A Tornado in Kansas kills 12 people (a number Barack Obama rounded up to 10,000) and a small city was destroyed. So the Toledo Blade took this tragic story as yet another tool to bash the President with:

THE tornado that obliterated a small town in Kansas points up the fallacy of the Bush Administration's excessive reliance on the National Guard to prosecute the war in Iraq.

After the F-5 twister destroyed 95 percent of tiny Greensburg on May 4, killing at least 10 of its 1,600 residents, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius quickly discovered that Guard units called to respond didn't have enough equipment to do the job. Private contractors had to be called in.

The reason: Much of the equipment Guard members normally would use in emergency work isn't available because it has been sent to Iraq to support deployed forces.

"Fifty percent of our trucks are gone. Our front loaders are gone. We are missing Humvees that move people," Governor Sebelius said. "We can't borrow them from other states because their equipment is gone. It's a huge issue for states across the country to respond to disasters like this."

But as the Quinn and Rose Show pointed out, this is all scripted by Howard Dean (Here is the audio.).

During the cleanup, only 566 of Kansas' national guard were in Iraq. 88% of the Kansas national guard were available for the cleanup. And the Kansas national guard had 352 Hummers, 72 dump tricks and hundreds of other trucks to help them clean up the mess.

And here is more from the Armed Forces press release, which shows the Kansas national guard certainly had all the muscle they needed to do their job effectively:

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2007 � National Guard troops responding to a tornado that devastated Greensburg, Kan., have the manpower and resources they need and can tap into additional support if they need it, defense officials said today.

“If the National Guard has it, Kansas will receive it,� said Army Lt. Gen. H Stephen Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

Some 566 members of the Kansas National Guard — 366 Army Guard, 200 Air Guard — are on duty, conducting search-and-rescue missions, clearing debris, helping generate power, supporting law enforcement officials, and providing other support, National Guard Bureau officials reported.

The Kansas National Guard has 88 percent of its forces available and is working quickly and aggressively to save lives and reduce suffering, Guard Bureau officials reported. More than 6,800 additional Kansas Guard troops can be tapped, if needed, as well as more than 80,000 Guardsmen from surrounding states, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters today.

Kansas Guardsmen responding to the disaster have 60 percent of their Army Guard dual-use equipment and more than 85 percent of their Air Guard equipment on hand, officials said.

Whitman reported a full range of Guard equipment on hand to support the mission. The Kansas Guard has 352 Humvees, 94 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, 24 medium and light tactical vehicles, 152 2.5-ton cargo trucks, 76 series 5-ton trucks, 13 M916 tractors, 870 trailers, 52 Heavy Equipment Transport Systems, and 30 Palletized Load System Trucks.

In terms of engineering assets, the Kansas Guard has all — and in some cases more than, — its authorized vehicles. This includes five road graders, 15 bulldozers, eight scoop loaders and 72 dump trucks, he said.

Whitman said he was unable to report which of these assets is undergoing maintenance and might not be immediately available to provide tornado relief.

Meanwhile, the National Guard Bureau is coordinating requests for additional support through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. This national partnership agreement paves the way for states to share resources during governor- or federally declared emergencies.

“The states are poised to help one another when their own resources are overwhelmed,� said Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Initial out-of-state assets to be committed to the mission include six UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters for search-and-rescue operations; power generation assets to be fielded to Macksville, in Stafford County; and a deployable communications package with voice, data, video and radio interoperability.

“Saving lives and protecting property is what the American people expect the National Guard to do, and that’s exactly what we are seeing take place in the wake of the Kansas tornado disaster,� Krenke said.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius mobilized the troops after a tornado rated at F-5, the highest rating given by the National Weather Service, ripped through the state May 5.

And as victims of this tornado said, the Governor's comments are purely political:

(CBS) GREENSBURG, Kan. While Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the Bush administration jaw back-and-forth over the relief efforts for Greensburg, Kan., the town devastated by Friday night's F-5 tornado, town residents have chimed in and say they couldn't be any happier with the response from the government and other rescue units.

"The poor response thing is just political BS," Greensburg resident Mike Swigart, 47, who lost his house and four vehicles from the storm, told wcbstv.com in an exclusive interview. "I saw her on television and I'm disappointed in that because she doesn't know what she's talking about." […]

"I was told she wanted to run as vice president on the Democratic ticket, and honestly, I wouldn't vote for her if they paid me because of that one thing she said on television right there. It was a political slam is all it was," he said. "It was a political statement and as far as the military thing overseas, I support what they're doing over there, and the military that came here is doing a great job too."

This is a classic example of how the Democrats are willing to use natural acts of God as political weapons. And Gov. Sebelius' comments were so well scripted that it had to come from the DNC. But the truth is- the Kansas national guard had all the resources and the muscle they needed to conduct a cleanup effort and to provide backup to law enforcement.

The Toledo Blade is perpetuating a lie, and they should be ashamed of themselves.