Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

But, I don't agree that Bush deserves some "slack" for the catastrophic failure of emergency response to Katrina.  The administration initially claimed no responsibility, but that lie was quickly exposed.  The National Response Plan clearly gives federal officials extensive responsibilities in disasters of such magnitude.

Even the state and local response, also inept, reflected on the federal government, because federal agencies are required by law to assist state planners, with training, planning and dry runs testing the adequacy of plans.  

During the Bush administration emergency preparedness programs were cut back.   Preparedness experts were forced out, to be replaced with unqualified cronies. Thus, willfully and knowingly, Bush administration officials undermined federal response capabilities. It was only a matter of time until a major disaster demonstrated the folly of such  actions.  

Unlike Clinton, who was very public during crises, Bush repeatedly has been AWOL when crisis strikes.  Hurricane Isabel was just one example.  As the storm approached the Maryland coast, Bush quietly evacuated himself to Camp David, although the White House was in little danger.  Even from that safe refuge, he made little effort to publicly provide the kind of leadership and reassurance that an executive is expected to provide in time of crisis.

Like New Orleans, the DC area has a large population of poor, nonwhite residents, who lack cars or the means to purchases disaster supplies. Few supplies were available, anyway, even for those who could afford them.  Fortunately, Isabel caused little loss of life.  But, the crisis  was a foreshadowing of Katrina; a warning ignored.  

This disaster preparedness specialist gives President Bush an "F" for disaster response and only wishes there was a lower grade to give.

Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said at a White House news conference. The statement was an exceedingly rare expression of fault from the president. Though not quite a straight- forward admission of wrongdoing, it went further than any administration official [had] gone to acknowledge mistakes since the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast more than two weeks ago.

Even so, Bush used his 9/14/2005 speech more of as an excuse to provide a photo-op in front of a well-lit Cathedral of St. Louis.  It was as if the crisis was now (then) in the "mission accomplished" phase.  We now know once the cameras stopped rolling  -- all the emergency generators and floodlights used for Bush's backdrop were back on the trucks.  Then they were herded well away from the disaster area.  

Bush's mea culpa on the 1st anniversary of the tragedy sounded little different:

"As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."  He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said.

Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.

It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster.

Bush was still intimating that others, too, had failed at every level of government in the Katrina response. The Federal response to Katrina has still stuck out in the minds of voters in areas where the vote will be close -- like Louisiana. Bush had to make another admission of culpability due to the continuing disaster relief malaise of his own Administration.  It's been prompted by reports of slow, corrupt, and often inept efforts by the DHS and Army Corps of Engineers...and those of private no-bid contractors.

No matter. The Department of Homeland Security -- like the rest of the neo-con creations -- still wants to use Katrina as a classroom experiment involving the privatizing of government disaster relief efforts in the neo-con "tradition."

Each time Bush spoke he used nothing more than an old parlor trick. One that would allow Bush and FEMA to later shift the blame onto other folks -- who just happen to be Democrats.  In the months since Bush's first speech -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin have increasingly become the rhetorical equivalent of "unindicted co-conspirators" in the eyes of the Bushies.  It should be mentioned that Nagin had to run for mayor this year and Kathleen Blanco is in a close race for re-election.  Obtaining enough funding for re-building New Orleans has been contingent on the two having to take the GOP and the Bush Administration off the table -- or face further cuts in Federal money.

The WH actually did release a written  report on February 24, 2006, of its "findings" on the overall response to Katrina .  In it, Bush again presumed that the responsibility for the massive failures of government was the fault of every level of response.  I.E., the Busheviks' usual bulldirt that since everyone was at fault -- nobody in particular could be blamed.  

A link to an op-ed on the WH's February 2006 Katrina Response Report can be found at:

http://www.wsws.org/article s/2006/feb2006/katr-f25.sht ml

The White House issued the February Katrina report with a cynicism seldom seen in US politics since the Vietnam War.  The Bushies' own ridiculous "findings" about Katrina were all too revealing and self-serving: 1)that state and local officials had somehow misunderstood the real role: FEMA is supposed to only play a minor role in major disasters, 2)that the Defense Department should have been involved earlier in the response -- although there existed no written guidelines that actually delegated the DOD with the "overall" responsibility for disaster relief, 3)that the actual response to Katrina was supposed to be done via the somehow underfunded Department of Homeland Security -- and not by FEMA per se, and that most government agencies should give priority to private relief efforts (especially those based on public donations).  

It's all to obvious the report was really meant as an excuse to get the DHS more funding and extend its involvement in disaster operations -- as it sees fit.  Roles that could also be used effectively in times of civil disturbance.

Here is the most non-sequitor of non-sequitors seen so far in 2006.  It's the actual opening statement of the February Report:

Terrorists still plot their evil deeds, and nature's unyielding power will continue. We know with certainty that there will be tragedies in our future. Our obligation is to work to prevent the acts of evil men; reduce America's vulnerability to both the acts of terrorists and the wrath of nature; and prepare
ourselves to respond to and recover from the man-made and natural catastrophes that do occur.

This makes even the Almighty sound like a potential terrorist. But...only if S(H)e's either a Democrat, or to the political left of Simon Legree.  That is, as far as Faux News, CNN, GE and NBC,CBS, Inc., and Disney/ABC is concerned.  Yep...that's about as much blame Bush is willing to take on the Katrina response.  And lest I be "unfair" to the Democrats -- Katrina proved to the GOP that Dems only stood in the way of the funding that was needed for the DHS to do its expanded duties. Just ask the 24/7 news networks.

I didn't know that cynicism and optimism could be the ultimate mantras of a corrupt regime. Actually, they are front and center in every repressive regime.  Sort of a raison d'etre before the coup d'etat.  The White House has tried to dovetail the two with increasing levels of fear -- in every cover-up of every disaster that's happened on their watch.

Just look at their record.  What the Bush Administration actually wants is to get disaster relief efforts better organized so that individual agencies can continue to do more with less funding.  And also use private agencies that essentially work for free.  Shamelessly, the Bush Administration has used these two "principles" to deflect blame for the Feds' response: on 9/11, as "cost accountants" in the NASA Columbia disaster, and for the increasing quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

Also -- and you see this all over the cable news networks (even the Weather Channel) -- the MSM is to focus on individual tales of heroicism and rugged Americanism about Bush's past tragedies.  Genuinely courageous public servants DO seem more heroic even when the pictures of the horror defy words.  But to use these folks in such a manner bothers the right-wing media not a bit.  Viewers are meant to see the tragedy as a fight against the overwhelming power of nature and personal fear. It doesn't matter what the voiceover says.  Especially when that narrative says "everybody was at fault."  Bush gets off the hook either way.

So...do you really think Dean's comments on the Busheviks -- who expect people and agencies to do
more with less money -- should be off the table in an election year?