Washblog

Democrats can be like Mitt Romney and check with their attorneys or spin doctors before deciding and acting.

Or they can simply act grown up and do what is necessary now. Fundraising and anticipating the next election is fine but secondary.

Personally, I would vote for Democrats who take a "can-do-and-will-do-right-now" attitude.

Our elected officials must have a significant  risk-taking aspect to their governance style. Decisiveness - both wise and foolish - comes with the territory. That's why we absolutely must participate in the choosing and voting process.

If we as an electorate are indecisive, we will elect politicians who reflect that indecisiveness.
If we can be persuaded by nothing more than repetitious talking points, that's what we will get.

 

    Friday, September 9, 2005

    Al Gore airlifts Katrina victims out of New Orleans

    By Duncan Mansfield / Associated Press

     KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of the former vice president's son.

    Gore criticized the Bush administration's slow response to Katrina in a speech Friday in San Francisco, but refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew on Sept. 3 and 4.

    However, Dr. Anderson Spickard, who is Gore's personal physician and accompanied him on the flights, said: "Gore told me he wanted to do this because like all of us he wanted to seize the opportunity to do what one guy can do, given the assets that he has."

    An account of the flights was posted this week on a Democratic Party Web page. It was written by Greg Simon, president of the Washington-based activist group FasterCures. Simon, who helped put together the mission, also declined an interview.

    On Sept. 1, three days after Katrina slamed into the Gulf Coast, Simon learned that Dr. David Kline, a neurosurgeon who operated on Gore's son, Albert, after a life-threatening auto accident in 1989, was trying to get in touch with Gore. Kline was stranded with patients at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

    "The situation was dire and becoming worse by the minute -- food and water running out, no power, 4 feet of water surrounding the hospital and ... corpses outside," Simon wrote.

    Gore responded immediately, telephoning Kline and agreeing to underwrite the $50,000 each for the two flights, although Larry Flax, founder of California Pizza Kitchens, later pledged to pay for one of them.

    "None of the airlines involved required a contract or any written guarantee of payment before sending their planes and volunteer crews," Simon wrote of the American Airlines flights. "One official said if Gore promised to pay, that was good enough for them."

    He also recruited two doctors, Spickard and Gore's cousin, retired Col. Dar LaFon, a specialist in internal medicine who once ran the military hospital in Baghdad.

    Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape, personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in New Orleans.

    About 140 people, many of them sick, landed in Knoxville on Sept. 3. The second flight, with 130 evacuees, landed the next day in Chattanooga.