The Mayor Who Failed His City
Pookie
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2005
IT'S OFFICIAL: THE AMERICAN LEFT NOW BELIEVES GEORGE W. BUSH IS GOD.
Bellowing leftists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cindy Sheehan have
blamed Hurricane Katrina - something insurance companies classify as an act
of God - on President Bush's "killing policies" (and, in RFK Jr.'s case,
those of Mississippi's Republican governor, Haley Barbour). Former Clinton
aide Sidney Blumenthal also penned an article in The Guardian chalking up
the flood to the Bush administration's having cut one item in the Army Corps
of Engineers' annual budget. (Desperate to build a presidential legacy, even
ex post facto, ex-President Bill Clinton has intimated his administration
did more to keep New Orleans safe than Bush's.) Meanwhile, DNC Chair Howard
Dean weighed in by demeaning Bush's trip to the disaster area, calling it
"just another callous political move crafted by Karl Rove."
In addition to claiming Bush somehow fed the phantom of "global warming" to
rain death upon his own citizens, the Left has alleged "racism" in his
handling of this disaster. Jesse Jackson quipped post-Hurricane New Orleans
looks like "the hull of a slave ship." Director Michael Moore played the
race card in an open letter to Bush on his website. They found an echo in
the "Reverend" Al Sharpton, who told MSNBC's abysmal Keith Olbermann, "I
feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and
racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot
quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner." Rep. Elijah
Cummings, D-MD, a member in good standing of the Congressional Black Caucus,
played both the race and the God card, thundering:
We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived
and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more
than poverty, age or skin color.To the president of the United States, I
simply say that God cannot be pleased with our response.
And they say all the religious nutjobs are on the Right.
The Democrats' avenging angel has come in the form of Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid, D-NV, who has proposed a 9/11-style commission to probe the feds
' response to Hurricane Katrina. (After all, the original 9/11 Commission
proved so exemplary.) Despite these transparent attempts to claw political
advantage from the suffering of the downtrodden - after the National Guard
forgeries, Plamegate, and conspiratorial ravings about the Federalist
Society won them no traction - a Washington Post poll revealed 55 percent of
Americans do not blame President Bush for the debacle in the Big Easy.
Perhaps that is because the American people intuit it is not the federal
response that should be monitored but that of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a
Democrat and, coincidentally, a black man.
In accordance with the "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency
Management Plan" - a blueprint drawn up to deal with emergencies like this
one - all "Authority to issue evacuations of elements of the population is
vested in the Mayor." The document specifically states, "The person
responsible for recognition of hurricane related preparation needs and for
the issuance of an evacuation order is the Mayor of the City of New
Orleans." This outline does not mention any specific federal government's
role in disaster relief, instead carving out roles for state and municipal
governments. In fact, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted this
holiday weekend, posse commitatus statutes bar federal officers from working
as law enforcement officials.
Charged with so heavy a responsibility, Mayor Nagin punted, then passed the
buck. The National Hurricane Center called Nagin Saturday night asking him
to evacuate New Orleans, and President Bush also begged him to get his
people to safety. As mayor, the final decision was Nagin's. He was expected
to issue such an order 48 hours before the storm made landfall; however, the
storm touched down and the levees gave way less than 48 hours after his
proclamation.
Moreover, he is to see that "Special arrangements will be made to evacuate
persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving
assistance." Yet some 205 buses, and perhaps a greater number of large
transit vehicles, were left stranded in a flooded parking lot. University of
New Orleans professor Shirley Laksa had calculated some 125,000 residents do
not have private transportation. As a result of Nagin's inaction, Katrina's
victims are twice as likely to be poor than the average American. These are
the people who had no recourse but to wait for the local government to
rescue them; these are the people municipal malfeasance and nonfeasance
abandoned to an ill-equipped Superdome.
Despite these critical lapses in judgment, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA,
pressured her commander-in-chief to withhold all criticism of the local
response (President Bush had not made any, justified though it might be),
threatening that, if he didn't, "I might likely have to punch him.
Literally." Although Washington was abuzz when Rep. Dan Burton called Bill
Clinton a "scumbag," no censure has been forthcoming for Landrieu.
The Left has not idled down its criticisms of Bush, blaming him for global
warming and poor planning. The facts tell another tale. The infrastructure
the Left criticizes Bush of withholding, planned by the Army Corps of
Engineers, would have only defended the city from a level three storm;
Katrina's level five winds would have overwhelmed the project, even if it
had been completed. Former Louisiana Democratic Senator John Breaux said the
funds leftists blame Bush for cutting have been diverted by presidents since
the 1970s. With the Left sniping at him over high deficits incurred by
fighting a war in two nations, President Bush has had to trim non-essential
spending, and no one considered it a vital priority to fund a system
designed to guard against what Sen. Breaux called a "once every hundred
years" storm. The experts several steps removed from the president - and on
both sides of the aisle - simply bet a storm of this magnitude would not
occur. The Army Corps of Engineers commander Lt. Gen. Carl Strock spelled
out these sentiments: "We had an assurance that 99.5 percent this would be
OK. We, unfortunately, have had that .5 percent activity here." Strock also
denied needed monies were diverted to Iraq.
However, this storm didn't catch everyone by surprise. Scientists have known
since the 1980s that the city's levees would fail in a storm of Katrina's
magnitude.
The federal government's response has been laudable. FEMA Director Mike
Brown began moving federal resources into New Orleans two days before the
storm hit. Currently, some 8,500 active duty troops are serving in New
Orleans. The chaotic situation created by Mayor Nagin's herding people into
the Superdome, without adequate provisions for the long haul, with the
resultant murder, rape, and looting a byproduct of poor, or non-existent,
planning. Governor Blanco also deserves blame for not calling in the
National Guard to get the situation in hand earlier. Now, 38,000 National
Guardsmen are aiding the wider disaster area, including undertaking the
police functions within New Orleans that Mayor Nagin could not or would not
furnish.
With all these efforts going on, Jesse Jackson threw himself before the
cameras yet again last week, claiming, "The president has not put together a
federal program or a coordinated effort to address this massive crisis."
Just prior to Jackson's statement, Mayor Ray Nagin coped with the high
pressure of the situation he created by launching into a profanity-laden
radio interview with WWL-AM. He ranted that federal relief workers needed to
"get off your asses." (This at a time when helicopters bearing federal
relief were being shot at by New Orleanians Nagin could not control.)
These are the same murderous looters the Democratic Party's blog referred to
as "the victims." The only New Orleans residents not intimidated by the
rampaging gangs of hoodlums have relied upon the only freedom that keeps
law-abiding men safe: the right to privately own firearms.
The New Orleans debacle has demonstrated a few discomforting truths: there
is apparently no national suffering so moving that the Left will not exploit
it for crass political advantage. The nation should have learned this when
Bill Clinton blamed the Oklahoma City Bombing on Rush Limbaugh and
Republican "anti-government rhetoric." More importantly, significant holes
remain in our national infrastructure, which an enterprising terrorist cell
could exploit. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the national security
implications of mayoral elections in this nation's vital cities. Their
governance, so long dominated by corrupt and ineffectual leftists, has led
to disaster on a massive scale. In the case of New Orleans, a plan had even
been drawn up to fend off the worst.the mayor simply demurred from filling
in its blanks. The tragedy filling our television screens for the last week
is its result. Next time, the mourning could be caused by an act of war. At
least one Bush critic, Rep. Bobby Jindahl, R-LA, is right: "After 9/11, this
never should have happened."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19396
GW Chimpzilla
> The Mayor Who Failed His City
> By Ben Johnson
> FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2005
>
>
> IT'S OFFICIAL:
Official hand-fed Rove smear, that is.
>
KARL ROVE: TRAITOR & LIAR (Jake WK)
The Progress Report
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, and Christy Harvey
www.progressreport.org
9/6/2005
KATRINA - Rove's Finger Pointing
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "This is not a
time to get into any finger pointing or politics or anything of that nature."
Apparently, Karl Rove didn't get the message. The New York Times reports that
Rove and White House communications director Dan Bartlett have "rolled out a
plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's
response to Hurricane Katrina." The core of the strategy is "to shift the blame
away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana."
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL LIES TO WASHINGTON POST: The Washington Post,
citing an anonymous "senior administration official," reported on Sunday that
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency."
That wasn't true. Hours later the Post ran a correction, acknowledging that
Blanco "declared an emergency on Aug. 26." (Read it here.) Newsweek also
reported that, as late as Sept. 1, Blanco was "hesitant to declare martial law
or a state of emergency, which would have opened the door to more Pentagon
help." The magazine has yet to issue a correction.
ADMINISTRATION ACKNOWLEDGED RESPONSIBILITY FOR RELIEF EFFORTS: The White House
effort to shift the blame for the response to Katrina contradicts its public
statements before the storm hit. An Aug. 27 declaration on the White House
website "authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts." The order
specifies that "FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its
discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the
emergency." Jane Bullock, former FEMA chief of staff, said, "The moment the
president declared a federal disaster, it became a federal responsibility.. The
federal government took ownership over the response." This is consistent with
the DHS website which states plainly, "In the event of a terrorist attack,
natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland
Security will assume primary responsibility ... for ensuring that emergency
response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail
providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale
crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort."
BUSH TRIES TO SHIFT BLAME: Now that things have gone poorly, the White House
wants to pretend it wasn't in charge. President Bush said the magnitude of the
storm "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local
capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the
help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable." Dan
Bartlett told the Washington Post, "The federal government stands ready to work
with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana.
The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting
the citizens of Louisiana." The message from Bush and Bartlett is that state
officials were "slow to call for outside help." The reality is that Louisiana
state officials reached out to the federal government for assistance before the
storm hit. On Aug. 27, Gov. Blanco sent a detailed letter to President Bush
requesting assistance because "this incident is of such severity and magnitude
that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected
local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to
save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert
the threat of a disaster."
KATRINA - Not Prepared For Another 9/11
In just five days, Americans will mark the four-year anniversary of 9/11. Many
will ask the question: are we prepared for another terrorist attack? The
response to Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated that there are many concerns
about our nation's disaster preparedness. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) has given the
Department of Homeland Security and the federal government's response to the
hurricane disaster so far a grade of "F." Sen. Jon Kyl, chairman of the Senate
Judiciary subcommittee that oversees homeland security, has expressed concern
about our nation's ability to respond to a terrorist strike. "I am not at all
confident, based on what we've seen, that we'd have the ability to handle that,"
Kyl said.
INABILITY TO ASSESS TRUE THREATS: In 2001, prior to 9/11, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the
three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country," directly
behind a terrorist strike on New York City. A few months later, terrorists
struck New York City, and President Bush's response in the first few hours to
that disaster was "flatfooted" and "awkward." Bush later acknowledged to Bob
Woodward that he had not been "on point" prior to 9/11 about the threat of an
attack. In admitting last week that the response to Katrina by the federal
government was "unacceptable," concerns arose anew about the Bush
administration's inattention to true threats. Instead of focusing on the
identified threats, the administration, as Michael Lind notes, focused its
priorities on Iraq.
ADMINISTRATION UNDERMINES CONFIDENCE IN NATION'S PREPAREDNESS: The take-away
lesson to many observers from the hurricane response was clear: Katrina shows
we're not ready for catastrophe. "This damage could just as easily have been
caused by a terrorist attack, and many if not most of the same elements are
involved in responding to natural disasters," Sen. Kyl said. Rep. Bennie
Thompson (D-MS) told CNN (9/2), "our government failed in both its preparedness
and its response to the disaster. If terrorists rather than a hurricane had
attacked, the result would have been no different." And according to Nikolai
Spassky, the deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, terrorists took
notice. The response to Hurricane Katrina sent "an extremely unpleasant signal"
about the U.S.'s ability to cope with disaster, said Spassky. Even House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, though unwilling to acknowledge the administration's
poor response to the hurricane, has said the nation's terrorism preparedness
needs a thorough review.
KATRINA HAMPERS ABILITY TO RESPOND TO TERRORIST ATTACK: "If this was a terrorist
event, is this the kind of response we would have?" asked James Lee Witt, the
FEMA director under Clinton. The administration has struck the wrong balance
between providing safety against terrorist attacks and preparing for natural
disasters. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spends $1.1 billion each
year for states to combat terrorism, but just $180 million
to help prepare for disasters such as Katrina. The total cost of the catastrophe
is now expected to exceed $100 billion. Furthermore, as the National Guard is
pulled into hurricane recovery duty, it is being strained and stretched as never
before. While FEMA and DHS previously over-committed their resources to
terrorism rather than disaster preparedness, the current crisis has left the
federal government hobbled in its response to both. As response units across
America switch gears from counter-terrorism to hurricane recovery, even
administration-backers like Newt Gingrich are left wondering: "if we can't
respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the gulf for days,
then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological
attack?" Despite the fact that Bush claims we have "plenty of resources" to
secure the homeland and recover from the hurricane, experts such as former
Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Admiral James Loy candidly admit, "I can't
tell you that we're lock, stock and ready to go."
Under the Radar
ADMINISTRATION -- THE MISEDUCATION OF MICHAEL BROWN: "In recent days,
politicians and officials in both parties have derided [FEMA Director Michael]
Brown's qualifications to head the nation's chief disaster-response agency -- as
well as the performance of the agency and its federal, state and local
partners." Judging by Brown's paltry experience in emergency management, his
performance has hardly come as a surprise. Before joining FEMA in 2001, Brown
"had a full-time job overseeing horse-shows as the commissioner of the
International Arabian Horse Association." Eventually he was "asked to step down"
because of what the Boston Herald described as "a spate of lawsuits over alleged
supervision failures." His main FEMA job qualification? Brown was the college
roommate of Joseph Allbaugh, "the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to
work for the president's re-election campaign."
PROPAGANDA -- ADVOCACY GROUPS RECEIVED $4.7 MILLION TO PROMOTE BUSH EDUCATION
POLICY: "Federal investigators probing the Education Department's public
relations contracts have found a pattern of deals in which advocacy
organizations received grants totaling nearly $4.7 million to promote Bush
administration education priorities in newspaper columns and brochures, but
didn't disclose that they received taxpayer funds, as required by law," USA
Today reports. More than a third of the money -- some $1.7 million -- "went to
outside public relations contracts that officials said resulted in no visible
media products." In 10 of 11 cases examined by Inspector General John Higgins,
the groups that received federal money "didn't disclose - in print, on radio or
in other media, such as brochures or handbooks - that taxpayer funds were used."
ECONOMY -- LOOMING BANKRUPTCY BILL PLACES DISASTER VICTIMS IN CROSSHAIRS: As new
bankruptcy legislation was being pushed through Congress last April, Rep. Sheila
Jackson Lee (D-TX) called for an exemption for Americans whose finances were
impacted by a natural disaster. "Bankruptcy reform should address many specific
issues, such as the negligent mismanagement of money, but to hurt those who are
already suffering from flooding or a collapsed roof or a house that has gone out
to sea is absolutely ridiculous," Jackson Lee said on the House floor. Her
amendment was flatly rejected. Now, Reuters reports, "Hurricane Katrina is
expected to cause a spurt of bankruptcy filings by storm victims -- and sweeping
changes in U.S. bankruptcy laws may leave them even more strapped than they
otherwise might be." Reps. Jackson Lee, John Conyers (D-MI) and two other House
members have announced plans to introduce legislation to exempt victims of
Katrina from "the most onerous provisions of the new law."
RACE -- AFRICAN AMERICANS GOUGED ON HOME LOAN RATES: "Blacks who bought homes in
communities across America last year were four times as likely as whites to get
high interest rates for mortgage loans," according to an analysis of records
from 25 of the nation's largest lenders by the Charlotte Observer. The wide
disparities in interest rates occurred even when blacks had substantially higher
incomes. "Even blacks with incomes above $100,000 a year were charged high rates
more often than whites with incomes below $40,000."
GOOD NEWS
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist finally agreed to put off a vote to repeal the
estate tax -- a sop to the most wealthy and well-off Americans -- in the wake of
Katrina.
Loonie Rightards
Negligence
The planning
Before Hurricane Katrina struck, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (Fema) was confident that it was ready. Its director, Michael
Brown, said: "Fema has pre-positioned many assets including ice,
water, food and rescue teams to move into the stricken areas as soon
as it is safe to do so."
Mr Brown even told the Associated Press news agency that the
evacuation had gone well. "I was impressed with the evacuation, once
it was ordered it was very smooth," he said.
Yet on Saturday 28 August, the day before the evacuation was ordered,
Mr Brown did not say that people should leave the city. All he said
was:
"There's still time to take action now, but you must be prepared and
take shelter and other emergency precautions immediately."
This has made Fema appear complacent in the period immediately before
the hurricane arrived. If it did not expect the worst, it would not
have prepared for the worst.
The Brown statement went out on the same day that the National
Hurricane Center was warning that Katrina was strengthening to the top
Category Five. Everyone knew the dangers of a Category Five. A Fema
exercise last year called "Hurricane Pam" had looked at a Category
Three, and that was bad enough.
The scenes which most shocked the world were at the Superdome and the
nearby Convention Center. Yet it turns out that neither Mr Brown nor
his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, knew about the
crises there until Thursday.
This, despite numerous television reports from the scene. It was not
until Friday that the first relief convoy arrived.
Nor did he know about the breach in the floodwalls until a day later.
"It was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was
no possibility of plugging the gap, and that essentially the lake was
going to drain into the city," he said on NBC.
But ironically the failure at the Convention Center would have been
fairly easy to put right. Reporters drove there without problems. One
took a taxi.
What, one wonders, what was Fema doing while all that was played out
on live TV?
One lesson FEMA might want to learn is that someone senior should do
nothing but monitor TV.
The Department of Homeland Security said the local authorities were
inadequate. The locals responded that Fema had been obstructive - it
had, for example, stopped three truckloads of water sent by the store
Wal-Mart. And so on.
Another issue for Mr Bush is why Michael Brown was appointed director
of Fema. He had previously been its deputy and had been hired as its
general counsel by the director Joe Allbaugh, George Bush's chief of
staff when he was Texas governor. Mr Brown, a lawyer from Oklahoma,
played a role in studying the government's response to national
emergencies. Before that he had run the Arab horse association.
Senator Hillary Clinton has said that Fema should be removed from the
Homeland Security Department and made an independent agency again.
From 2003 onwards, the Bush administration cut funds amid charges from
the Army Corps of Engineers that the money was transferred to Iraq
instead. The latest annual budget was cut from $36.5m to $10.4m.
A study to examine defences against a category Four or Five storm was
proposed, at a cost of $4m. The Times-Picayune quoted the Army Corps
of Engineers project manager Al Naomi as saying: "The Iraq war forced
the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not
to begin any new studies."
And an Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman, Connie Gillette, said
there had never been any plans or funds to improve those floodwalls
which had failed.
jose
Careful, it may not cause blindness, but obviously, it is
the source of your insanity judging by your posts.
Northern Storm
The Buck Stops In New Orleans; everyone remember that.
Buster
> The Mayor Who Failed His City
> By Ben Johnson
> FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2005
>
Looks like the talking points have come down from Rove. "Spin the blame
for slow response to Katrina to the states and away from Bush".
coasterqueen
>Looks like the talking points have come down from Rove. "Spin the blame
>for slow response to Katrina to the states and away from Bush".
Those talking points started in ngs last week. Nice to see the media
is keeping up.
Music is the Prozac of my life - Ottmar Liebert
Roger
news:1126133398....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> The only hand job is the one you give yourself daily.
> Careful, it may not cause blindness, but obviously, it is
> the source of your insanity judging by your posts.
It's during a crisis like this that the Christianity of the right-wing
facists really comes through.
ryd...@yahoo.com
Roger wrote:
] It's during a crisis like this that the Christianity
] of the right-wing facists really comes through.
What is a "facist," Roger?
Is that like a "two-facist," perhaps?
Like you?
Ryda
tomswif...@yahoo.com
Pookie wrote:
> The Mayor Who Failed His City
> By Ben Johnson
> FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2005
>
> Perhaps that is because the American people intuit it is not the federal
> response that should be monitored but that of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a
> Democrat and, coincidentally, a black man.
> In accordance with the "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency
> Management Plan" - a blueprint drawn up to deal with emergencies like this
> one - all "Authority to issue evacuations of elements of the population is
> vested in the Mayor." The document specifically states, "The person
> responsible for recognition of hurricane related preparation needs and for
> the issuance of an evacuation order is the Mayor of the City of New
> Orleans." This outline does not mention any specific federal government's
> role in disaster relief, instead carving out roles for state and municipal
> governments. In fact, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted this
> holiday weekend, posse commitatus statutes bar federal officers from working
> as law enforcement officials.
"What didn't go right?"
President Bush's absurd question underscores the arrogance of an
administration whose "limited government" agenda is responsible for the
disastrous federal response to Katrina.
News
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal
Sept. 8, 2005 | The Bush administration's mishandling of Hurricane
Katrina stands as the pluperfect case study of the Republican Party's
theory and practice of government. For decades conservatives have
funded think tanks, filled libraries and conducted political campaigns
to promote the idea of limited government. Now, in New Orleans, the
theory has been tested. The floodwaters have rolled over the rhetoric.
Under Bush, government has been "limited" only in certain weak spots,
like levees, while in other spots it has vastly expanded into a
behemoth subsisting on the greatest deficit spending in our history.
State and local governments have not been empowered, but rendered
impotent, in the face of circumstances beyond their means in which they
have desperately requested federal intervention. Experienced
professionals in government have been forced out, tried-and-true
policies discarded, expert research ignored, and cronies elevated to
senior management.
Before Katrina, the Republican theory received its most apposite
formulation by a prominent lobbyist and close advisor to House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, who said about government that he
wanted to "drown it in the bathtub." In relation to the waters that
surround it, New Orleans has been described as a bathtub, and it has
served as the bathtub for Norquist's wish.
Only two people in the light of recent events have had the daring to
articulate a defense of the Republican idea of government. House
Speaker Dennis Hastert, asked about rebuilding New Orleans,
volunteered: "It doesn't make sense to me." He elaborated: "I think
federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought
to take a second look at that." Thus Hastert upheld rugged
individualism over a modern federal union. Just a month earlier, as it
happened, Hastert had put out a press release crowing about his ability
to win federal disaster relief for drought-stricken farmers in his
Illinois district. While he was too preoccupied attending a campaign
fundraiser for a Republican colleague to travel to Washington to vote
for the $10.5 billion emergency appropriation to deal with Katrina's
aftereffects, he did finally return to the capital to push for even
more drought aid from the Department of Agriculture. Hastert's
philosophy is not undermined by his stupendous hypocrisy, for hypocrisy
is at the center of the Republican idea. Hastert simply has the
shamelessness of his convictions.
The second defender was Michael Brown, director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, for which he was qualified by a r=E9sum=E9
that includes being fired from his previous job as commissioner of the
International Arabian Horse Association and, more important, having
been the college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000
campaign manager and Brown's predecessor at FEMA. On Sept. 1, Brown
stated: "Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New
Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going
relatively well." Brown was unintentionally Swiftian in his savage
irony. The next day, President Bush patted him on the back: "Brownie,
you're doing a heck of a job." Brown exemplifies the Bush approach to
government, a blend of cynicism, cronyism, and incompetence presented
with faux innocence as well-meaning service and utter surprise at
things going wrong.
Even as the floodwaters poured into New Orleans, unimpeded by any
federal effort to stanch the flow, the White House mustered a tightly
coordinated rapid response of political damage control. Karl Rove
assumed emergency management powers. The strategy was to dampen any
criticism of the president, rally the Republican base, and cast blame
on the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana, both Democrats.
It was a classic Bush ploy against the backdrop of crisis. The object
was to polarize the nation along partisan lines as swiftly as possible.
While policy collapsed, politics reigned. Once again, Bush the divider,
not the uniter, emerged.
The White House released a waterfall of themes. No matter how
contradictory, administration officials maintained message discipline.
The first imperative was to disclaim and deflect responsibility. White
House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admonished the press corps, "This
is not a time to get into any finger-pointing or politics or anything
of that nature." The president down to the lowliest talk show hosts
echoed the line that criticism during the crisis and reporting its
causes were unseemly and vaguely unpatriotic.
After establishing that line, the White House laid out other messages
to avoiding responsibility. Bush declared, "I don't think anybody
anticipated the breach of the levees." From his bully pulpit he
intended to drown out the reports trickling into print media that he
had cut the funding for rebuilding the levees and for flood control.
Then Bush assumed the pose of the president above the fray, sadly
calling the response "unacceptable." Meanwhile, he praised "Brownie."
After Sept. 11, there was an external enemy, "evildoers" against whom
to summon fear and fervor. Now, instead, the flood has brought to the
surface the deepest national questions of race, class and inequality.
On Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane hit, the Census Bureau released
figures showing that the poor had increased by 1.1 million since 2003,
to 12.7 percent of the population, the fourth annual increase, with
blacks and Hispanics the poorest, and the South remaining the poorest
region. Since Bush has been in office, poverty has grown by almost 9
percent. (Under President Clinton, poverty fell by 25 percent.) As
these issues began to receive serious attention for the first time in
years, Bush reiterated that it was inappropriate to "play the blame
game."
Meanwhile, his aides sought to blame New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. On Sept. 3, the Washington Post, citing
an anonymous "senior administration official," reported that Blanco
"still had not declared a state of emergency." Newsweek published a
similar report. Within hours, however, the Post published a correction;
the report was false. In fact, Blanco had declared an emergency on Aug.
26 and sent President Bush a letter on Aug. 27 requesting that the
federal government declare an emergency and provide aid; and, in fact,
Bush did make such a declaration, thereby accepting responsibility.
Nonetheless, these facts have not stymied White House aides from their
drumbeat that state and local officials -- but curiously, not the
Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama -- are ultimately to
blame.
Yet others operated off-message, casting aspersions on the hurricane's
victims. The president's mother, Barbara Bush, interviewed on American
Public Media's "Marketplace" program," said of the displaced from
Louisiana who are temporarily housed in Houston's Astrodome, "What I'm
hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas.
Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the
people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so
this -- this is working very well for them."
And Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., suggested that the residents of New
Orleans who failed to escape the flood should be punished. "I mean, you
have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk
as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look
at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand
that there are consequences to not leaving."
The White House sought to turn back the rising tide of anger among
blacks by deputizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During the
early days of the hurricane and flood, she had been vacationing in New
York, taking in Monty Python's "Spamalot" and spending thousands on
shoes at Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue. In the store, a fellow shopper
reportedly confronted her, saying, "How dare you shop for shoes while
thousands are dying and homeless!" -- prompting security men to bodily
remove the woman. A week after the hurricane, Rice mounted the pulpit
at a black church in Whistler, Ala. "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to
come on time," she preached, "if we just wait." One hundred and 10
years after Booker T. Washington counseled patience and acceptance to
the race in his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech in the aftermath of
Reconstruction's betrayal, the highest African-American official in the
land updated his advice of forbearance.
After a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Bush warned against the "blame
game" as he pointed his finger: "Bureaucracy is not going to stand in
the way of getting the job done for the people." His aides briefed
reporters on background that "bureaucracy" of course referred to state
and local officials. That night, at the White House, Bush met with
congressional leaders of both parties, and House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi urged Bush to fire Brown. "Why would I do that?" the president
replied. "Because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right
last week," she explained. To which he answered, "What didn't go
right?"
Bush's denigration of "bureaucracy" raises the question of the
principals responsible in his own bureaucracy. Within hours of the
president's statement, the Associated Press reported that FEMA director
Michael Brown had waited five hours after the hurricane struck to
request 1,000 workers from Homeland Security secretary Michael
Chertoff. Part of their mission, he wrote, would be to "convey a
positive image" of the administration's response.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune disclosed that Max Mayfield, head of the
National Hurricane Center, briefed Brown and Chertoff before the
hurricane made landfall of its potential disastrous consequences. "We
were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It's not like
this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be
topped." The day after Bush's Cabinet room attack on bureaucracy, the
St. Petersburg Times revealed that Mayfield had also briefed President
Bush in a video conference call. "I just wanted to be able to go to
sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield said.
After its creation in 1979, FEMA became "a political dumping ground,"
according to a former FEMA advisory board member. Its ineffective
performance after Hurricane Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989 and
Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 exposed the agency's
shortcomings. Then Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina called it "the
sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." President Clinton appointed
James Lee Witt as the new director, the first one ever to have had
experience in the field. Witt reinvented the agency, setting high
professional standards and efficiently dealing with disasters.
FEMA's success as a showcase federal agency made it an inviting target
for the incoming Bush team. Allbaugh, Bush's former campaign manager,
became the new director, and he immediately began to dismantle the
professional staff, privatize many functions and degrade its
operations. In his testimony before the Senate, Allbaugh attacked the
agency he headed as an example of unresponsive bureaucracy: "Many are
concerned that Federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both
an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective State
and local risk management. Expectations of when the Federal Government
should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned
beyond what is an appropriate level. We must restore the predominant
role of State and local response to most disasters."
After Sept. 11, 2001, FEMA was subsumed into the new Department of
Homeland Security and lost its Cabinet rank. The staff was cut by more
than 10 percent, and the budget has been cut every year since and most
of its disaster relief efforts disbanded. "Three out of every four
dollars the agency provides in local preparedness and first-responder
grants go to terrorism-related activities, even though a recent
Government Accountability Office report quotes local officials as
saying what they really need is money to prepare for natural disasters
and accidents," the Los Angeles Times reported.
After Allbaugh retired from FEMA in 2003, handing over the agency to
his deputy and college roommate, Brown, he set up a lucrative lobbying
firm, the Allbaugh Co., which mounts "legislative and regulatory
campaigns" for its corporate clients, according its Web site. After the
Iraq war, Allbaugh established New Bridge Strategies to facilitate
business for contractors there. He also created Diligence, a firm to
provide security to private companies operating in Iraq. Haley Barbour,
the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and now
governor of Mississippi, helped Allbaugh start all his ventures through
his lobbying and law firm, Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Indeed, the
entire Allbaugh complex is housed at Barbour Griffith and Rogers. Ed
Rogers, Barbour's partner, has become a vice president of Diligence.
Diane Allbaugh, Allbaugh's wife, went to work at Barbour Griffith and
Rogers. And Neil Bush, the president's brother, received $60,000 as a
consultant to New Bridge Strategies.
On Sept. 1, the Pentagon announced the award of a major contract for
repair of damaged naval facilities on the Gulf Coast to Halliburton,
the firm whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney and whose chief
lobbyist is Joe Allbaugh.
Hurricane Katrina is the anti-9/11 in its divisive political effect,
its unearthing of underlying domestic problems, and its disorienting
impact on the president and his administration. Yet, in other ways, the
failure of government before the hurricane struck is reminiscent of the
failures leading into 9/11. The demotion of FEMA resembles the demotion
of counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. In both cases, the
administration ignored clear warnings.
In a conversation with a former diplomat with decades of experience, I
raised these parallels. But the Bush administration response evoked
something else for him. "It reminds me of Africa," he said.
"Governments that prey on their people."
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About the writer
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President
Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for
Salon and the Guardian of London.