{"id":58,"date":"2005-09-11T19:29:43","date_gmt":"2005-09-12T02:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=58"},"modified":"2005-09-11T19:29:43","modified_gmt":"2005-09-12T02:29:43","slug":"i-rarely-read-the-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"I Rarely Read the Stories . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the response to Hurricane Katrina, three important people said three incredible things.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2005\/09\/06\/dodged-a-bullet\/\">General Richard Myers<\/a>: &#8220;The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday &#8211; &#8216;New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,&#8217; or words to that effect.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Department of Homeland Security <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/lesliet.dailykos.com\/storyonly\/2005\/9\/2\/01117\/53705\">Secretary Michael Chertoff<\/a>: &#8220;I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don&#8217;t have food and water.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>FEMA head (outgoing) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2005\/09\/01\/fema-director-we-did-not-know-new-orleans-convention-center-was-a-hurricane-shelter\/\">Michael Brown<\/a>: &#8220;Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What all three statements have in common is that they were said a day &#8211; or even days &#8211; after every major media outlet in the United States had prominently reported on the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the thousands of people massing at the convention center.<\/p>\n<p>These statements have one more thing in common.  On 9\/23\/2003, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/half-mind.com\/weblog\/pm\/index.php?sx=&#038;m=weblog&#038;p=new\">President George W. Bush<\/a> said: &#8220;I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what&#8217;s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Leadership &#8211; as well as lack of leadership &#8211; comes from the top, always. Is it any surprise that others in this administration don&#8217;t read the news?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the response to Hurricane Katrina, three important people said three incredible things. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers: &#8220;The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday &#8211; &#8216;New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,&#8217; or words to that effect.&#8221; Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: &#8220;I have not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}