The Buses are Bush's Fault!

Yes, that's the unbelievable assertion by hysterical Senator Mary Landrieu who tried to convince Chris Wallace on Fox that the failure to use the city school buses to evacuate people without other transportation was the fault of the federal government. See if you can follow this "logic":

It was the Bush administration's fault that hundreds of city school buses weren't dispatched to evacuate the hurricane-battered residents of New Orleans two weeks ago before floods swamped the city, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said Sunday.

Asked on "Fox News Sunday" why New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin failed to follow the city's evacuation plan and press the buses into service, Landrieu blamed Bush administration cuts in mass transit funding.

"Mayor Nagin and most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out of the city in front of a hurricane," she said. "And it's because this administration and administrations before them do not understand the difficulties that mayors . . . face."
Landrieu then added: "In other words, this administration did not believe in mass transit. They won't even get people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out." (Since when is it the Federal government's job to get people to work every day?-HC)

Saying she was unwilling to criticize Louisiana officials, the Louisiana Democrat insisted that Mayor Nagin's evacuation efforts had been a smashing success.

"Because the mayor evacuated the city, we had the best evacuation . . . of any evacuation I've seen. I'm 50 years old; I've never seen one any better," Landrieu told FNS.

That prompted FNS host Chris Wallace to remind: "But there were a hundred thousand people left in the city."

Landrieu once again blamed the White House, saying:

"They did [have] a hundred thousand people left in the city because this federal government won't support cities to evacuate people, whether it's from earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. And that's the truth."

Let's see if we can connect the dots here. The Bush Administration is not a fan of mass transit, and so that paralyzed the mayor and state officials and caused them not to use the buses that were sitting idle in a massive parking lot/soon to be lake 1 mile from the Superdome. That's your senator at work, Louisiana.

Looking back on the whole situation there, New Orleans proved in a big way the dangers of having too many people who rely on mass transit to get around. When everything hits the fan they're stuck because they have to rely on others to get them out of harm's way. The people with cars who chose to leave were able to get out, while those who relied on buses for their daily commute were in deep doo-doo, thanks to the inaction of the city leaders.

While we were visiting Washington D.C. this summer, I was very impressed with the Metro and other mass transit in that town. However, I would never have wanted to be without a car in case the system broke down, as it did in New Orleans.