Louisiana Blocked Red Cross
I often listen to Hugh Hewitt on my drive home. I caught this little tidbit:
My first thoughts are "WOW, what absolute arrogance on the part of Gov. Blanco."
One of the segments of Hugh's show featured Major Garrett who caught a bit of the exchange between the head of the Red Cross and Bill O'Riley last night. He decided to investigate. He reported, on Fox's Britt Hume show, and again on Hewitt's show that the Red Cross was told to keep aid from the Superdome by the head of the State's Department of Homeland security who reports to the Governor. The stated reasons were that
- it was unsafe to cross through the water along the route
and
- bringing supplied to the Superdome would encourage more people to go there
Apparently, the Red Cross could have made it to the Superdome just hours after the storm passed if the state had let them proceed.
How does someone justify these actions? I was trying to think of reasons. Perhaps she was concerned that people would hurt themselves on their way to the Superdome? Perhaps... Well, that's all I got...
I do wonder what decision I would have made in the same position. I'm not really sure that Blanco knew that her Homeland Security Chair was making that call, because why else would she have been so condescending toward the response of the FED?
There's got to be more to this one... Keep an eye on it!
UPDATE: Radio Blogger has a transcript of Hugh's interview
Political Teen has the FOX videos
The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume's show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center. Garrett has no paper trail yet, but will follow up on his verbal confirmation from sources at the highest levels of the Red Cross.
My first thoughts are "WOW, what absolute arrogance on the part of Gov. Blanco."
One of the segments of Hugh's show featured Major Garrett who caught a bit of the exchange between the head of the Red Cross and Bill O'Riley last night. He decided to investigate. He reported, on Fox's Britt Hume show, and again on Hewitt's show that the Red Cross was told to keep aid from the Superdome by the head of the State's Department of Homeland security who reports to the Governor. The stated reasons were that
- it was unsafe to cross through the water along the route
and
- bringing supplied to the Superdome would encourage more people to go there
Apparently, the Red Cross could have made it to the Superdome just hours after the storm passed if the state had let them proceed.
How does someone justify these actions? I was trying to think of reasons. Perhaps she was concerned that people would hurt themselves on their way to the Superdome? Perhaps... Well, that's all I got...
I do wonder what decision I would have made in the same position. I'm not really sure that Blanco knew that her Homeland Security Chair was making that call, because why else would she have been so condescending toward the response of the FED?
There's got to be more to this one... Keep an eye on it!
UPDATE: Radio Blogger has a transcript of Hugh's interview
Political Teen has the FOX videos
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