Reporting on the Reporters - Rating the Media in Haiti & Massachusetts - The CPT Hall of Fame

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Let it not be said that those who report the news are not the news as that is one of the journalistic standards in this day and age of egocentric journalism. My stories often call attention to the violators of journalistic integrity disguised as our nation's news media, and the elitist media of major newspapers and television.

More often than not the elite reporters have agendas that checkmate their desire for objectivity, non-biased reporting or telling the story of the subject of the article. Such a mindset leads directly to the reporter judging rather than reporting on the person being discussed.

Another distraction from the truth for reporters of today is the intense pressure on them from bosses or peers to write books, once again essays in judgment and violations on the confidentiality of news sources for the purpose of creating celebrity status for the reporters. In the eyes of the newspaper or TV network such celebrity status translates to recognition, ratings and money.

Of course it is little different than the pressure put on university professors, especially scientists, who are viewed by the school administration as a revenue source more than a teaching instrument for kids. Often the grants brought in by these professors pay for the cost of the department or unit. It is an atmosphere for corruption as altered test results may make the difference between winning or losing millions of dollars.

In journalism, however, it never used to be that way until the reporter or TV anchor retired. No one ever wrote books while they were supposed to be reporting the news. When I was a reporter it was impossible to tell whether the seasoned old pros were Democrat or Republican, normally they were Independent, or how they felt on any topic. They reported the news, did not editorialize or inject bias into the stories.

Oh but for the good old days. Today most reporters are not like that. Once the press was highly respected and their writing was the protection of the people from corruption. The Fourth Estate, as I like to attribute to Edmund Burke in 1792 was the English reference to the press who covered the actions of the English government. In America the press was considered important enough to protect with the Bill of Rights and the shield of the Constitution.

Today the definition of press includes almost every kind of trash known to men along with a few good papers and TV programs. Thus reporters who seem to uphold the principles of our founding fathers are few and far between. Most are entertainers like the O'Rielly, Beck or Hannity of Fox News or Olbermann, Matthews, Schultz and Maddows of MSNBC.

While Fox dominates the ratings as conservatives must dominate in America where limited federal government and states rights have long been held sacred, none of those mentioned from the right and the left would ever be accused of objective reporting. As TV network news self-destructed over the past 30 years the audience has moved from the big boys to the cable news where the news of the world must be in sound bites and 2 minute stories. It also ceased being news and became entertainment.

Once in while I come across journalistic performances so foreign to our normal trash talk and sound bites that I must draw attention to these reporters as they may be the last of the endangered species and you should enjoy them while they exist.

Two major recent stories have resulted in new candidates for the Coltons Point Times "Who can you trust" news reporters Hall of Fame. The tragic earthquake in Haiti was the first in which the real news people stepped forward to tell the real story of what was going on in the rescue and recovery effort. I must say I was surprised and pleased to discover gems of reporting amongst the many people covering this disaster.



First and standing alone in superior reporting was Anderson Cooper of CNN, a network that at least tries to report the news and to remain somewhat unbiased. As a result few people watch the network except when in depth news is sought like in the case of Haiti. Cooper should earn a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage from being one of the first on the scene to his fearless travels to every nook and corner of the disaster.

His stories pointing out the flaws of the rescue and recovery efforts when the government officials were telling a different story probably saved many lives. He discovered medical facilities with no medicine first, mass burials with no identification of bodies, the failure to distribute food, water and medicine when it was sitting at the airport for days, and on and on.



When Cooper reports you get empathy, compassion, emotion and truth in doses not often seen in reporters and you just know he will not stop digging for information until he finds the truth. His stories told the horrors of the thousands of deaths, the potential for thousands more from untreated injuries, and the sad failure to search for the 100,000 or more trapped under the debris. Cooper and his 360 program on CNN are a must if you seek truth.



Most surprising to me was the addition of Doctor Sanjay Gupta also of CNN. May times before I had seen him but the seriousness of the stories were never much so I did not notice him. But in Haiti, he performed as no other using his skills as a medical reporter combined with his skills as a neurosurgeon to tell the story and save a life by treating victims he found.



One night when a Belgium hospital team abandoned patients on the operating table for fear of their own safety Sanjay stayed at the tent and spent all night treating the abandoned patients. His reporting deadlines were sacrificed while saving lives.

When Cooper and Sanjay did joint reports which they did often they were always humble while upset over the treatment of the victims. Very subtly they asked critical questions about the promises for help and the failure to deliver and many times their reports resulted in help arriving.



The third reporter deserving recognition for her Haiti performance was Ann Curry of the NBC Today program who was sent to the disaster and literally scoured the city from one end to the other with no regard for the danger to herself in order to make certain the true stories of the tragedy were broadcast on the Today show every morning. I must say Curry was also a pleasant surprise since I was so accustomed to the entertainment aspects of the morning news shows but now I know she has a great news presence.



In regards to the Massachusetts Senate race the coverage was generally lousy as the bias of reporters dominated their reports. Thus the right was overly rejoicing and the left was overly depressed. It does not occur to either of them that the Independents embrace neither the right or the left but the middle.

However, I have been watching the evolution of Savannah Guthrie of NBC and she came into her own recently when they made her co-host of a morning show on MSNBC, The Daily Rundown this year. Ever since she left a lucrative law practice to be a journalist she has been on a fast track spending about a year with Court TV, jumping to NBC, and soon becoming a White House correspondent with Chuck Todd.



I knew there was something about Savannah that made her special and it took a while to discover she was a Tucson, Arizona native who graduated with honors from the University of Arizona, my school, and Georgetown Law School. She was always first in everything. Unlike most network correspondents she seems to have no axe to grind and no political philosophy to advocate but actually reports the news as fair and unbiased as you will find.



The Los Angeles Times named her one of the top female entertainment personalities in the nation to watch in 2010 this past December, she ranked #3, and was the highest ranked from the news media. As long as MSNBC does not corrupt her and she seems far too strong for that to happen she is a delight to watch and a fountain of truth and information. Her new show is a must see.

So Ann Curry and Savannah Guthrie of NBC are the two newest additions to my very limited Hall of Fame along with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN. You should give them a try as they are rocketing to fame based on talent and truth.

Independents Win Massachusetts - Ominous Warning to Politicians

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When a Republican running as an Independent for John and Ted Kennedy's Senate seat can beat the Democrat endorsed by the Kennedy family and President Obama by over 100,000 votes, it is a landslide of historic proportions that should strike fear into the hearts of all politicians. So goes Scott Brown of Massachusetts in a stunning upset over Obama, health care, liberals and the old political guard.

Contrary to the views of the Democratic and Republican strategists, this was not a victory for the Republicans but a victory for all Americans. It was the clearest signal to date that our leaders in Washington, DC no longer can be trusted to lead, leaders of both political parties.



Our new president along with the Democratic controlled House and Senate and the Republican minority have blown it. People can see through the lies and smokescreens. They know exactly what goes on behind closed doors in our nation's capitol and they know the president, Pelosi, Reid and our elected representatives have sold out our government to special interests, and sold their souls to money.

A failure to recognize these signs will spell doom to all politicians who miss the point. America stands on the precipice of revolution, peaceful revolution, against politics, political parties, and a burgeoning bureaucracy whose secret agenda is self-preservation over the needs and wishes of the people. The people know it and the people, like a sleeping giant, have been aroused.

Unfortunately our politicians continue to drink the Potomac waters and believe they are superior to the people. Politicians believe they know what is best. They ignore warning signs and polls that prove we are a nation in discontent. In the past few weeks in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts the unrest could not be clearer and the politicians could not be more stupid in missing the signs.

Independent voters are forming unexpected alliances with disgruntled Democrats and Republicans and state by state they are throwing out the establishment candidates in favor of candidates who have no strings attached. This juggernaut will not be stopped by clever legislative manipulations, by born again policy decisions of our political parties or by the bold faced lies and half-truths from our politicians. No, it is too late to expect to fool the public all the time.

While the politicians and political analysts who make their money keeping the politicians in office repeat their mantra that we know what is best for Americans, and that the work of congress is too complicated to explain to Americans, the public has figured it out. The public knows that politicians who criticize banks while accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from banks for their campaigns have lost their morality.

When millions of dollars flow into leading politicians from the health care and insurance industries as the politicians complain about the spiraling cost of health care, the public knows the magnitude of the bribes being paid by the immoral politicians. The Washington establishment is based on need, greed and deception and the masters at the game are no longer invisible to the people.



The principles of our great nation have been compromised by the greed of our politicians. Just look at the record of the Majority Leader of the House, Steny Hoyer, as he stands behind the president and castigates the banks, health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. He says one thing to the public, but behind the closed doors of Congress with the special interests and lobbyists inside look what happens to our protector from the bad boys of industry.

Top industry contributors to Hoyer's campaign committees are Lawyers, Lobbyists, Health Professionals, Electric Utilities, Real Estate, Insurance, Securities, Investments, Banks, Pharmaceuticals, Hospitals/Nursing Homes and Unions, a total of over $13 million for 2010 already. Now that covers most industries he calls the bad boys and to see just how extensive his support is from these industries take just the banks. He has received money from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and Credit Suisse among many others.



He attacks the banks but approves the bailouts. Then approves the insurance bailout while attacking healthcare costs, yet rakes in big bucks from the very industries he attacks. What do these industries know that the public does not know? Why are they pouring money into someone who attacks them? Does it have anything to do with the fact there is no prosecution of the crooks or changes in the regulation of the industries or does it mean they are being protected in other ways?

These are samples of the reason the people have had it with the old political guard in Washington. Elected officials are in bed with the enemy, have forgotten the meaning of truth and integrity, and continue to attempt to deceive the public. Hoyer is a protector of Wall Street and a protector of those who increase the cost of health care just like many other elected officials are and will remain. Money for campaigns, especially when it totals millions of dollars, come with a price tag and we have leaders too willing to pay the price.



That is why people do not trust politicians. That is why being a Washington insider may very well be the kiss of death to their careers. That is why America is controlled by special interests and lobbyists. That is why government aid goes to Wall Street, unions and special interests and not to the needs of the people. That is why the revolution of independents may well be the salvation of our nation.

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The Haiti Earthquake - What Have We Learned?

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The American response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti has proven once again that we still have not developed a strategy to handle disasters and that in spite of record contributions, record supplies and a record number of volunteers, getting the resources to the places where they are needed is far from a proven science.

Current estimates are that about 200,000 people will die in the disaster, up to 400,000 are injured and about 1.5 million homeless. It is possible that a week after the quake up to 100,000 may remained trapped in the debris with very little chance of saving them.

Of the injured, thousands need extensive medical care for crushing injuries and one clinic alone in Haiti is amputating limbs from over 70 people per day. With injuries taking so long to treat infections have already begun killing survivors who are unable to get medical care.



Hundreds of thousands still have no place to stay, inadequate food and drinking water and are in need of medical treatment. While many are dying needless deaths because we failed to respond immediately or failed to treat people who were injured, medical supplies, food and water remain stacked up at the airport and hundreds of rescue workers still cannot get to the places they are needed.



While it is true there are special circumstances that we faced in Haiti, like a collapse of the government and inferior infrastructure before the quake, in addition to the deaths of thousands of relief workers already in Haiti, the excruciating slowness of the response has been deadly and was not necessary.

American disaster response is flawed for several reasons. First is that there are two distinct types of immediate response needed for a tragedy of this magnitude. There is a need for first responders for search and rescue operations of those trapped in the disaster. There is also a need for distribution and recovery operations for the survivors.

Our failure is to think they are part of the same operation. There are so many differences between the two functions they should be treated as separate and distinct disaster responses with different teams, resources and missions. In an earlier story I highlighted the failure of the first response because it was caught up in the bureaucratic function of planning the long term recovery response.



The first response was a miserable failure by any measurement. Rescue teams that did make it to the scene immediately faced enormous problems with security, the selection of targets where the most people could be saved, and a way to get those that were saved medical treatment before infection and injuries killed them. After the first few rescue teams got into the city many others were left stranded at airports trying to get on site and it took them one or more days to even get there.



Once at the scene they had no heavy equipment to assist them, not even a week later, and still had minimal medical facilities available for those they rescued. Earlier I wrote that Haiti had 2000 pieces of construction equipment but none seemed available at the disaster site. Helicopters could have been used to move the machines to the disaster zone. In a week's time many pieces could have been driven to the site but were not. A crucial element of rescue operations must be to get heavy equipment to the site along with medical treatment facilities.



By it's very nature the long term recovery process does take the planning, resources and long term commitment that can be managed quite successfully by the military working with non-government relief agencies and the United Nations. In Haiti this element was more successful than the first response but could be improved in many ways. Food and water distribution and the establishment of a network of medical treatment centers were the areas most in need of improvement.

The Haiti emergency response was certainly better than Katrina but far short of what might have saved the maximum number of lives. Let us hope the Obama administration will put aside pride and take responsibility for what happened or did not happen. In the end all we want is the most successful rescue and recovery operations possible. A thoughtful re-examination of the actions will go a long way toward saving more lives the next time.

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Obama To Face Another Defeat - How Will He React?

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With the White House positioning itself to blame everyone but themselves for the potential defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race for Ted Kennedy's seat, a continuation of the hard line bully mentality of the Rahm Emanuel school of political fisticuffs, America waits to see if our young and inexperienced president finally learns his lesson or is willing to let his entire presidency go up in flames.



Today's election has all the potential to be not a cliffhanger but an avalanche in favor of the Republican candidate who will win because he ran as an independent, not a Republican. The race between the once invincible Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican outsider Scott Brown is a classic textbook example of political arrogance and presidential indifference driving the prohibitive favorite Coakley into one of the greatest last minute campaign collapses in political history.



However, the signs were there since the Virginia and New Jersey governors races last November when the White House tried to interfere in local races and got trounced. It seems the boys at Pennsylvania Avenue just don't get it. The people of America, be they Democrat, Republican or Independent, are not going to stand by and let some rookies in the White House drive America into self-destruction with some pie in the sky view of what is best for the people.

Deficits, the economy, honesty and truth still are held sacred in this country and the Obama gang has lost sight of all of them. No, Mr. President, this is not your nation but of the people, by the people and for the people. When you made your last minute trip to Massachusetts to salvage your sputtering candidate you made, once again, a huge mistake.

The speech was peppered with "I" and "We" know what is best for you. It was condescending at best, arrogant at worst, and delivered as an elitist professor bored with teaching who is intent on telling his students what to think and why they are wrong in thinking different than he tells you. In short, it was more of the same partisan politics that seem to characterize this supposedly "new" politician who was going to lead us away from the mean-spirited world of politics as usual toward a new breath of fresh air in politics.



Obama proved once again he is nothing more than a Chicago South side politician who knows better than the public and who scolds the public for daring to challenge his words. Even the pro-life heckler who disrupted Obama for about three minutes left him startled and mad that someone, anyone, would dare challenge his credentials. What credentials?

In his latest speeches Obama suddenly saw the light and attacked the banks, the same ones he saved, the same ones who have given millions of dollars to his and other Democratic leaders campaign funds. He attacked pharmaceutical companies while helping Coatley raise money from them. He acts as if we will never know the House majority leader, his man Steny Hoyer, has raised nearly a million dollars from the bad guys and other Washington politicians have raised over $150 million from them.

If Obama does react to a potential loss with even more arrogance, and continues to try and slam unpopular trillion dollar spending bills down our throat, then he might as well lock the doors on the White House and Congress for the last three years of his term because he will be well on his way to being the most ineffective president of all time.

Maybe he learned all about socialism in Ivy League schools and from his many left wing radical friends but he didn't learn enough from the practical applications of socialism in the real world. Socialism only works when people are weak. Americans are not and never have been weak. The people will never stand for an agenda they did not know he intended to pursue and that the people have rejected over and over again throughout our history.



If our young president cannot learn the virtue of humility, and drop his idiotic spending bills and his fast track toward bankruptcy for our nation, he should resign. Our presidents are supposed to lead all the people, not just those few he likes or gave him money. In the 21st century the president of the United States cannot be an on the job training program and the White House is not a frat club for the elite. He must realize he serves us, we do not serve him.

If he cannot learn that simple lesson of Democracy then he should step aside. Because if he cannot learn that lesson of Democracy the people will have to throw him out. That is the Constitutional solution when a president does not serve the people. Wake up Mr. President before it is too late. You have awakened a sleeping giant in the American public and they are mad as hell at what you are doing to our nation. In America, people are Americans first, then members of political parties. When parties ignore the wishes of the public they no longer serve a useful purpose.

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Omaha Slaps Bank Tax on Public - To Be Paid by 2018 - Rakes in Millions from Banks in 2010

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Come on Mr. President, you demonstrate how hard you will be on the banks by slapping a $90 billion tax over the next 8 years yet squeeze them for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds right now. What kind of math is that? Just how does the public benefit from your campaign coffers and those of all your cronies on capitol hill? And by the way, the real economic crooks were running hedge funds and derivative funds that were sold to those bad banks but you forgot to punish them. Is that fair?



Clearly the Obama gang thinks very little of the common sense of Americans. The same day Obama was raising $90 billion from the banks, assuming congress is stupid enough to pass it, Obama is guaranteeing the labor unions that their extravagant health insurance benefits would not be taxed until 2018 as a bribe to get their support for health care. Seems the union members have Cadillac health care like Congress and the fat cats on Wall Street.

So we go after the banks for a paltry sum compared to the damage they did to the economy, a few trillion dollars lost to the little people in America. And we exempt unions from being taxed for health benefits that we are already paying for through the auto bailout, the transfer of GM stock to the unions, and the stimulus to help car sales. Now aren't these the same health care benefits that broke the auto companies in the first place and plunged them into bankruptcy?



Sometimes I am in awe of the Harvard business school accounting of government expenditures and national debt that seems to emit from the Obama economic team. Their actions would at least seem sincere if they were not shaking down Wall Street and all of corporate America for millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the very special interests Obama was going to run out of Washington.

So far his effort to purge capitol hill of lobbyists has consisted of having them all move to the White House where they will be taken care of if they contribute to the Democratic campaign funds. I really like this election year. The Democrat Speaker of the House, Steny Hoyer, has already raised money from every major bank and pharmaceutical company on Wall Street including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and a blue chip list of other Wall Street titans.

I wonder when the tsunami of Wall Street money flooding into Obama and the Democrats in congress becomes a conflict of interest? If Obama was being so hard on Wall Street why are they having record profits in the first place? If Obama was so hard on pharmaceutical lobbyists why are they pouring money into his campaigns? And if Obama was so hard on the health insurance providers why did their stock value skyrocket when the Obama Health Care bill passed the Senate?



The facts seem to contradict the words of our president in spite of his failure to see his own hypocrisy. Maybe he should consider that the people see through his hypocrisy as well. As his poll numbers fall through the floor and he drags Democratic candidate after Democratic candidate with him someone should tell him he is captain of a runaway train heading for a big wreck, not captain of the ship of state.

Slow down Mr. President, the time for a full court press is when you have a chance to win the game, not after it is hopelessly lost.

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Miracle on the Hudson - One Year Ago Today

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It was one year ago today the world watched as Flight 1549 crashed landed in an icy Hudson River in an event dubbed the Miracle on the Hudson. The following story was in the DNAinfo news service and tells the story. Let us pray for another miracle in Haiti.



DNAinfo - Manhattan Local News

Flight 1549 Passengers and Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger Mark Miracle on the Hudson Anniversary

January 15, 2010 12:34pm

By Serena Solomon and Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers

MIDTOWN WEST — One year after their plane splashed down in the Hudson River, the crew and passengers of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 are in the middle of a busy day of events to remember the miraculous flight.



The now-famous "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger along with his crew and many of the passengers will take an afternoon ferry to the spot where the Airbus A320 landed.



But earlier on Friday, they took part in a breakfast hosted by the American Red Cross of Greater New York, which assisted in the rescue efforts.



"I have always believed that life is fleeting commodity," Sullenberger said at the breakfast. "We have much to celebrate, much to be grateful for."



The mood at the morning gathering was cheerful. Some of the passengers wore Red Cross blankets like the ones they wrapped themselves in after being rescued from the frigid waters a year ago.



The anniversary celebration also included passengers Ben Bostic and Laura Zych, who started dating after the crash.



"If it was any other flight I never would have had a second chance," said Bostic.
Another passenger, Clay Presley, joked that Capt. Sully overlooked one thing that day — he left the fasten seat belt sign on after the plane had landed in the river.



Gov. David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg also attended the breakfast.
"It was one of the happiest moments of my life to be able to tell New Yorkers that the 155 passengers and crew members of flight 1549 were safe," Bloomberg said.



Friday afternoon the passengers and crew are expected to take a ferry to the spot where the plane splashed down. They will raise a glass together at 3:31 p.m., the exact moment the plane hit on the water last year.



The survivors will reportedly toast with Grey Goose vodka, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the flock of Canada geese that disabled both of the plane's engines and forced the emergency landing just minutes after the flight departed LaGuardia Airport.



The "Miracle on the Hudson" is the only known water landing by a commercial airline in which everyone on board survived.



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Will Boston be Obama's Waterloo? Did He Meddle Once too Often?

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You don't mess around in Boston, the heart and soul of tea party movements in America, the citadel of freedom and the home of America's first tea party that sent shock waves throughout the world. I think people underestimate the Bostonians, take them for granted. Obama's Chicago gang thinks the people of Boston and Massachusetts will do whatever Obama tells them because they are the most liberal state in America. But the people of Boston are populists first. They do not like being told what to do by outsiders.



As the Massachusetts Senate race comes down to the wire next week and the White House goes into full blown panic mode because of the surge in polls by the Republican, Scott Brown, and the collapse of the Democrat, Martha Coakley, will this be the race that convinces our young president to stop meddling in the state races once and for all?



He did not read the mood of the public in New Jersey and Virginia where Democratic candidates for governor in states Obama won handily and with Democratic governors took a beating from the Republican candidates in spite of being outspent by huge margins. Yet here we are, just a few weeks later and the bullies in the White House once again want to tell state voters who to elect. Such arrogance, even from Chicago politicians, is rather stupid.



As a supporter of the Kennedys and supporter of Kennedy candidates in the past I can tell you Martha Coakley is not Ted Kennedy. If she were really in touch with the people, as John and Bobby Kennedy were, she would have campaigned with the people. She said she would not waste her time meeting workers when she could just meet with their bosses. Both John and Bobby would be shocked by such an elitist attitude.



I remember shaking Bobby Kennedy's hand in Nebraska in 1968, along with a crowd of people, when he was surging into the lead in the presidential race and just a couple of days before his assassination. The Kennedy's were always the people's choice, not the bosses and they never forgot it.

If Coakley wanted to be like the Kennedys she would not have squandered her time as Attorney General. She could have sued the banks of Wall Street and the hedge fund and derivative manipulators in Boston who ripped off the American Treasury, stole the retirement dreams from millions of Americans, and destroyed the dream of home ownership for millions more. But instead she asks them for money for her campaign.

She could have demanded accountability from the pharmaceutical companies, health companies and insurance companies for their role in health care price increases but instead gets their money from Democratic party officials. Her special interest campaign contributors read like a Wall Street who's who and we all know by now that when they give money they expect money in return. Just ask our young president with his bailouts, buyouts, loans and stimulus. Who did that money benefit?



And if Teddy Kennedy were still alive you can bet he would be outraged at the shape the Obama health care reform debacle has taken. There are more bribes, more backroom deals than constructive initiatives in this bill. I cannot believe Kennedy would stand for the Obama, Pelosi, Reid pyramid scheme intended to fill everyone's pockets with cash except the public who will be paying for it for generations.



Teddy Kennedy had integrity. He was patient for a generation waiting to get meaningful reform. He would not have endorsed this sham just to get anything approved so the president and congress would look like they did something this past year. The Obama health care bill is not reform but a bureaucratic boondoggle the likes of which we have never seen and no one understands. Coakley wants it, Brown does not. Maybe that has a lot to do with her falling star and his rising popularity.

If Obama fails again to impose his will on the people of yet another sovereign state in America maybe, just maybe, he will finally stop meddling in state affairs and get on with governing all the people. If not he will fill out his term maintaining his do nothing administration while achieving record deficits and national debt. Not a legacy one should seek.

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Haiti Earthquake Response - America's Best is not Good Enough

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Where are the choppers???

It is probably tantamount to a sacrilege to discuss this but it is becoming obvious that America still has a long ways to go to be effective, efficient and timely in responding to natural disasters. I don't say this lightly but in the dark shadow of hundreds, perhaps thousands of victims trapped in the Haiti earthquake who will die before they are rescued.

Because we did such soul searching in ripping Bush and his people to shreds for incompetence after Hurricane Katrina, our failure to respond aggressively in this disaster is even more stunning. However, the facts are facts and rather than tell the world we are in charge and leading the rescue effort and expect the adoration of the world for what we did, we better get our act together before the next disaster.



At daybreak Friday the victims trapped under tons of debris will have spent three nights and 62 hours buried alive, if they are still alive. No doubt many trapped survivors will die. In addition the thousands of injured victims and millions of homeless and terrified residents of Haiti will still be in tents in open fields, most without food, water and medical help.



So far we have demonstrated an ability to open the airport and help supply planes land and unload. Then most of the supplies have sat since planes started arriving more than 36 hours ago. All the while thousands of helpless victims are buried alive and their families try to dig them out from under tons of debris with their hands.

The Obama administration has mobilized for this tragedy at the same pace as they ordered all those new troops to Afghanistan. Obama orders a troop surge and then we discover much of the surge will take 8-12 months. That hardly sounds like an immediate troop surge to attack the bad guys. I'm not questioning that it takes the military so many months to carry out an order. But in a life threatening emergency like the earthquake we have no time for such comprehensive plans, logistical support operations, and all the other things that can be programmed into a war.



In a disaster you get yourself to the site to assess it and then start making decisions on how to save lives. Three days into this disaster and no one is in charge on the ground and no one is coordinating the efforts except a few bureaucrats back in Obama's office. If it weren't for the first responders who flew down to Haiti before any of the Obama gang, three crews and dogs from America and crews from Iceland, France, England, Russia, and China, no one would be searching for survivors yet. The Obama gang is still in Washington planning.

Check out the television reports gang, people are actually dying. We are not staging an invasion of Iran but trying to save lives in Haiti. Field coordinators should have been on the ground the night of the disaster. There are thousands of Americans and humanitarian workers from around the world who were already in Haiti, they have been there for years. Even Doctors Without Borders had over 100 people there. We didn't need press conferences, we didn't even need people the first few hours, we just needed to get supplies to the people already on the ground. They are still waiting.

It was immediately obvious that Haiti was not going to contribute anything to this rescue effort so military should have been taking over police control the next morning. No one has done that yet. It was also obvious roads had to be cleared and heavy equipment was needed immediately, not four or five days later, to find and save the tens of thousands of trapped victims. Three days and the only equipment in Haiti is what the locals grabbed or the Dominicans sent in.



We know Haiti has 2000 pieces of heavy equipment throughout the country. Why didn't we go get it and fly it into the disaster zone with Chinook or Sky Crane helicopters? We know they can carry at least 28,000 pounds, about the size of modest but life saving bulldozers and cranes to lift debris. Surely there have to be a few dozen helicopters sitting around and Haiti is only a few hours away.



Right now, day three, the trapped are dying, the injured are dying, thousands of tons of supplies are piling up at the airport and there are still no roads cleared. Were it not for the deeply religious nature of the Haitians there undoubtedly would have been civil unrest by now. Still we owe them a better chance to survive.

The clean up and recovery may be a cerebral undertaking at Harvard speed but when lives are at stake like the first couple of days of a catastrophic disaster there is no time to meet and plan but only to execute. There are thousands of people from around the world on site and they are making a great sacrifice to be there. It is too bad that Americas first real contingent of soldiers will not arrive until the end of the third day.



We owe a great debt of gratitude to Americans and people around the world for helping out. We also owe it to ourselves to once again dissect our emergency response efforts and try to get it right the next time. No more lives should be lost because of our inability to mobilize instantly and react immediately to the human tragedies like this. America can do much better.



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