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Sept. 2, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:24
September 2, 2005, Friday, Hour #3
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Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Thank you.
And welcome back at 1-800-282-2882 on Open Line Friday.
Now, putting aside the minute-by-minute breaking news of the aftermath of Katrina, let's talk now about next week.
Because next week, following Labor Day, Congress will be back in session.
The Judge Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court will be back on the front pages.
The repeal of the estate tax, which is part of George Bush's tax program, will also be front and center.
And some of the more political issues will be crowding back into the consciousness of the country.
It looks like this situation with Katrina, of course, will be on the front pages for many, many weeks to come.
The Army Corps of Engineers asked today about how long it will take to pump out the water standing all over, mostly, most of all over New Orleans.
Couldn't even tell you.
They don't know what state the pumps are in.
They don't know when they're going to get them back up and running, and they don't know when these levees are going to be repaired in the first place.
So it's all a wild guess at this point.
And meanwhile, of course, more than a million people have been displaced.
They are evacuees.
They are basically there with their clothes on their back and maxed out credit cards in most cases.
And a lot of working folks hurting today in this area of the country as they disperse to try to find relief in neighboring states and communities.
In the meantime, though, the political world does go on.
And again, I'm grateful to Kellyanne Conway for holding over, president and CEO of the polling company.
It says here, privately held woman-owned corporation.
And by the way, Kellyanne has a book coming out.
And I'm going to be interested to read this with pollster Celinda Lake, their book entitled What Women Really Want.
And the subhead is interesting.
How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live.
Well, Kellyanne, I hope it's for the better.
It's much for the better.
And it really is meant to show that most decisions people make are cultural, not political.
And the main question many women ask themselves is not the difference between right versus left, but right versus wrong.
And I got to tell you, those who believe in right are winning.
Well, it's a good thing to hear.
Now let's talk a little bit about the specifics.
What are you hearing?
What are the numbers?
Where are we on the Judge Roberts nomination?
That's a very interesting question, Roger, because as hard as people have tried to make him a wholly owned subsidiary of the Christian Right or the Gun Lobby and all of that, Americans, A, know an awful lot about him for someone who's had a fairly anonymous existence, but for the last two months, and B, like him.
In poll after poll, when you ask about him personally, a majority of Americans say that they are mostly positive to him.
Very few people are saying that they're very negative.
I think 7% in a recent poll said very negative.
What's amazing is that only 10% of those said they have no opinion on him.
I mean, usually you'll have a very high number of people saying, I just don't have a basis to judge.
I really haven't formed an opinion about that individual when you talk about almost anyone who's new to public life.
So clearly folks are paying attention to the Supreme Court nomination battle.
But those who would cast him as extreme and negative and unacceptable really are not doing a compelling enough job.
And I think that's because they cry wolf every day about everything.
The other thing is that I thought the excellent question that was asked was, do you believe that Bush's choice of John Roberts as a nominee is excellent, good, fair, or poor?
And even with Bush's name in the mix, and of course when the media ask Bush's name, they don't say President Bush.
They try to dethrone him and just call him Bush.
So would you rate Bush's choice of John Roberts as a nominee?
Excellent, good, fair, or poor.
Excellent, 25, good, 26.
That's the majority.
Only fair, 20, poor, 14.
So John Roberts seems to have even a greater approval rating right now than the president himself.
I think it bodes well.
And here's the real thing.
If Chuck Schumer and Pat Leahy and these Democrats in the Senate truly, truly are the vanguards of the public and want to listen to the American people, they would take note that when asked, would you, the public, like to see the Senate vote in favor of Robert serving on the Supreme Court or not?
Yes, vote in favor, 51.
No, not 28.
No opinion, 21.
51 to 28.
Survey says, vote the guy into the United States Supreme Court.
Very interesting.
Now, the estate tax is coming back up.
And again, for a lot of people, this is one of the key pieces of the Bush tax legacy.
Can he repeal for all time the estate tax or not?
How does that look?
The estate tax is very unpopular when people understand what it really is and how it is not a tax that just soaks the rich one more time after the Grim Reaper comes to meet them.
When they understand people are losing their family farms, when they understand that it's becoming increasingly difficult for middle-class folks to leave a legacy to their children that would pass through their estate in the regular courses.
And the thing is, people find it very offensive that you're taxed your entire life when you turn on your water, when you get into your car, when you turn on the electricity, when you go to work, when you eat.
You're taxed constantly for everything from cradle to grave, from morning to night.
The fact that you would be taxed one more time posthumously is just over the top and un-American.
I think it's going to be a close vote.
I know Republicans are lobbying other Republicans to make sure they vote the right way in the Senate.
But I've got to believe that tax, if you look at all the numbers, tax is still a four-letter word to folks.
And many people out there are starting to get the joke on spending as well.
So I think the combination of three things going on right now, people, middle-class people feel overtaxed, so that includes the estate tax.
Number two, they're starting to understand that spending in Washington is out of control, and that includes with the Republican Congress.
That is the low-grade fever that could spike up and hurt us as a majority.
And number three, the number one bestseller book right now is The Fair Tax by Neil Bortz and John Linder.
What does that mean?
It means that average Americans are going to these booksellers and buying a book called The Fair Tax.
You know, it's not a boring book to people.
It's not some policy wonkish kind of book.
It's a very serious treatment of one potential solution that apparently many Americans are interested enough to buy the book.
So I think the senators should do the right thing and vote for permanent repeal.
All right, Kellyanne Conway, we're going to keep in touch with you.
I appreciate the information.
Thanks for being with us.
All the best.
All right.
Kellyanne Conway.
Boy, she is bright and got a lot of good information.
She looks at all the other polls, too, which I like.
And there's a little preview of what's coming up next week on the national scene as well.
Now, fires continue to burn in New Orleans.
One of them looks like it was out.
It looked like they did get a pump down there and they did get some water on it.
Another couple of mid-rises are burning, and this is, of course, a big problem.
The earthquake, what it didn't destroy in San Francisco in 1906, the fire that followed destroyed the rest of the city because the water lines were, of course, broken, water pressure was non-existent, and that was the final destruction of San Francisco.
We have not seen that kind of destruction in American cities since then.
I suppose that you could look back at the great fire of Chicago in the 19th century, Galveston, of course, hit by a hurricane 100 years ago, and the San Francisco earthquake.
We haven't seen anything since then anywhere near of that proportion, although we're seeing something like it right now.
And by the way, I wanted to get back to the theme of the first hour of the program in which I was talking about the story.
I think the story today in the United States is not what the media, and I'm sorry, all the media, is covering.
They're covering government.
What is government doing?
What is government at the local level, the state level, the federal level, Bush, the politics, the National Guard, all of that.
Who's evacuating us?
Who's going to give us food?
Who's going to give us?
I loved it when that woman with her kid got the MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, that we feed our troops.
She took one bite of this thing.
She hadn't eaten in three days, threw it away.
I don't eat stuff like this.
Anyway, the media is so linked to government, to the idea that all of our solutions come from government, all of our disappointments come from government, all our frustrations, all of our waking thoughts should be about government.
I'm not in that position.
I think government relatively should have little to do with what goes on in everybody's daily life.
You should be your life.
And what we do for each other is our collective life.
What we do for these people who are hurting, for the millions who are hurting as a result of the dislocations in the aftermath of this awful hurricane, that should be our problem, our problem as individuals.
We express our support, our money, our contributions through the local agencies we trust, through the national agencies we trust, whether that is a faith organization, whether it's a Red Cross, whether it's some other kind of organization that you trust.
You give your money, your support.
You take people into your home.
We've had people in San Diego calling me on my local show.
My friends, my relatives, they're out here from New Orleans.
We just opened up the, gee, five people are in my guest bedroom, said this guy who called me the other day.
So we're opening our hearts.
We're opening our homes.
We are the story.
I know the media will, and you know what?
Maybe it's good.
Maybe it's okay.
Maybe I shouldn't even be saying this.
Because as soon as the media figures out that the genius of America is not the government of America, it's the people of America, maybe we'll be in trouble.
Maybe they'll be reporting all the nasty bad news that they can dredge up about us individually.
I don't know.
But all I can say today is I look at these screens and I've got six of them sitting in front of me with all these cable news networks and I say, you guys have all missed the point.
The United States of America is a great nation, not because its government is fumbling around trying to figure out how to do the immediate relief, but because beyond the city limits, a million people have been housed and fed and clothed by the generosity of millions of other people.
That story is barely covered.
And of course, we want to thank the places like Houston and the city government, the state government of Texas and other places, Arkansas, and other places that are doing their parts as well.
Memphis has taken in a lot of people.
The Baton Rouge was a 400,000 people two weeks ago.
Now it's 650,000.
They're going to have to deal with that.
In fact, there's a real estate boom going on in Baton Rouge, I'm told, because of all of that.
So we're going to, again, urge you and the people of America to make the kind of quiet news that we all know we make.
We pull together.
When these things happen, we pull together.
We help our fellow Americans.
It isn't any other issue.
It isn't a political issue.
It isn't a racial issue.
It isn't any of those kinds of issues that the media likes to just wallow around in.
It's a personal issue.
It's other Americans are hurting.
We have the capability of helping.
We're going to help.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Limbaugh.
Let's take a short break back with your calls on Open Line Friday after this.
Shake, rattle, and roll, Zydeco style, celebrating the music of New Orleans.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Limbaugh 1-800-282-2882.
Generosity coming from all over here.
Professional and collegiate sports teams mounting financial relief campaigns.
New York Yankees, National Football League announcing their donations coming up.
The real estate industry, Fannie Mae, the National Association of Realtors, individual realtor organizations are talking about their contributions today and many of the updates I'm reading.
As of yesterday afternoon, the American Red Cross had something like $72 million in from individual donations.
This is the heartbeat of America.
This is the story today, as far as I am concerned.
It isn't the failures of government.
Didn't we as conservatives expect that?
If you expected an efficient and effective government response, then you haven't been listening to this program.
Here's David in Panama City, Florida.
David, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Roger.
Hi, David.
Good.
There are some great stories going on in Panama City, Florida.
A lot of people evacuated from Louisiana and Mississippi, and we drove 200 miles east of that storm.
And this community has taken us in, and it has been unbelievable.
There are churches giving out free dinners.
There are people opening up their homes.
It's been just wonderful the way they've accepted us.
And I'm not hearing any of that on the news, but there's been some great stories here in Panama City.
Well, absolutely, David.
This is the story I'm telling you isn't being told.
Now, where did you evacuate from?
I live in Long Beach, Mississippi, which is right west of Guff Port in Biloxi, right on the beach.
It's right in the middle of that destruction.
It's not much left.
Yeah, what happened to your house?
Well, I made it back in a few days later just to check on my property.
Now, my house is standing.
My roof is heavily damaged.
It's a severely damaged house, but it's probably repairable.
I have a lot of family, though, that lives closer to the beach, and they are all wiped out.
I would say everything from the beach to three or four blocks inland is all gone, from what I can see.
And then you evacuated out to Panama City.
Is that what happened?
Yes, last minute, my wife, thank goodness, she talked me into leaving because I usually don't.
This is the first storm I've ever evacuated from.
I've never had one that's done anything close to this.
I'm usually okay to just sit it out, ride it out.
But my wife talked me into leaving.
We left last minute.
10 hours on the road to get that 200 miles.
We were stuck in traffic.
We didn't get here until Sunday night.
The storm was starting to hit the edges of it.
We were driving through that, but it was just the edges of it.
And we found a place that took us in in the middle of the night, and they've just been great ever since.
It's some really good stories coming out of here.
That's great, David.
Well, thanks very much for the call, and thanks for the story because it is a story that's not being told.
The generosity of these surrounding communities in various directions away from the Gulf Coast that have been taking people in and the work of the churches and community groups and local city governments and state governments in doing that has just been remarkable.
David, I appreciate the call.
Thanks.
Here's Kevin, a hurricane survivor, it says.
Hi, Kevin.
Hey, Roger, how are you doing?
Good.
Where are you?
I'm actually south of Little Rock, Arkansas at the moment.
Okay, and did you evacuate?
Yeah, we did.
So I lived north of Lake Poncha Train in Mandeville.
And, you know, I just got to really disagree with you on Ray Negan.
Oh, okay, go ahead.
So I don't know if you can hear.
Can you hear me all right?
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm listening.
Okay, sorry.
So, you know, the thing with Negan, he had a choice to make.
It was either rescue people or control the looting, right?
And the problem is with limited local police, because he doesn't run the National Guard either, right?
With local police, he had to assign those folks to help go pull people out of homes that were being flooded.
And the reason there was flooding is because the levees broke.
And Negan asked, you know, he asked the state to step in and try to get helicopters and whoever else owns helicopters or boats, what have you, to come plug the levees.
As a local city, and maybe he should have thought of, I need 50 helicopters that can carry 2,000-pound barriers at a moment's notice and drop them in, but they didn't.
And so what they did is they asked, you know, Nagan on Monday, as soon as they heard the levees broke, he said that's the number one thing you got to do.
Once the levees broke and nobody has plugged it, I think until maybe last night, he had to focus on rescuing people.
And it was either pull people out of houses so they don't continue to drown or plug the levees.
And maybe he should have said, well, some people are going to die, and I need to plug the levees first and then go rescue people.
But he was hoping, I think, the state stepped in at the state level with national troops or whatever from the governor.
But he prioritized on saving people, and there just isn't enough resources at a city level to plug a huge break in the levee as well as rescue folks.
His frustration is people are dying in front of him.
I understand.
Kevin, I never expected that the city mayor would be able to plug the levee break.
That's a Corps of Engineers federal state problem.
What I did expect, he's got, he said he had, this morning he said he had 1,500 police officers.
We have, you know, in San Diego with a population three times that of New Orleans or two and a half times anyway, we have about 1,800.
And, you know, it's, I understand what he's trying to do dealing with resources, but he did have 1,500 people.
And he was in a rescue mode.
But as soon as they got shot at, as soon as the thugs took over, as he put it, as soon as the gang started breaching the Walmart gun department and walking away with guns, those officers started turning in their badges and walking away and becoming part of the evacuees.
And then some of them were pushing the shopping carts around Walmart, picking up the shoes on the way out and all the other stuff that we saw.
So I'm sorry.
I just think that the local government broke down and shouldn't have.
And I just don't think that he's in any position to be blaming this all on Bush because Bush didn't react fast enough to save him when his own local city infrastructure of safety and support, the personnel that this local citizenry rely on, the firefighters, the emergency medical technicians, the cops, those sorts of folks, seem to be nowhere in sight when it really hit the fan.
And I think that's something that needs to be talked about first before the mayor can start talking about somebody else's problem.
And we're back at the EIB network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, Infor Rush Today.
He'll be back next week, of course.
This is the Creole Stomp.
We're doing a little New Orleans music today on Open Line Friday at 1-800-282-2882.
So, yeah, the front line of defense in New Orleans is the local government.
The bigger questions, of course, still exist.
We will be asking them.
Those of us who don't expect government to be effective and efficient, those of us who know that government wastes money like you breathe, what happened to the $8.6 billion in federal money handed out to the states since September 11 for emergency preparedness?
Where were the satellite communication systems that were promised?
The satellite phones when the cell phone network went down, which is going to happen.
Heck, these cell phones don't work that well in peacetime.
I mean, you go around a building and it cuts off my call.
Maybe I have the cheap one, but I'll tell you, they don't work that well to start with.
We get into a crisis situation.
Everybody's going, hey, my cell phone doesn't work.
Duh.
The cell phone tower's underwater, pal.
Here's Nida in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Hope I pronounced your name correctly.
Go ahead.
Hi.
Roger, thanks for taking my call.
First of all, kudos to George Bush for having dealt with so many major traumatic disasters in our country with such calm and composure.
I got to hand it to him.
The point I'm trying to make is our country or society is made up of reaction and not prevention.
I think that so many things that have happened in this country could have been prevented.
9-11, we knew for years that this could happen.
We ignored it.
It happened.
This hurricane, we had plenty of time to prepare for that.
It started out as a category five, slowly downgraded to a category three.
Well, they were talking about the levies that they knew that they would have been able to handle those, that magnitude of a hurricane.
And even downgraded to a three, we already knew that this could be a very, very bad and serious situation.
My problem is that now they're bringing in the buses into New Orleans and shipping people out.
What they could have done, and yes, this is in hindsight, but they could have brought in those buses while there was a mandatory, whatever that means, evacuation in New Orleans and all those other states that ship them out.
It would be less costly financially.
It would be less costly life-wise.
You know, it's just really, really sad to see that this actually happened.
Well, but Nida prevented all of it.
Yeah, I understand.
And you and I, and the common sense people would have the same thought.
But can we, in your experience, can we expect the government to be proactive and to act with a sense of understanding this is going to take planning ahead.
This is going to take common sense application of 6,000 buses two days ago, not five weeks from now.
Can we really, see, I don't expect that.
Well, I don't expect 6,000 buses, but I would have expected some sort of effort to help those people who are not able.
I mean, I'm happy that the people that were able to get out, that got out.
I was really worried when I saw the gridlocks and people just stop and go on the highways trying to get out.
I was worried that they're not going to make it out on time.
I was even more worried about those who didn't even have the means to get out.
And we should have used the opposing traffic lanes to get buses in and at least make some sort of an effort.
Not save those lives that are lost now.
No question about it.
But again, whether it's local, state, or federal government, do you really think they have that mindset?
Do you really think they operate that way?
I don't.
I know.
It's sorry to say that.
I don't either.
But it would be nice if for a change for people.
Sure.
The private sector acts that way.
You know, if you have a business, a service, you're constantly asking yourself, what's going to be the demand next week and next month and next year?
What can I do to get up on my competitors?
What can I do better in order that that guy's going to come into my shop to buy what I have rather than going into the guy down the street?
In other words, that's the mindset of someone in a competitive private sector business.
The mindset of a bureaucrat is, how can I protect my ample backside today from criticism?
How can I insulate myself from politicians asking me questions?
How can I squirrel away money so that I'll have money for things that I want to do and the politicians don't want me to do?
How can I do the least amount of work and get the most amount of support from the local union who's constantly looking out for more days off and better pension benefits and less work?
See, that's the great divide for me.
You know, I agree with you.
And right, it's sad to say.
You know, I just, my question is just, will we learn from this?
Are we going to try to do something in the future?
Because we will have more disasters.
Will we be prepared next time?
because this is just too much.
I'm almost embarrassed to even watch the news and see what's going on down there.
Yeah, me too.
Nita, thanks.
I appreciate the call.
You're absolutely right.
Did we learn from Pearl Harbor?
I don't know, 9-11 happened.
Did we learn from Galveston, which was overcome by a hurricane and wiped out 6,000-plus people dead?
By the way, the Republican senator from Louisiana is saying it may be 10,000.
I don't know how he knows.
in New Orleans.
Here's Amy in San Antonio.
Hi there.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Hi, Roger.
Thanks for having me today.
I just wanted to say thank you for all that you have done.
I work with Operation Homefront, and I'm an active participant in Operation Homefront, and we wanted to thank you for being involved in that and setting up Operation Homefront.
You know, we have a lot of families we're helping that are part of this hurricane relief effort.
Guard members, reservists that have been recalled to do work in the area that we're helping their families.
We also lost a couple of military installations in that.
So we've got military families that have been relocated.
We've got people waiting to take them in.
We have people in the Astrodome pulling out military families, checking ID, trying to find them placement.
Here in San Antonio, where I am, we're working with some of the patients that came in from the different military hospitals that were evacuated to try to get items for their babies that they're in the hospital having.
So, I mean, we're glad to have Operation Home Front, and we just wanted to thank you for all that you've done in starting Operation Home Front.
And just to let people know that, you know, we have hurricane relief efforts on our site and at operationhomefront.net if anybody is interested in helping the military families that are affected by this as well.
Amy, thanks very much.
Thanks for your efforts.
What she's talking about, folks, is since shortly after 9-11 in our local efforts here, and it spread through the country through other talk shows and other means, we've taken this home front idea of helping military families with whatever it is they need as their loved ones are deployed in this war and they leave behind families of various sizes.
And immediately after deployment, of course, the transmission goes out and the kids need diapers and there's no furniture and something falls down and somebody, you know.
So we stand behind our military families in this area.
We call it Homefront San Diego and we hope everyone throughout the country would do the same for our military families and just simply be there.
We have a hotline number.
The military families call in and we have volunteers and no overhead and we simply get the repairs and the help and whatever it is that the family needs out to them.
And that's what Amy's doing down there and I'm glad she's doing it.
All right, here's Lawrence in, is it Calio, Virginia?
Hi, Lawrence.
That's right, Calio.
Calio, I never heard of it.
Where is it?
Well, it's in the northern neck of Virginia, near the Chesapeake Bay.
Well, that's a good neck.
It is.
All right, Lawrence, go ahead.
You're on the rush show.
Thanks for taking my call.
I'd like your comments on the woman I saw on television in the Super Bowl who got food, but it was cold and not hot food.
Was this the MRE one?
Yeah, was this the MRE one where she got the meals ready to eat?
She didn't really explain that, but she complained that it was not hot.
Yeah.
And that disgusted me because she should have been pleased to get any food or water with all of the problems that were going on.
Now, let me get out on thin ice here, Lawrence, because this struck me as well.
In fact, I mentioned it earlier in the program that this was on TV that I saw, too.
There was a woman who said she hadn't eaten in a couple of days.
If I hadn't eaten in a couple of days, I wouldn't be worried about what the temperature was of this food or the quality of it.
If it wasn't cuisine, I'd still be eating it.
But it was an MRE.
It was what we feed the troops.
In the military, that's right.
Yeah, in battle.
I mean, this is what they eat.
And here's this woman turning up her nose at it.
It wasn't hot.
It wasn't very tasty, and I understand they have good food down in New Orleans.
They're used to that.
But I understand also something else.
There is, in New Orleans and throughout our society, a group of people who believe they're entitled, who believe no matter what they're given, it's not good enough, who believe that they should be given even better because they're disadvantaged, they're poor, they're whatever.
This welfare mentality that we've been battling in this country is something we've got to continue.
Welfare reform didn't get rid of this mentality, this mentality of whining, no matter what is given to you, that it isn't enough.
That's a great example.
That was a great example of it.
Exactly right.
That's right.
Lawrence, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
1-800-282-2882.
Now, many people have also contacted me saying, Okay, Roger, what about those other countries we've been helping for 100 years?
Are they rushing to our help now that we need help?
Well, some of them are.
I'm going to talk about that when we come back.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, filling in for Russia Limbaugh taking your calls on Open Line Friday after this.
Happy Zydeco music of New Orleans, Cajun country.
All that devastated today.
People of this great nation and throughout the world extending sympathy and aid.
Well, almost all of them.
The country actually has received, according to the State Department, Sean McCormick, spokesman, saying that about a dozen countries have made offers of assistance, government assistance.
Individuals from all over the world donating to the worldwide Red Cross in the name of those who have been displaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
And individual countries, even Honduras and Jamaica, which know about hurricane damage and have been recipients of U.S. aid, have offered to help the residents of the Gulf Coast.
We discussed Venezuela's government earlier on, Hugo Chavez, criticizing Bush for not doing more and then offering $1 million to the people who have been displaced.
And soon after asking the Bush administration to release part of the petroleum reserve to the CITCO Petroleum Company, Citco is, CITGO, is it?
C-I-T-G-O is the company owned by, C-I-T-G-O Petroleum Corporation is owned by the country of Venezuela, and therefore the profits, the price gouging, if you will, at the pump by Citco goes directly back to Hugo Chavez.
You may want to think about that when you choose your service station.
In any event, a lot of Eastern Europeans are very unhappy about what's happened in New Orleans because they had big flooding in Romania and places like that in Central Europe here just a couple of weeks ago.
The French have not forgotten.
This is a French city.
Chirock's letter started, Dear George.
I don't think he sent a Dear George letter recently to George Bush offering his assistance.
And of course, as you might expect, if you read the left-wing blogs, the Saudi king has said he will start pumping some more oil and helping with the supply problem if that helps.
And of course, we know there's a very tight, close association there between Bush and the Saudis.
They're just one and the same.
And they love to kill blacks and whatever else we can now get from the left-wing blogs.
I should stop reading that stuff.
It drives me nuts.
Here's Jim in Tallahassee, Florida.
Jim, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello, Roger.
How are you?
Hi, good.
You doing fine.
I just was driving back to the office and heard some of the comments I've been reading on the web today.
And I really got incensed by the fact that people are basically bitching and complaining at George Bush and the federal government for inactivity when you had the mayor of New Orleans in Biloxi and the governor of Louisiana who knew about this storm well beforehand and could have taken steps to have mandatory evacuation as a way of possibly preventing loss of life.
I live in Florida.
I lived in Clearwater last year when we had all the hurricanes, and they had police driving through my apartment complex saying that you are at a risk of flooding with this storm coming, and you get out.
And that's the end of it.
So people are gassing up their cars, and you see cars lined along I-75 in long stretches.
But we got out because we cared about ourselves and we cared about our families.
And it was our personal responsibility to deal with that.
It's not the government.
We're given a warning.
We need to get out.
And if God bless you and it doesn't happen, then you go back home and you count your blessings for it.
But to blame George Bush for the responsiveness of this, I think the eyes need to be squarely on the mayors and the governors of those states that could have taken some preemptive kind of measures before this ever happened.
And as you're pointing out, though, too, Jim, the eyes should be on the individuals who decided to stay.
Didn't they accept a risk?
The other point of that, though, is that there are a number of people in New Orleans who don't have cars, didn't have access to getting out in a timely fashion.
They simply were poor enough to simply stay put.
It was also the 29th of the month, and I don't know, their paycheck or their welfare check was coming in at the end of the month, and they were going to sit there to get that.
They were living month to month on these paychecks.
They don't have a lot of money to get on a Greyhound bus or whatever else is available.
There's going to be a certain portion of that population in New Orleans that's not going to be able to leave.
But if you know that's going to happen and you are the governor of that state or you're the mayor of that city and you know you live 69 feet below sea level, that if something like that is coming, then you need to plan for that and you know you've got a certain amount of the indigent population that can afford to get out.
You make those services available ahead of time.
I mean, for God's sakes, you've got school buses and you've got, you know, contact Greyhound or whatever and say, we're in the midst of having a storm come our way.
And this is what we need to do to protect our citizens.
No, I think that's their responsibility.
I think that's absolutely right.
And that's exactly the way I would have looked at it as a mayor that your school district is going to get wiped out anyway.
In fact, the school district there in Orleans Parish is shut.
The kids are dispersed all over the land and are going to school wherever they have wound up.
And the school teachers are being told there, go get a job somewhere else.
We're closing the door.
So those school buses are sitting there and they never have been used.
In fact, a young man commandeered one of them yesterday, according to news reports, drove it over to the convention center to pick people up and drive them to Houston.
So that's the kind of thing that should have been done, I agree with you, by some kind of local authority looking into this and saying, okay, here's what we expect.
Here's what's happening.
Certain amount of our people don't have cars, don't have a lot of money.
Let's go pick them up.
Let's let them know through the radio, through the television.
Here's our rendezvous point.
And then if you don't get on these buses, we don't want to hear any whining because this thing is a Hurricane 5 and you're below sea level.
We're out of here.
None of that happened.
Of course, hindsight, 2020 hindsight.
Nonetheless, this is a pretty predictable thing.
This isn't the first time it's happened.
And they had days and days of warning.
And yet, what did local government do in this respect?
I haven't heard anything.
I'm Roger Hedcock in for Rush Back After.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Trouble Is there from Shreveport.
We're going to stick that into the heritage of music we've been celebrating all day.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Limbaugh.
Just a couple of words here now.
It's Labor Day where the traditional thing is to travel all around and see everybody.
I'm going to open up the Barbie and flip the burgers and have the people over because traveling in terms of gasoline, probably not a good idea this weekend.
Let's save it.
Let's lower the price.
Let's reduce the demand.
Let's put our hearts and minds to the people who've been displaced in this, our fellow Americans who've been displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Contribute the money.
Do what needs to be done.
Take some people into your house if you're in that area.
Make sure that they find out where their relatives are.
Many of them are hurting bad now because they don't even know what happened to their families.
Let's say hats off and a job well done to those doctors and nurses in those hospitals in New Orleans who held out for these last three or four days with all those patients.
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