the government should not be involved.

Given this philosophy, then, is it any wonder that the government wasn’t there for the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Conservative philosophy places emphasis on the individual acting alone, independent of anything the government could provide. Some conservative Sunday morning talk show guests suggested that those who chose to live in New Orleans accepted the risk of a devastating hurricane, the implication being that they thus forfeited any entitlement to government assistance. If the people of New Orleans suffered, it was because of their own actions, their own choices and their own lack of preparedness. Bush couldn’t have failed if he bore no responsibility.

The response to Hurricane Katrina — rather, the lack of response — was what one should expect from a philosophy that espouses that the government can have no positive role in its citizen’s lives. This response was not about Bush’s incompetence, it was a conservative, shrink-government response to a natural disaster.

Another failure of this administration during the Katrina fiasco was its wholesale disregard of the numerous and serious hurricane warnings. But this failure was a natural outgrowth of the conservative insistence on denying the validity of global warming, not ineptitude. Conservatives continue to deny the validity of global warming, because it runs contrary to their moral system. Recognizing global warming would call for environmental regulation and governmental efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regulation is a perceived interference with the free-market, Conservatives’ golden calf. So, the predictions of imminent hurricanes — based on recognizing global warming — were not heeded. Conservative free market convictions trumped the hurricane warnings.


Our budget deficit is not the result of incompetent fiscal management. It too is an outgrowth of conservative philosophy. What better way than massive deficits to rid social programs of their funding?




The part in italics, I don't agree with. The author goes off on a tangent there, but if the Louisiana National Gaurd was in Louisiana instead of Iraq things would have been different. If Nagin didn't go off like he did how long would we have waited to send help. A week, two. Only the true die-hards can't see the link between our inept pathetic response to Katrina and the Conservative Think Tank of shrinking our govt. The part in bold I definetly think is in play. Conservatives don't want a balanced budget. They would much rather have a tax cut then to balance the books. It's my major hang up with them. They still want to spend like a sailor at a port o call on nickel night but don't want to foot the bill.

Here's the article. Bush is not incompetent.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/resear...ncompetent

Whoever wrote this has no clue about what true conservatism is. They illustrate that in their first sentence.

Machiavelli Wrote:Hey, at least were not hearing Barack's a muslim anymore. You've found a chink in the armor and the right is trying to exploit it. I'm glad it's coming out now instead of Octber. This is just a bump in the road. A much to do about nothing.

Much ado about nothing?!?

The Audacity of Rhetoric

Quote:Some are saying that Senator Obama cannot be held responsible for what his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said. In their version of events, Barack Obama just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and a bunch of mean-spirited people are trying to make something out of it.

Quote:Barack Obama's own account of his life shows that he consciously sought out people on the far left fringe. In college, "I chose my friends carefully," he said in his first book, "Dreams From My Father."

These friends included "Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets" -- in Obama's own words -- as well as the "more politically active black students." He later visited a former member of the terrorist Weatherman underground, who endorsed him when he ran for state senator.

Barack Obama has some real issues with "typical white people".

Fo Shizzle Wrote:The single greatest failure of George Bush has been his lack of leadership in the Katrina disaster...All he had to do was pick up the damn phone and get a General on the line and tell him..."I want supplies,food,generators and whatever else is needed to keep the citizens alive...Or you can find yourself another damn job"...NOW!!!
He should have risked the outcry from the Governors about not having the power to do it....The public would have forgiven him for exceeding his executive powers in this situation....I will never forget seeing the people at the SuperDome suffering...This giant area around the dome that choppers could have airlifted supplies into...just sat there waiting...and waiting...I will never forgive GB for this lack of leadership.

That sounds great... and emotionally, I'd agree with you 100%, but it's absolutely wrong... and if you think people would have forgiven him, that's fine... but I guarantee you that SOMEONE would have sued for billions... and in THIS case, the Supreme Court would HAVE to argue that the President overstepped his authority. In the simplest of examples... If the general had determined that YOUR house needed to be bulldozed and pushed up against the levee to protect it from collapse, your insurance company wouldn't have covered you, and you would have sued... and won. The President declared it a disater area LONG before the hurricane hit, allowing Louisiana LOTS of authority protections from lawsuits... but that was for the protection of the duly elected Louisiana government... NOT for the Federal Government.

I'm not going to go into the long list of things that SHOULD have happened LONG before Katrina ever hit (in some cases, decades before) but there is a chain of command, and it is inviolate.

New Orleans had a Mayor, a city council, The Parish had a government, and Louisiana had a Governor and State Representatives... not to mention Senators and Representatives in DC... All of whom had powers before the President of the United States. Florida suffers disasters all the time, as did Mississippi and parts of Texas. What about California?? Should the President take over EVERY time, or just sometimes?? and who determines that??

Look, some people believe that killing paroled child molestors or abortion doctors is okay... and would forgive someone for doing so... but that's not what the law says. Obviously I picked an extreme example, but you can't just pick and choose which laws to follow.

Hambone10 Wrote:I'm not going to go into the long list of things that SHOULD have happened LONG before Katrina ever hit (in some cases, decades before) but there is a chain of command, and it is inviolate.

New Orleans had a Mayor, a city council, The Parish had a government, and Louisiana had a Governor and State Representatives... not to mention Senators and Representatives in DC... All of whom had powers before the President of the United States. Florida suffers disasters all the time, as did Mississippi and parts of Texas. What about California?? Should the President take over EVERY time, or just sometimes?? and who determines that??

Hey, it took me a day and a half to board up my house in West U before I bailed out on Rita. I left Thursday afternoon, with 2 dogs and a wife and other precious cargo in my pickup truck (with a full tank of gas).

With the help of a Garmin GPS system, a CB Radio, and the Official Texas Department of Transportation Road Atlas (that has every goat path, farm road, county road and trail on it) I made it to Fort Worth in 7 hours.. and hit only minimal traffic on Texas 6 between Marlin and Waco. I had Ted Nugent's "Double Live Gonzo" in the CD player and made it to Tomball before the end of the first CD....

You just had to plan accordingly..AND use intelligence... something that Lee P. "Idiot" Brown didn't do during Alison... and we know what Ray "the Cable Guy" Nagin did during Katrina....:muttering:

Hambone10 Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:The single greatest failure of George Bush has been his lack of leadership in the Katrina disaster...All he had to do was pick up the damn phone and get a General on the line and tell him..."I want supplies,food,generators and whatever else is needed to keep the citizens alive...Or you can find yourself another damn job"...NOW!!!
He should have risked the outcry from the Governors about not having the power to do it....The public would have forgiven him for exceeding his executive powers in this situation....I will never forget seeing the people at the SuperDome suffering...This giant area around the dome that choppers could have airlifted supplies into...just sat there waiting...and waiting...I will never forgive GB for this lack of leadership.

That sounds great... and emotionally, I'd agree with you 100%, but it's absolutely wrong... and if you think people would have forgiven him, that's fine... but I guarantee you that SOMEONE would have sued for billions... and in THIS case, the Supreme Court would HAVE to argue that the President overstepped his authority. In the simplest of examples... If the general had determined that YOUR house needed to be bulldozed and pushed up against the levee to protect it from collapse, your insurance company wouldn't have covered you, and you would have sued... and won. The President declared it a disater area LONG before the hurricane hit, allowing Louisiana LOTS of authority protections from lawsuits... but that was for the protection of the duly elected Louisiana government... NOT for the Federal Government.

I'm not going to go into the long list of things that SHOULD have happened LONG before Katrina ever hit (in some cases, decades before) but there is a chain of command, and it is inviolate.

New Orleans had a Mayor, a city council, The Parish had a government, and Louisiana had a Governor and State Representatives... not to mention Senators and Representatives in DC... All of whom had powers before the President of the United States. Florida suffers disasters all the time, as did Mississippi and parts of Texas. What about California?? Should the President take over EVERY time, or just sometimes?? and who determines that??

Look, some people believe that killing paroled child molestors or abortion doctors is okay... and would forgive someone for doing so... but that's not what the law says. Obviously I picked an extreme example, but you can't just pick and choose which laws to follow.

Good points...My main beef is that that SOB was watching the same damn TV coverage I was...and he didnt do a damn thing...He showed NO leadership...Relief in the form for portable generators, MREs, water, portable toliets..ect..ect...would have save lives...He had the capacity to make that happen with the push of a button...I have a very good friend that is a Col. in the NG...I asked him how long would it have taken to get supplies into NO...He said..."less than 6 hours"...and his unit is in NC.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:Good points...My main beef is that that SOB was watching the same damn TV coverage I was...and he didnt do a damn thing...He showed NO leadership...Relief in the form for portable generators, MREs, water, portable toliets..ect..ect...would have save lives...He had the capacity to make that happen with the push of a button...I have a very good friend that is a Col. in the NG...I asked him how long would it have taken to get supplies into NO...He said..."less than 6 hours"...and his unit is in NC.

You are the Champion of limited federal powers around here....

If the idiots Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin didn't ask for Federal/FEMA/Military intervention for Katrina, why should Bush impose his federal will over them?

All they had to do was ask before the storm hit so all the helicopters, MRE's, water and supplies could have been placed on standby.

It was a 5 the day before it hit... regardless of landfall, something was going to get royally F'ed up....

Hambone, are you sure Bush declared NO a disaster area before the hurricane hit? I don't remember that being the case. I do, however, remember Blanco "finally" asking for help on Thursday....4 days after it hit.