WP:Documents Highlight Bush-Blanco Standoff(Vitter carried Rove's message)

[Pirate Smile]

Documents Highlight Bush-Blanco Standoff

By Spencer S. Hsu, Joby Warrick and Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 5, 2005; Page A10

Shortly after noon on Aug. 31, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) delivered a message that stunned aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D), who were frantically managing the catastrophe that began two days earlier when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

White House senior adviser Karl Rove wanted it conveyed that he understood that Blanco was requesting that President Bush federalize the evacuation of New Orleans. The governor should explore legal options to impose martial law "or as close as we can get," Vitter quoted Rove as saying, according to handwritten notes by Terry Ryder, Blanco's executive counsel.

Thus began what one aide called a "full-court press" to compel the first-term governor to yield control of her state National Guard -- a legal, political and personal campaign by White House staff that failed three days later when Blanco rejected the administration's terms, 10 minutes before Bush was to announce them in a Rose Garden news conference, the governor's aides said.

The standoff, illuminated among more than 100,000 pages of documents released Friday by Blanco in response to requests by Senate and House investigators, marks perhaps the clearest single conflict between U.S. and Louisiana officials in the bungled response to New Orleans's surrender to floodwaters and chaos.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120400963.html

I posted it in LBN but it got dumped into the old thread about the document released. This is a new article - for Monday's paper.

I think people would like to see the new details of the power play - Rove via Vitter.

[liveoaktx]

1. Video-remember this from the next day?

Bush tries to snub Blanco

[Pirate Smile]

2. more details - shows how nothing additional was needed for Bush to help.

"The next day, on a Bush visit, administration officials ganged up on Blanco out of the presence of staff members and tried to bully her into changing her mind, they said. Blanco requested 24 hours.

Ryder's notes report that on the night of Sept. 1, Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, advised Blanco, as an aide put it, "You don't want to do that. You lose control, and you don't get one more boot on the ground."

Later, Blum told Ryder he came "under political duress" for his opinion and used military slang to describe a useless, out-of-control situation, according to Ryder's notes.

-snip-
At 8:56 a.m., just before Bush stepped onto the White House lawn, Blanco called Card and aides faxed a rejection letter.
The president did not mention the dispute with Blanco in his remarks, and deployed troops using existing command structures."

[liveoaktx]

4. Vitter was being disingenuous-Blanco's aides were not "hypersensitive"

This was a power play, pure and simple. Bush badly needed, after being out of touch for days, and his administration dropping the ball, to appear in command/in touch. Good for Blanco not giving in to that, especially when, as you point out, it isn't as if Bush brought any additional resources to the mix.

And if there was any "messing around" going on, it's because Bush was busy doing something else other than getting on the stick.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Vitter is so disgusting. I remember him bashing Mary Landrieu on the

Senate floor because she was desperately trying to get the Senate to act.

:grr:

[Pirate Smile]

18. I like this quote from John Breaux included in a NYT article this weekend.

"In the documents, Ms. Blanco and her advisers, as well as some outside allies, defended her decision to reject a request by the Bush administration to take control of the National Guard forces.

"If Bush and FEMA couldn't deliver meals after 5 days how could LA expect them to take over our Natl Guard and do better job????" John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who is now a Washington lawyer, wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Mann."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/national/nationalspecial/04blanco.html?hp&ex=1133672400&en=051f8193d8c7dcef&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[CoffeeCat]

3. Man, this article is so very important....and so telling...

Bush--through Rove--was demanding that Katrina relief be Federalized. He wanted control. Junior wanted to stand in the rose garden, give us that constipated cowboy look and he wanted to appear in command.

What a sick joke.

I can just hear the overzealous optimism in the White House, "Here's your chance to look presidential, Georgie! Just like ya did when you stood at ground zero with that bull horn! We can take over the Katrina disaster, and you can stand in the middle of it and look like a real leader!"

Instead, because Blanco was frickin shrewd and incredibly intelligent----she told them to forget it. She knew what they were trying to do.

What a bunch of evil, sick, soulless, pieces of human trash.

If this article doesn't prove to everyone that Bush is a sociopath, I don't know what will. He didn't give a damn about the people who were trapped in the rafters of their homes--dying and drowning. He could have cared less. All he could think about was how this situation could help his poll numbers.

This is so sick, it's scary.

[NanceGreggs]

6. "Hell hath no fury ...

... like a BushBaby deprived of a photo-op."

[Pirate Smile]

7. It was on the Greatest Page very quickly from LBN but it isn't

anymore because it got added to the pre-existing thread on the LA document release.

I thought it had new info that people would like to see - that is why I posted it here.

:-)

[chicagiana]

11. Well the 24 hours thing was brilliant ...

That was like stalling Napolean on the steps of Moscow.

It made Bush look terrible for yet ANOTHER day. And he deserved it.

Bush could have been a big hero if he had CANCELLED his fucking vacation, flew back to Washington and publicly directed FEMA to give any help necessary AND ... AND ... bargained with guard commands in adjacent states to assist with relief.

Instead Bush made a power play out of the whole deal. And of course Cheney saw the opportunity to even more $$$ off human suffering by steering contracts to firms like Blackwater instead of simply inserting regular Army.

[antonialee839]

26. Don't forget Rove's bonus part of the plan to make a Democrat

look incompetent. We didn't see this crap going on when it came to Haley Barbour.

[Al-CIAda]

27. Its working, Blanco has been trashed and is now at 36%.

...as N.O. is left to hang and crumble.

[KoKo]

13. Well said! And, the Chimp is still angry he didn't get his "Bullhorn

Moment." Explains lack of relief for NO's. He's still pissed and he doesn't ever forget a slight. Good for Blanco. Those of us who watched it all thought something was going on behind the scenes that would show it wasn't her fault but another Bushie power grab so glad to see the "truth out."

[marbuc]

8. Vitter carried the message?

WTF? Is Karl Rove the Godfather?

[liam_laddie]

9. K & R !

Thanks, Pirate...this is a great topic.

[...of J.Temperance]

10. This is worthy of ONLY page A10...oh yeah The Whoring Post

Junior wanted to federalize and declare Martial Law, pretty much for the first time in the South since WHEN...and The Post thinks it's NOT worth the fucking front page?

Bastards.

[Pirate Smile]

12. kick

[atommom]

14. kick

[SpiralHawk]

15. k & r -- this needs to be made plain across the land

BushCo Bullies & Cronies failed America in her hour of need during Katrina.

Just as they failed America on 9/11.

[speedoo]

16. This, by itself, is grounds for impeachment, IMO. n/t

[Stephanie]

17. Excuse me? ROVE wanted to declare MARTIAL LAW???

Ummm, isn't that NEWS?

[texpatriot2004]

19. Sounds like "news" to me...definitely news-worthy nm

[texpatriot2004]

20. I am grateful the 1st term Gov. Blanco didn't cave to these creeps

she stuck to her guns.

[Peace Patriot]

21. I think Bush wanted a lot more than a photo op. My little pet theory:

Cheney was the one who wanted total control of Katrina, and was blackmailing Bush--on Traitorgate--to get it, with Bush in turn using the starving and dying of New Orleans as an extortion item against Blanco, to get her to yield. Traitorgate was lurking in the background, off the public radar, at the time, but very much on the minds of all the many top Bushites that might be in line for treason charges, Cheney at the head of the list. He didn't get total WH control, as desired (that Blanco has some spine!), but Halliburton did get the first no-bid, no performance standards, profit guaranteed contract. Cheney was AWOL until that happened. (But he was not idle. He ordered ground crews to restore power to the Texas to northeast pipeline instead of rural hospitals, one of which was already on generators. Ground crews worked through the night, thinking they were helping the hospitals. Direct order from the V-P.)

Rove, too, must have been mighty worried about Traitorgate. I figure he was on strike during the cake-eating, guitar-playing Bush photo disasters, demanding a pardon or something. He later put out a story that he had been in the hospital during Katrina, because I think his absence as spinner-in-chief was noticed. I'd have to see the hospital records and personally talk to the doctors and nurses, and know who they give their political donations to, and what WH appointments they might be on a list for, before I'd believe that story. Smelled to high heaven.

Didn't know Rove was point man on extorting WH control from Blanco. Don't know how that fits into the Rove time-line, but he was definitely not in charge of Bush PR (and no one seemed to be in charge of it) when Bush was dangling out there in public, totally clueless, eating cake while Americans were dying and a big chunk of the US was getting blown off the map. I even considered that Bush was being deliberately sabotaged. I mean, it was so outrageous. (No PR person would let that happen to a president--except one who was desperate and doing a bit of extortion of his own.)

I think some very, very, VERY dirty deeds were going on in the junta WH, behind the scenes, during Katrina--in addition to their normal mass murder, torture and thievery. I think Bush is guilty of treason (ordering the outing of a CIA agent, and the destruction of the CIA's entire WMD counter-proliferation network, 20 years in the making--to cover up Bushite plans to plant WMDs in Iraq, and perhaps other arms dealing), that Cheney, Rumsfeld and others have the goods on Bush (on that, and probably other matters), and are using it to twist him here and there and anywhere they want him to go.

Remember how Daddy Bush and Clinton came out and stood behind Bush Jr. during Katrina? I thought that was pretty weird, and it got me to thinking: was there a coup in progress? (--and Daddy and Clinton were saying 'We're backing junior.') Dunno about that. But my gut tells me SOMETHING very serious was going on behind the scenes.

The truth about the "snipers" is now coming out as well. THAT was trumped up. And what about all those stories of help being offered, and the Feds turning down one after another? And the battleship off the coast, all equipped with hospitals and ready to help? Couldn't get through to the president! Couldn't get orders. It all adds up NOT to incompetence, but to a deliberately orchestrated denial of help, until Bush's (Cheney's?) conditions were met. And it's very reminiscent of the chaos in Iraq, which I never did think was incompetence (except for a few minutes, after I learned that they had fired their best Iraqi translators for ideological reasons--but I soon realized that putting Neo-con ideologues in charge was just part of the fun and games to Rumsfeld.) (Freedom = the freedom to loot.)

As I said, it's just my little pet theory. I think the best way to get at the truth about Bushites is to assume the worst, as a starting premise, and then try to disprove it, and think of alternatives to their total and complete criminality.

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. For my theory on this, see the links in my post below (#23)

and be sure to read the documentation I posted in the replies to the Sept 16 thread in addtion to the opening post.

I also strongly recommend the DU home page editorial I link to in the post below.

I really don't think Traitorgate was at the center of the scheming during the hurricane response. They don't believe they are vulnerable and they are going after more power, permanent power, and always more money.

And there is another scandal brewing that may well be bigger than Traitorgate:
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2005/12/deeper-into-wilkesmzm-scandals-updated.html
(Of course, there are a LOT of scandals that would be bigger than Traitorgate if allowed to be exposed - like what happened on 9/11 and in the planning for the Iraq War.)

[sunnystarr]

22. Wasn't Rove hospitalized that week with kidney stones?

or was that bs that we were being fed?

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. This fleshes out what we heard about the WH trying to force martial law

and federal control of the LA Nat'l Guard - which is one major thing they wanted out of this catastrophe from the first.

We can be grateful to Blanco that she stood firm - though the WH basically TOOK martial law of a kind anyway, and Blackwater mercs moved in as they did in Iraq.

Horrible, horrible. Does anyone still doubt that this corrupt fascist cabal wants a military dictatorship? They have been dismantling checks and balances for years, setting up NorthCom, setting the stage to set aside democracy even more officially than they have already done. I went through the history and some of the documentation of this in this thread - be sure to read the replies as well as the opening post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112
thread title (9/16 GD): Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY

And by all means, don't miss the important editorial on DU's home page - it points out the all too overlooked fact that the Bush Admin has been preparing to seize permanent power, no matter how upset "the people" are about it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/12/03_splash.html
DU editorial title: "A Splash of Cold Water"

[Al-CIAda]

25. .