Drop it, Sebelius!

[deuce91]

I agree Tex...now is the time to band together and take care of the people of Greensburg.

[wordsmythe]

Originally Posted by deuce91

I can truly see both sides to this. On one hand, I understand not using this as a stepping stone for a voice. However, I think the gov's big beef was the fact that the hours immediately following the disaster, she didn't have the equipment necessary to bring in goods and take care of her state. It takes time for the big tankers and other equip to come from other states. It takes a good four hours just to get from the other side of the state. I don't know what our levels here in DC or GC or Hays or other immediate areas are, but I imagine they were lacking from the war. I would think it would be troubling to have the equip you need tied up someplace else when you've been telling Washington for years that they need to replenish what they've taken. Now that all the dust is settling, yes, Kathleen has all the equipment needed. And the feds have been swift in providing. But when those comments were made, she didn't and the feds weren't. And when every second counts for saving lives buried in rubble, I don't think I want to wait for other states to offer help.

Unfortunately she asked W 2 years ago when her was here in Topeka when Kansas could expect the equipment replaced that had been shipped to Iraq from our Guard inventory. We wouldn't have had to rely on equipment from other states or have had to pay private contractors to use thiers when the State of Kansas actually owns the things we need.

[TexKan]

Kansas is not the only one in that boat. Every state is on the same cruise. We already knew that tho - so what's the point? FEMA reimburses the state for what has to be contracted out.

[Bubba]

Originally Posted by TexKan

If ya can tho - check out the Gov of Fla and see what calm in the face of disaster looks like.................... experience helps I guess.

What experience does he have? Jeb Bush had been Governor of Florida for many years.

[Bubba]

I guess nobody read this news story yesterday...

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and Kansas' governor started Tuesday pointing fingers at each other over the response to last week's devastating tornado. By lunchtime, both sides had backed down.

With President Bush set to travel to now-razed Greensburg, Kan., on Wednesday to view the destruction wrought by Friday's 205 mph twister, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said she planned to talk with him about her contention that National Guard deployments to Iraq hampered the disaster response.

"I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," she said Monday. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

Sebelius said that with other states facing similar limitations, "stuff that we would have borrowed is gone."

White House press secretary Tony Snow fought back aggressively.

In an approach reminiscent of the blame game played by the White House with another Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, after the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Snow at first said the fault for any slow response would be Sebelius'. He said she should have followed procedure by finding gaps and then asking the federal government to fill them _ but didn't.

"If you don't request it, you're not going to get it," he told reporters Tuesday morning.

Snow said no one had asked for heavy equipment. "As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios," the spokesman said.

Well, not exactly.

At Snow's second, midday briefing with reporters, he offered that it turned out that the state had requested several items that the federal government supplied _ those radios, and also a mobile command center and a mobile office building, an urban search and rescue team and coordination on extra Black Hawk helicopters.

Snow recounted a phone conversation on Tuesday between Sebelius and Bush's White House-based homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, in which the governor said she was pleased with the federal performance on the tornado and had everything she needed.

About the same time, Sebelius was doing her own backpedal from across the country.

Her spokeswoman, Nicole Corcoran, said the governor didn't mean to imply that the state was ill-equipped to deal with this storm. Sebelius' comments about National Guard equipment were, instead, meant as a warning about the state's inability to handle additional disasters, such as another tornado or severe flooding, she said.

"We are doing absolutely fine right now," Corcoran said. "What the governor is talking about is down the road."

Sebelius has long spoken out about the fallout from sending National Guard units and equipment overseas. She says the war in Iraq is damaging domestic disaster readiness, because needed manpower is drained from states and the Pentagon is not replacing equipment at a fast enough rate.

Sebelius said she asked the Pentagon in December to replenish lost resources. She also said she spoke about the issue at great length with Bush when he was in Kansas in January 2006, and that Bush assured her that the money for replacements was in his budget.

Snow said the president recognizes there is a need to relieve pressure on the National Guard, and that it is one of the main reasons Bush has called for expanding the overall size of the military. But he also said that, regardless, there still are sizable numbers of personnel and equipment around the country ready to respond to disasters.

"If you take a look at the way the National Guard units are dispersed, you still have considerable strength in each state," he said.

___

Associated Press writer John Milburn contributed to this story.

source- FOXNews.com - White House Rebuts Guard Shortage Claim - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum


So, it appears she had dropped it and corrected her mis-speak before this thread was even started.

[TexKan]

Experience comes from ridin the storm not headin up the posse.

[flange]

Well, I've liked Sebelius from basically day one, so take this how you will.

I don't really think she meant her comments to be taken as a shot at Bush. I think she meant to cover her own ass a little bit, saying that things won't happen as fast as she would like because she is short on the resources she'd normally have. She didn't say anything that wasn't true, and as far as I know, she didn't politicize her comments either. There wasn't any whining about "a war we shouldn't be in", or anything like that, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt here. If I'm wrong, please show me and I'll gladly rethink and retract.

What I do think happened is that the media is hyper-sensitive to any response by Bush and FEMA to any national disaster because of how controversial the response was to Katrina. Whether or not you think Bush and/or FEMA deserved blame over Katrina is not relevant. I think we can all agree that there is a lot of people who do feel like Bush failed to respond to that crisis appropriately. Thus, the media is going to pounce on anything that sounds like criticism of Bush over his handling of future disasters because it is good for ratings.

Personally, I think this is what happened with Sebelius' comments this past week. Maybe she could've phrased things better. I hope she didn't mean to take a shot at Bush, because playing politics right now is flat out lame, and like I said about gun control legislation in the wake of the VT shootings, it would be an unquestionable exploitation of a horrible tragedy.

Finally, this public "confrontation" aside, I think Sebelius and Bush both are doing a good job at helping as much as they can with the recovery in Greensburg. I think they both deserve a lot of credit.

[BroncoFan]

And, RESPECTUFULLY, Gov. Sebelius informed reporters that she would NOT jump Pres. Bush regarding NG shortages during his visit. Now that is why I like her, again. Good move.

NG shortages have been here since our first conflict with Iraq. The NG is very capable of maintaining its equipment and keep it going (I know, I was a 63W). Ideally, we would have updated and more equipment. Sometimes you need to buckle-down.

[TigerEyes]

Originally Posted by TexKan

FEMA reimburses the state for what has to be contracted out.

Not necessarily. Reimbursement is a red-tape nightmare.

[TexKan]

OK - if you feel there is no reimbursement................ let me know what the state spends thier moneies on.......... I'm running an immunization program on some of our non reimbursable monies......................... Red tape??? can't be much worse than a marriage gone bad............ now that is paperwork.