Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

A Category F6 Exaggeration

There was little doubt that the Democrats would politicize another tragedy for their benefit like Hurricane Katrina. Already, Democratic Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is blaming the Iraq War for slowing the National Guard response to a deadly tornado that ripped through her state a few days ago.

But presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama got even more carried away.

In a fundraiser tonight in Richmond, VA, Obama stated:
In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed
10,000? 12 people were killed by the tornado in Greensburg. There has never been a disaster in the history of the United States in which 10,000 people were killed. The largest loss of life occurred in 1900 when Galveston, Texas was destroyed by a hurricane and an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people died. I'm sure the Democrats would love to pin that on Bush too if that could.

Obama's statments come on the heels of his recent comparison of the Virginia Tech massacre with Don Imus and outsourcing.

Reminds me of the e-mail joke getting sent around these days:
Chelsea Clinton asked a soldier about his fears. He said there were only 3 things he was afraid of:

Osama,Obama and Yo Mama.

13 comments:

Michael said...

Where have I heard this before?
Oh yeah!?

Nic said...

Sounds like he just made a mistake... to which his team admitted to as cited in the same article that you linked to... and that still doesn't detract from the fact that the national guard is supposed to be available for emergencies like these, and that can be directly pinned on the president.

Unknown said...

Good catch Michael!

Unfortunately for Obama, Mayor Nagin's fantastic prediction at least had some slim chance of being true.

The estimated population of Greensburg, KS in 2005 was 1,398.

Unknown said...

Sorry, that wasn't a mistake. When the number is 12, who uses the phrase "over 10?" Why not use "a dozen?"

Nope, Obama is getting rightfully hoisted on his own petard.

Adam J. Niehenke said...

Sounds like he just made a mistake... to which his team admitted to as cited in the same article that you linked to... and that still doesn't detract from the fact that the national guard is supposed to be available for emergencies like these, and that can be directly pinned on the president.

True, but doesn't distract from the facts that if they weren't over there that Obama's original figure of how many died may be true or have you not been following the news of another terror plan broke up. Imagine how many would be hitting US soil if we weren't in Iraq. On a positive note, atleast this govoner asked for help instead of blocking federal assistance like in New Orleans.

Unknown said...

According to an Army press release:

Currently, the Kansas National Guard has 88 percent of its forces available, 60 percent of its Army Guard dual-use equipment on hand, and more than 85 percent of its Air Guard equipment on hand, said Randal Noller, public affairs officer for the National Guard Bureau. Under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a national partnership agreement that allows state-to-state assistance during governor or federally declared emergencies, Kansas has more than 400,000 Guardsmen available to it, he pointed out. However, Kansas has not yet requested assistance from other states.

Sebelius is backing down from her earlier statements:

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.

Satanic Mechanic said...

The National Guard is not the personal army of a governor of a state. They are soldiers first and a component of the U.S. Army. A governor can call up the Guard if there is an emergency.
When the state's Guard units are deployed from a state to fight, not all the units go. When my buddy who is in the Idaho Guard got called up to go to Iraq, not all the Idaho Guard Companies were called up, some remained behind.
To blame the Guard and the war is a cop out. If that governor needed more Guard units besides the Companies that were left behind to clean up, she could easily got Guard units from surrounding states with one phone call to another state's governor. We do that all the time with forest fires here in the northwest.

Satanic Mechanic said...

You beat me to the post Tom!

Nic said...

Why would he try to say 10,000 when it's obviously off by three orders of magnitude? You may not like him as a politician, but he's obviously not a moron. Nobody would say that trying to pass it off as the truth when it's so obviously way off. Let it go man, try a different angle.

I'm just guessing that you're not used to hearing people admit that they made a mistake... it seems to be extremely uncommon in the current administration.

Michael said...

I think it's not so much a mistake as wishful thinking - for both Barak Obama and Ray Nagin. Sometimes I think that Democrats are like those wierd aliens on Star Trek that gain their nourishment from feeding on people's misery and fear.

Truth said...

When he said the comment the number of dead was 10, so it is possible to say 10,000 (although clearly a mistake, and no politican willingly makes that kind of mistake).

And I'm fairly certain that no politican wants people to die, and unless you have some actual proof of that perhaps stop fanning the flames of partisanship.

In addittion, how is the refrence to New Orleans relevent at all?

Michael said...

Dear Truth,
I'll make it easy for you. The link to Katrina was simply noting the equivalent exaggeration of death tolls by Democrats.
If you find gratuitous references to Katrina offensive, welcome to the club. I'm sure that you were offended when Obama brought up . Katrina at the most recent Democratic presidential candidate debate when asked about how he would react as president if two US cities went up in mushroom clouds from nuclear terrorist attacks.

Truth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.