This is just gross!
Even after the outlandish claims by the Kansas democratic governor were totally debunked…
Harry Reid jumps into the tornado politics.
Yesterday BDS blasted Kansas big time as democratic governor Kathleen Sebelius charged that the Iraq War was affecting the cleanup in Kansas after the killer tornado… This was quickly debunked and the governor later backtracked from her original claims when it was revealed that only 10% of the available Kansas guard members were called to the tornado cleanup.
Today… Jennifer Loven spun the tornado-Iraq story horribly for the AP. She does not represent what Tony Snow said at all. And, of course she has to bring up comparisons to Katrina! What a horrible mistruth.
This is what was actually communicated at the White House press briefing that Jennifer Loven seemed to have missed:
Tony Snow: This is a success story in the sense that people were moving very quickly to get assets there. So, in response to Fran’s question, the Governor said that she had what she needs. She did repeat her testimony that she’s been raising the issue about DOD for a number of years in terms of National Guard deployments. When Fran again said, “Is there anything you need to respond effectively to this disaster,” the Governor responded, “No. We could not have asked for a faster response. Dave Paulison was terrific yesterday.”
The Governor was out of state when it happened, and it was — it was difficult. We were working through staff to get in touch with her. It clearly was a priority to get things moving, and so people did get things moving…
Tony Snow: Let me give you a sense of what’s available in the state, because I think — resources available: I already told you 83,000 National Guard units in the region, 99 bulldozers, 61 loaders, 246 dump trucks, 59 graders, 228 heavy expandable mobility tactical trucks, 2,243 2.5 and 5-ton trucks, 70 palletalized load systems. There’s a lot of stuff available. So, again, I think this is one where the equipment was available and everybody was moving as rapidly as possible…
…Again, I think, look, potential disaster — you keep trying to say, if we’re going to have National Guard units in Iraq protecting Americans you’re not going to be able to deal with disasters here at home. The fact is you do have, as I just pointed out, more than 6,000 available units, and there’s only 566 deployed right now in Kansas — 6,800 available. So there are, in fact, large amounts — large numbers of individuals and equipment available.
In fact, the democratic Governor of Kansas took back her outlandish comments from yesterday after the truth revealed that only 10% of Kansas guard members are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and that only 10% of the available units were moved to to disaster area.
But… That didn’t stop the Majority Leader from repeating the false claims of the democratic governor! …Gross.
Michelle Malkin has more on the democrat’s tornado politics.
UPDATE: Obama jumps into the Twister politics claiming 10,000 people died in a town with a population of 1,574… more than six times as many deaths as Hurricane Katrina.
