GameBanshee Forums

[QUOTE=Faust]The issue of evacuation is more nuanced. The reason that many citizens did not leave in a timely fashion was because many residents lacked cars or had no other place to go. From what I've read, somewhere around a quarter of New Orleans citizen, for starters, did not own vehicles. So, the federal and local evacuation orders probably shouldn't have remained "voluntary" or up to each individual citizen. Some sort of more organized evacuation should have been conducted at a very early date, with shelters set up for those who needed them. Expecting the Federal Government to provide leadership and resources in this effort is perfectly reasonable.[/QUOTE]
There's actually more to the evacuation deal. I remember hearing at the time that some residents were ordered to stay home and not evacuate. This was to try and cut back on the amount of traffic that would be clogging the highways. Obviously, those who were ordered to stay were more likely to be in less affected areas, so evacuation wasn't mandatory. Also, I remember watching the Daily Show (the only reason I watched it was because of the thing they were doing on Evolution, which seemed like it could be funny), they showed a clip of the governor of Louisiana fielding the quesiton about why a whole slew of school buses went unused and were now half-covered in water instead of being used to evacuate citizens. That one, I think, they laid squarely at the governor's feet.

Actually my question was one of semantics: what is usually understood by the phrase "taking responsibility" when uttered by a US government official in the wake of a screw-up?
With as a second part: will Bush take responsibility in this generally understood sense?
And for those who spammed: I've gone off-track myself more than once so don't worry.