Wednesday, September 07, 2005
More on Katrina
What could I possibly add that hasn't been said already, and in 1,000 different places?
That the local and state governments failed monumentally to adequately prepare for and protect their constituents from the devastation everyone predicted Katrina would cause is obvious. Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin will, to be sure, pay dearly for their mistakes the next time they're up for election- if they decide to run again.
That the federal government was caught napping on flat feet is the understatement of our young century. The line out of the White House and from FEMA has been to blame the state and local governments for not doing enough to protect those in harms way, essentially invoking the principle of states rights as an after-the-fact excuse for their own impotence and unpreparedness. What a load of crap. Bush will fly home from vacation in the middle of the night to keep a feeding tube stuck in Terry Schiavo, in the process ignoring 10 years of Florida state court rulings, but he decides that protecting hundreds of thousands of citizens from a Category 4 Hurricane everyone with their head above the sand knew would hit New Orleans directly is an issue worthy of taking a stand for limited government on. Limited indeed.
Is the federal government supposed to be a bloated, budget-running, moralizing force in everyone's lives? Or is it supposed to be a skinny, efficient military force to be deployed only in defense of our borders? Bush seems to be a bit schizophrenic on this question, does he not? I would prefer the federal government, due to its incredible potential to mobilize resources and generate effective results, not be a spectator when it comes to things like major cities flooding with water and 10,000 people drowning. Perhaps Bush feels differently... I don't know how sitting on the sidelines while thousands drown in downtown New Orleans gels with his "compassionate conservatism," but he knows the ideology better than I do.
But why would he, if he believed this wasn't the place of the federal government, create an entire cabinet level government agency to handle such emergencies? And why would he he fill out the budget of this department of Homeland Security if he believed the hypothetical flooding of New Orleans would be the job of the responsibility of the New Orleans Police Department? No, clearly Bush believed that such an agency was important enough to spend elbow over fist on in an era of massive budget defecits that threaten the future of our national economy. Clearly, that fact alone gives you an idea of just how seriously Bush believed it was the federal government's duty and obligation to protect the residents of urban centers in the United States from catastrophe.
So what the heck happened, then? Why the delay in response? Why does the President go on Good Morning America and say that no one predicted the levees would break? Why does Michael Brown go on CNN and say that the federal government didn't know refugees were holed up in the Convention Center until Thursday, even though CNN and other networks had been reporting as much and more about that story for 48 hours? Why did FEMA turn away thousands of bottles of water donated by Walmart? The list goes on.
And you wonder- even though you know it should happen- if anyone will actually lose their job for this. Will Michael Brown, who has shown himself more incompetent than anyone could possibly be at his job at FEMA, be shown the door? If Bush canned him, Bush might be worried that would be viewed (correctly) as evidence of his own government's mishandling of the situation, and one has to wonder if Bush is more concerned with staffing government jobs with competent people or with how history books will come to see him. After all, Donald Rumsfeld, after Abu Ghraib and everything that has gone on in Iraq, and after repeated bipartisan calls for his resignation, still goes to work at the Pentagon every day.
Well, one guarantee I can make. The history books will look at this episode, and frown upon Bush's role in it- whether he fires Brown or not. So he might as well sack up and admit someone on his staff did a bad job at something... his standing in the record books as one of the most inept doofuses to lead a major country won't be affected, but at least he'll be doing something to help out.
That the local and state governments failed monumentally to adequately prepare for and protect their constituents from the devastation everyone predicted Katrina would cause is obvious. Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin will, to be sure, pay dearly for their mistakes the next time they're up for election- if they decide to run again.
That the federal government was caught napping on flat feet is the understatement of our young century. The line out of the White House and from FEMA has been to blame the state and local governments for not doing enough to protect those in harms way, essentially invoking the principle of states rights as an after-the-fact excuse for their own impotence and unpreparedness. What a load of crap. Bush will fly home from vacation in the middle of the night to keep a feeding tube stuck in Terry Schiavo, in the process ignoring 10 years of Florida state court rulings, but he decides that protecting hundreds of thousands of citizens from a Category 4 Hurricane everyone with their head above the sand knew would hit New Orleans directly is an issue worthy of taking a stand for limited government on. Limited indeed.
Is the federal government supposed to be a bloated, budget-running, moralizing force in everyone's lives? Or is it supposed to be a skinny, efficient military force to be deployed only in defense of our borders? Bush seems to be a bit schizophrenic on this question, does he not? I would prefer the federal government, due to its incredible potential to mobilize resources and generate effective results, not be a spectator when it comes to things like major cities flooding with water and 10,000 people drowning. Perhaps Bush feels differently... I don't know how sitting on the sidelines while thousands drown in downtown New Orleans gels with his "compassionate conservatism," but he knows the ideology better than I do.
But why would he, if he believed this wasn't the place of the federal government, create an entire cabinet level government agency to handle such emergencies? And why would he he fill out the budget of this department of Homeland Security if he believed the hypothetical flooding of New Orleans would be the job of the responsibility of the New Orleans Police Department? No, clearly Bush believed that such an agency was important enough to spend elbow over fist on in an era of massive budget defecits that threaten the future of our national economy. Clearly, that fact alone gives you an idea of just how seriously Bush believed it was the federal government's duty and obligation to protect the residents of urban centers in the United States from catastrophe.
So what the heck happened, then? Why the delay in response? Why does the President go on Good Morning America and say that no one predicted the levees would break? Why does Michael Brown go on CNN and say that the federal government didn't know refugees were holed up in the Convention Center until Thursday, even though CNN and other networks had been reporting as much and more about that story for 48 hours? Why did FEMA turn away thousands of bottles of water donated by Walmart? The list goes on.
And you wonder- even though you know it should happen- if anyone will actually lose their job for this. Will Michael Brown, who has shown himself more incompetent than anyone could possibly be at his job at FEMA, be shown the door? If Bush canned him, Bush might be worried that would be viewed (correctly) as evidence of his own government's mishandling of the situation, and one has to wonder if Bush is more concerned with staffing government jobs with competent people or with how history books will come to see him. After all, Donald Rumsfeld, after Abu Ghraib and everything that has gone on in Iraq, and after repeated bipartisan calls for his resignation, still goes to work at the Pentagon every day.
Well, one guarantee I can make. The history books will look at this episode, and frown upon Bush's role in it- whether he fires Brown or not. So he might as well sack up and admit someone on his staff did a bad job at something... his standing in the record books as one of the most inept doofuses to lead a major country won't be affected, but at least he'll be doing something to help out.
# posted by Mayflower @ 10:24 PM 
