Defending the President
Aziz Poonawalla
Here are some factual points for your consideration. First, there are indeed troops, and equipment from the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard that have been allocated to Iraq, and thus are not available to assist with disaster recovery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Second, recent budget cuts to flood and hurricane protection infrastructure to southeastern Louisiana had left the region more vulnerable and far less prepared for contingency planning than it should have been. Neither of these facts in any incriminates the President in either personal responsibility or leadership. So why, then is the Right going to such extreme efforts to deny these facts?
First, with respect to manpower - we simply cannot keep all our resources in perpetual reserve. Yes, SFO might slide into the sea, tornadoes might level St. Louis, and volcanoes bury Seattle in a pile of ash. Such doomsday lists can be extended to arbitrary length N. But we can't let what has not yet come to pass dominate our allocation of those resources (though of course it does influence them). Without the National Guard in Iraq, the burden of the occupation would fall exclusively upon the Army, and that would have dire consequences of its own. The issue of troop strength in Iraq is another debate. We can have that debate separately. But we can't constrain it in hindsight by saying "if they weren't in Iraq, they'd be useful in Jefferson Parish".
Now, I enormously admire Josh Trevino, aka Tacitus. However I think he has made a serious tactical error in his post which ostensibly defends against this manpower issue. He runs some numbers and shows how many troops are available, including commitments from neighboring states. However, the flaw in this line of defense is that it implicitly argues that X,000 troops are enough. As the rescue operations unfold over the next few days, expect the critique to gain strength, because no amount of troops is ever enough.
Second, with respect to funding cuts, it's simply true. Funding was dramatically decreased for the SELA project, as well as for FEMA's overall budget. The reason was due to budget pressures directly related to the federal tax cuts and the war in Iraq:
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security — coming at the same time as federal tax cuts — was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
lengthier excerpt from the article:
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Also see this piece in the LA Times, and this post by Kevin Drum. But rather than accuse the President of a nefarious scheme to drown all the black poor people, a more productive line of inquiry is, why did the White House perceive safety/emergency infrastructure as an easier budget target than rampant pork-barrel spending (bridges to nowhere in Alaska, anyone?) - especially in a Republican-dominated Congress?
Maintaining spending priorities for the benefit of the nation requires cooperation from both the Executive and the Legislative branches. Granted, the Senate tried to restore some of the funding, but the House is more captive to special interests and hence there was too much institutional opposition. The bottom line here was that we were hurt in a more concrete way than usual by the entrenchment of moneyed interests in the halls of government. Better leadership from the White House would have helped, but ultimately there's a larger problem here which extends to more than one Branch.
Thomas of RedState, however, thinks otherwise. He goes on an epic rant, trying to pin blame for the lack of preparation on the state and local level, and absolving the federal government (you know, the one with the the biggest budget and the most resources). The contortions in the piece are many - at one point he suggests a state property tax hike - boiling down to the argument, "hey NOLA, it's your problem, not ours. Reap what you sow." Plus he argues that the proposed improvements would not have helped anyway; I think that's an unprovable assertion, and at least partly questionable given that it was overtopping of the floodwalls that resulted in the flooding, not direct storm surge damage from a Cat4.
The point of Thomas's article is really to generate righteous outrage that anyone would even dare to raise these questions, and paint it all as the result of "evil". Yes, he actually calls the Democrats the "Evil party". This isn't debate, it's hysteria. Time was when you could count on Republicans to carry the standard for government accountability, and sound fiscal management. At least we had one party acting as adults. The meltdown on display here however suggests that this is nothing more than a partisan game of ping-pong, and it takes two to play.
One can only conclude that the Right, like the Left, is more interested in protecting their own and scoring points against the other than with any real interest in accountable government. My interest is in the real-world, policy issues at stake - the issue of how many resources we have, and how they can best be allocated.
OPINIONATED ASIDE:
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George W. Bush bears absolutely no blame for the devastation left by Katrina, and the efforts to lay the tragedy at his feet are odious and vile. But the efforts to evade any kind of accountability - especially when the entire government is controlled by a single political party - and to label any attempt at finding answers as "evil" - does damage to our nation, too.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Katrina Stupidity
- Michael Brown
- Barone On Katrina...
- Class
- Holding Politicians Accountable
- Defending the President
That said, it is, I believe, doubtful that any project budgeted in 2003 or 2004 would have saved New Orleans. I do not think the budget cuts matter. It would have been too little too late. A poster at RedState linked to the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Corps indicated the feasibility study would not hve been completed yet even if fully funded. It appears that New Orleans time had come.
Regarding National Guard troops from the Gulf Coast states. True, some are in Iraq, however troops can come from other states. The obviousness of that statement speaks for itself.
Personally, I put the blame squarely on a hurricane. New Orleans just had too many factors against it and the defenses were overwhelmed, and even a rush job placed in the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 budgets would not have saved it.* The only good a post-disaster assessment can do is if it points out where deficiencies in planning occurred and makes recommendations for the future. Any assignment of blame for this on a human actor is a worthless exercise.
*I'm a lawyer, not a civil engineer, but considering the forces at work I don't think the Corps could have built fast enough, high enough, or strong enough to save that city.
Its certainly true that we throw away money needed for useful things on tripe.
I'd say George Bush has let the Congress have the reins much like Reagan did in the Eighties. Both wanted a couple things, extremely important (i.e. too fight an enemy who wanted us enslaved (Russian Communists and Islamofascists, respectively), and to lower taxes so the economy would grow), and so they traded off lesser things. This is the nature of politics...get what you must, trade off other things.
Now, Reagan was stronger domestically than Bush is; Bush is actually pretty weak domestically. I think that is some of his father coming out in him.
I got irritated with Andrew Sullivan-fiscal conservatism. Yes, that would be nice. Is it nicer than not expanding outwards at hundreds of miles per hour as superheated plasma? Hmmmh?
But, if the Republican Senators would pick up the ball, and show the necessary ruthlessness and guts to hack the tripe and pork from the budget, then who knows, maybe one of them might defy tradition, and become President. I ain't holding my breath.
I'm sure that many people sitting in their houses, surrounded by dry grass, on the cliffs overlooking LA wonder why they should spending money on seawalls and levees in an area prone to natural disasters when the people should just move elsewhere.
I don't see a solution as long as the federal government gets all that money and is considered the agency to handle such projects. The decisions will be made by politicians. Politicians are interested in getting reelected. That's the way it is.
Of course, it used to be that we didn't find authority for these projects in the Constitution, so the states would have had to taken care of it. Would a state tax burden of 20% and a federal burden of 10% be such a bad thing compared to the other way around?
And if your interest is in the the real-world, policy issues, why didn't you write about that instead of just adding to the bashing?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/reidabega/
There is also a point at which too many troops are too much for the existing infrastructure to handle - you have to support the troops of course. I no longer have the facts ready to hand but every deployed trooper costs X pounds of log support per day. This adds up in a big hurry.
The troops of course can go without luxury, but only up to a point - you gotta eat and have someplace to sleep.
I hope like hell the troops deployed in the linked story have had some form of CD training and their leadershp is up to the task. CD is not an easy mission, ever, and New Orleans promises to be a challenge.
The orgininal New Orleans -- the Vieux Carre -- was built on a high spot immediately north of the Mississippi river at the high point of one of its S-curves through the city.
The rest of what had been New Orleans from the early 20th century until last weekend was built on a swampy marshland, parts of which were under sea level and all of which regularly flooded with water that could not easily be pumped out and dried until the development of relatively modern high pressure water pumps.
And all of you can clearly see what that got the half million people of New Orleans, most of whom are now are little other than refugees who must remain in that status at least for months. Most of them inhabited homes that now either are destroyed or damaged so thoroughly that they cannot be repaired.
I now share the opinion of those who hold that at-risk populations should be permanently relocated upland from low-elevation coastlines subject to periodic oceanic storm waves for which there essentially no defenses except high ground. This seems to me a good use of the powers of eminent domain.
And for those who claim to stand on their rights and remain living in buildings as much as 20 ft below sea level, as some have done in New Orleans, I would simply abandon them to their loss of property and probably loss of life.
Or if it were made clear to us that the rest of the taxpayers would be indefinitely compelled to pay the costs of their stupidity and stubbornness on an indefinite and repeat basis, then I would simply remove them at gunpoint, if necessary and use bulldozers to destroy whatever is left of their sodden hovels.
I think it is now self-evident, under the impact of almost geometrically-rising fuel shortages, lack of alternative public transportation modes, a chaotic nightly invasion across the Mexican border of armies of illegal immigrants, plus this latest in a series of inevitable sunshine state hurricane-borne incidents of mass destruction and mass displacement, that the United States is no longer able to provide the kind of economy and social stability that we enjoyed in all the decades starting with the end of World War II in 1945.
If that is so, many of us will feel we have no stake in pampering the whims of those who wish to live in such a danger zone simply to prove that they have a right to do so.
I say again. Without some basic redesign or relocation of coastal cities within eyesight of oceans that bear major destructive storms throughout much of the year, then these places are as doomed as was mythical Atlantis. It is fact and not conjecture that the ocean levels are rising at a steady and measurable rate. It is also a fact that geologic substrata in areas such as the Mississippi delta are subsiding.
The result before long shall be habitat that no longer is habitable despite any heroic and expensive effort that can be made to raise even higher dikes, levees, flood walls, etc. Nobody ever tames the ocean, which is one interconnected mass of water that covers 7/8 of the surface of this planet. If you wish to survive on this habitat, learn to live in it, on it, and under it in a way that takes advantage of its natural opportunities and minimizes the impact of its deadly pitfalls.
And no, I am not an environmentalist. Just a hard-headed observer of what works and what fails.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
How can I tell? The lack of specific suggestions for reform. (Unless you count "undo everything this President has done" as a specific suggestion, which I don't. How about an actual set of policy proposals instead--ones that are consistent with a worldview other than "whatever Republicans want is bad" I mean.)
Seriously now: if the Bush administration had tripled funding for FEMA, would those dike walls have held?
Furthermore, how is it a good faith argument--and not merely ideology of Kevin Drum's own--to state that the administration's goal of moving more responsibility for emergency management to state and local governments and private enterprise is merely "ideology" instead of good governance? Oh, but Kevin Drum's view that power and responsibility shouldn't be reformed in such a fashion is merely intelligent and thoughtful wisdom?
Furthermore, to state that "the entire government is controlled by a single political party" is false. Simply, it is. This seems based on the notion that we live under a parliamentary system, which we do not.
State and local governments--which in the case of Louisiana are overwhelmingly dominated by a party different from the President's--are the ones most responsible for local affairs.
More importantly, however, Senators and Congressmen, whatever their party, answer first and foremost to their constituents, not their party. Again: we are not a parliamentary system. Individual congressmen and senators go against party wishes all the time in these matters.
Pork spending? In what way is the President supposed to control that? We had a way of doing that: it was called the line-item veto. A Democratic President (Clinton) asked for that, and a Republican Congress gave it to him. It was taken away by the Supreme Court, thanks to activists who hated the very idea of ending pork. Thus the President's only power now is to either start an enormous war with Congress over the entire budget, or to do his best to wheel and deal over the big issues he cares about and otherwise leave Congress to its Constitutional authority to control spending.
Do not answer with a weak, namby-pamby "the President isn't powerless here." YES HE, MOSTLY IS. Constitutionally Presidents do not control spending. They ask for things, but it is Congress that is ultimately in control. Failure to acknowledge this is either blind ideology or willful ignorance.
Congress is responsible for pork spending, period. Blaming the President for it just because he shares the same party label as the congressional majority is ridiculous. Presidents have been railing against pork for decades--indeed, I can all but guarantee you that in the 1980s Kevin Drum hated Reagan for railing against pork barrel spending. I can't guarantee it but I'd bet you twenty bucks. I know, I was one of Kevin's fellow Democrats at the time, and we all hated Reagan for that.
Pork will continue until enough Americans demand change at the congressional--and Constitutional--level. Regardless, it has nothing to do either way with the actions of the White House. Sorry, it doesn't. These fights over pork have been going on for decades, through countless Presidencies and congressional makeups. Congress controls spending. If you want to be angry, be mad at the Congress. But if so, be mad at the entire institution, for all in congress are guilty of this regardless of party. It's been going on for a very long time, through numerous changes of power. If you want to change it, start advocating for specific reforms that will fix it. But if you think a change in the congressional majority will change it, you're naive at best. Seriously, you are.
The first six frigates (United States, President, Constitution, Constellation, Chesapeake, and Congress) were all built in different shipyards in different states.
Pork is as old as the Republic.
I bet anyone twenty bucks that Kevin Drum and the LA Times vociferously opposed such proposals back when they were seriously on the table in the 1980s and 1990s.
Do they have any other proposals then? [crickets chirping]
Oh wait, I know: put Democrats in control of the congress! Then we'll have balanced budget and an end to all this pork barrel spending foolishness! Of course! Mind you, they were the kings of pork when they were in charge for 50 years, but now they've changed their ways because... because... because Bush is incompetent and evil, that's why!
I have reached the point where I have absolutely no patience for anyone who complains about pork unless they come to the table with a serious and specific agenda for reform of the budgetary process that can be discussed. I otherwise assign such arguments to the category they belong: ad hominem attacks levelled by people who are at best naive.
If you seriously--seriously--want to reduce pork, you are going to have to either find some way to put Congress on a diet so it can't spend as much as it wants, or, you're going to have to propose some sort of Constitutional reform that will force the budget to be put in the hands of people who won't cowtow to various special interests. Good luck on the latter.
Blaming one party or the other, or whoever's the current temporary occupant of the White House, simply doesn't work. I can grant that the young and naive who haven't been watching this stuff for the last 30 years may not understand that, but I can only say that if so they really need to look at history before they start blaming one party or the other. The problem of pork is systemic, and can only be addressed systemically.
As for single-party rule, no of course we are not a parliamentary nation, but the Republicans have campaigned for the past 60 years ir to say that when aal restraint. I think its fair to say that when all three branches are controlled at the federal level by the party, and there is still no restraint, that it's fair to call them on it as false advertising. "The Democrats would be worse" is namby pamby weaseling, gven the empirical evidence at hand.
Also, I think you shoudl email Drum with your challenge. It's his mind you're reading, after all. Why not drop him a line?
As for pork, I have long advocated repeal of the 17th amendment. That would help immeasurably.
The more likely reason they built those early frigates in different shipyards was that in the late 18th century, the days of Henry Kaiser's World War II feats of mass-producing ships was still about 140 years in the future; and the young USA needed a bunch of fighting frigates in a hurry, if they were going to fight off the fleet that had wiped out Napoleon's great navy at Trafalgar.
That meant wherever they could build them, however they could build them, with whatever timber and naval stores they could scratch up, at whatever inflated costs the shipowers would charge them, and manned by whatever tavern billygoats that could be shanghaied onto a deck.
(And who woke up on the high seas after they had slept off their drunken stupor and found themselves duly enlisted sailors in the United States Navy. You think not? Just research it.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Drum calls the effort to move responsibility to the local level "ideology." But his own view that it shouldn't be is not ideology? In what way?
Repealing the 17th amendment? A fascinating proposal. But historically, all that having the state legislatures elect Senators meant was that party hacks got the job, and Senators tried to do whatever they could to please the state legislatures. Pork still happened--indeed, a good way for a Senator to keep his job was to tell the state legislature back home, "look at all this pork I brought home for you!"
Okay, I grant you: to say "this is screwed up" does not obligate you to say what would make it not screwed up. But, if you can't propose a coherent alternative, don't be surprised if you keep losing elections, or are unable to govern if you do manage to get elected.
You can look at anything crafted by men and find fault with it. Indeed, any 10 year old can do that. But if you propose no clear alternative, have no agenda of your own, don't be surprise if some people think you just like to bitch and moan.
Just a while ago, I witnessed an "interview" of Governor Halley Barbour by a CNN reporter where the reporter tried to frame a question so that the Governor could blame the Federal Government for a lack of preparedness and assistance. When the Governor took exception to the question, the CNN reporter started interupting because the Governor did not give him the answer he wanted. Finally, the Governor said while he was willing to answer the question, he wasn't willing to argue with the reporter.
Is this an example of press bias? If not political bias, surely it was an example of bias in favor of creating conflict. The desire to create controversy in the midst of a situation that demands cooperation on the part of all levels of government and all officials regardless of party affiliation is repugnant to most Americans.
The Press's interest in the creating new interesting angles to increase the saleability of their story is disgusting. All morning long, CNN has been trying to push the meme that the Federal government has somehow been neglegent - as if people who failed to heed the warning to evacuate bear no personal responsibility for their current conditions.
Notwithstanding that some people were unable to flee due to financial or physical situtations, it cannot be true that the majority of those still trapped in affected regions are in this group. The majority, either through ignorance or arrogance, simply ignored the pleas to evacuate. To suppose that the government is responsible for the obstinance of citizens is to also suppose that the government should have the coercive power to overwhelm the individual choices of individual Americans.
The simple truth is that many fellow Americans have made a tragic error in judgement, and now find themselves paying for that error. Should we band together to provide every possible effort to assist them? Yes. Who among us has never made a mistake. But I am exceedingly tired of "the government" being blamed for the consequences of the bad decisions of individuals who are merely exercising their freedom to make those decisions.
The same kind of attempt was made to blame Clinton for failing to crack down on militia groups after the Oklahoma city bombing. The same attempt has been made to blame both Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon for failing to appreciate the full threat of terrorism before it bloomed into full flower on 9/11.
I have the honesty to admit that I never would have supported the changes in our laws necessary to protect ourselves from terrorists prior to 9/11. Are liberals unable to admit that the priority they place on social programs was not higher than building and improving public infrastructure, including levees in New Orleans?
In retrospect, it certainly is easy to blame New Orleans, Louisiana and Federal officials for failing to appreciate the necessity of shoring up the levees in the city. But are those who only last week were placing a higher priority on filling potholes, or funding public schools, increasing salaries of minicipal workers and teachers, providing public housing or welfare programs, or any number of other goevernment activities, willing to admit it.
Or is the priority of playing political games by attempting to place blame more important than saving and restoring the lives of storm victims more important to these incessently political partisans? Is there any condition or situation which is more important than enhancing the power or your particular political position or group? If not, then you are beneath contempt.
"Fire those in charge and put my guys in charge" is not an answer I respond very well to, because it brings up the next question: "Why should I believe your guys will be better?"
This sort of reasoning is why a lot of Americans are fed up with politics. If you look at opinion polls, Republicans are generally viewed with contempt by a majority of Americans--something like 65%. The problem being that something like 70% of them view Democrats with contempt.
If the entire game is about "why those other guys suck," nothing ever changes.
Back in the 1990s the conservatives, guys like Rush Limbaugh and the people at The American Spectator, pulled the wool over my eyes. 80% of their schtick was "why the Clinton administration is stupid, evil, and/or incompetent," and I admit it: I bought into it. For a while. Enough so that I even helped the Republicans win congressional majority in '94--not in a big way, but I gave them money and my vote.
By the end of the Clinton years, I was just plain tired of it. I was especially tired of Republicans' seeming inability to acknowledge just how much of their agenda Clinton had supported and worked with them to pass.
My hope was that Bush would change that when he got elected in 2000. There was every reason to think he might... but then the Florida 2000 fiasco happened, and shortly thereafter 9/11 changed the equation completely.
Since then it's been a change back to politics as usual. Is that entirely the President's fault? No, definitely not. He could have done some things differently, but so could the congressional Democrats, and they generally opted not to.
There are certain things that I'll see in political commentary--from EITHER side--that pretty much make me instantly turn off and stop paying attention. Note these common phrases:
"Incompetent."
"A new low."
"Still further proof of the administration's...." [insert pet phrase: mendacity, venality, dishonesty, incompetence, etc.]
"Liars."
On and on the game goes. Some people actually find it fun. I don't know how, but they do.
Another area where critique is appropriate is in the case of a discretionary expenditure that is unlikely to achive it's stated goals. Without having an alternative, it is still worthwhile to stop a white elephant project because it preserves financial flexibility for future options. Lest anyone doubt the value of options, in my MBA finance class we estimated the value of the loan guarantees to Iacocca/Chrysler at about $800M in those day dollar terms.
Frankly, my hats off to Aziz for a great article "in the liberal tradition". In my view he is examining a number of aspects of the situation from a variety of different perspectives and generating some thoughtful comment. For example:
1. *Is* Bush to blame in any reasonable way or not?
2. *Is* the federal/local split important.
3. *Are* limited resources being allocated wisely between international and civil defense.
4. *What* should be the policy about building/rebuilding in severe hazard zones.
5. *What* are good ways to make policy in the case of remote but catastrophic events? This is a known frailty that there is overwhelming psychological evidence that humans suck at.
Thanks to Dean for inviting Aziz to join, and a warm welcome to Aziz.
Most of that resistance was from the south, which was not tied to maritime trade (so they thought - how they expected their produce to get to market is anybody's guess). Having a frigate built in Baltiomore, Maryland (Constellation); Norfolk, Virginia (Chesapeake) was smart in getting those two states involved in the matter. The others were built in Boston (Constitution), New York City (President), Philadelphia (United States), and Porstmouth, N.H. (Congress). It should also be noted that these were some of the most populous states in the young nation.
In my opinion, it would have been more efficient as far as supplies, skilled labor, and so forth, to have them built in batches in two cities at most. The spreading out of the construction sites indicates to me that pork-barreling was used to get the bill approved.
As a side note, resistance was so strong to a navy that the ships were originally started during a crisis and when it passed construction was suspended until another crisis appeared.
The more things change, the more we remain human.
The "Bridge to nowhere" in Alaska is actually to a municipal-area airport.
And further, that's an authorization, not an appropriation, like most if not all of the pork in the highway bill.
Only the latter are actual money.
(And I thought the key point of the RedState post was that what the Feds cut funding for was a study for prep work to maybe build a cat-5-resistant levee someday. It wasn't, if he's correct, funding to build a better levee, or anything that would have actually helped New Orleans today.)
In addition, other frigates were acquired as gifts of certain communities, giving an idea of how much maritime trade affected them - USS Philadelphia, USS New York, USS Essex (Essex County, Mass.) and USS John Adams (Charleston, S.C.)
Until one or both these changes, this is the system we're stuck with. It doesn't much matter who the president is.
Robert: thanks, man :) generating debate was precisely my aim, because Thomas' post was tailored to stop debate, and I refuse to be cowed. If that makes me "evil", so be it.
Anyway, I refuse to blame the President, the Republicans, nor the Democrats, for this disaster, nor anybody on the Supreme Court, nor even were any terrorists involved this time. It just happened. Get the people out and do whatever can be done is all. Dean has been doing a good job here getting money for charities to help out. As to concrete suggestions for rebuilding New Orleans after this disaster, I defer to the wisdom of Arnold Harris.
It is, through elections. Thats the bottom line.
But it's funny that you referred to the Federal government as "givernment." Freudian slip?
it's a typo that seems to follow me around- i dont bother correcting it when it has some irony potential :)
elections are not enough. After all, if every Republican who genuinely believed that the GOP was the party of fiscal restraint, actually voted on that issue, they'd be out of power so fat our heads would spin.
Partisanship and "our team"ism trumps accountability every time.
Elections have to be enough. We've seen that neither party can be entirely trusted to oversee an investigation into ANYTHING that might hold some political positive or negative.
So accountability comes from elections, starting at the local level, and working up through the primaries. Then the people decide between the two.
Agree that change comes from the bottom up, though.
Most of the commenters here are going to disagree but I do fault President Bush, The Governor of Louisana and the Mayor of New Orleans and others.
Instead of all this hypothetical meandering, the people at ---ground zero---are WAITING for the food drops, the water drops, the security emplacements and instructions of what the hell to do next.
What we've seen on TV is helicopters picking up the stranded. That is noteworthy.
Tomorrow is day five not including the week before of hideous forecast announcements. Politics at this juncture is useless.
Where is the great Home Security Department ?
Billions were spent to better co-ordinate the security of our homeland.
Will we see some better organization. Will we see any food drops. Will we see some kind of organization----soon.
The people are suffering.
Partisanship and "our team"ism trumps accountability every time.
Either you chose not to respond to my statement, or that was your response.
Right off the gate, you seem a worthy addition to Dean's World. That means no slack given, you can handle it.
Arnold Harris hasn't got any more wisdom than the next guy. What he's got is the guts to speak his mind.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
John, just because elections are a poor method of accountability doesnt mean I seek to change the system to remove that aspect of them. There are multiple failure points - one being the 17th amendment, another being term limits, another being the lack of campaign finance reform. Thse again are issues worthy f separate debate. Insamuch as particpation in our electoral process is a joke, its a reflection of the apathy of the public, which is solely te fault of the political polarization.
I don't disagree with the intent of your post. I did not, however, find the other comments at all related to the over-arching primary concern: i.e. the response of local, state and federal agencies to the plight of the victims.
I think you will agree that this particular hurricane was precisely predicted as to intensity, direction and to a direct hit on New Orleans days ahead of time.
While my views are only my conjecture, I am not at all satisified with the latent responses of the Governor of Louisiana nor that of George Bush. In my view the New Orleans emergency plan was poorly implemented and late in doing so. For myself, I am not that eager to come to GWB's defense.
Second in line for criticism will be those at the state level, principally the legislature and governor.
Third in line would be whichever members of congress' districts encompass the area--that may be one or more, I don't know how the lines are drawn--and of course Louisiana's two Senators.
Then and only then do we go all the way up the line to the President. Of course, if the Louisiana congressional delegation claims that congressional leadership overrode their strenuous objections, then you have an argument there--but even still it would require looking at the situation and seeing who's what, and then asking an honest question: whose responsibility is this ultimately, and why does it devolve primarily to the Federal government?
What is obnoxious in my view is to go straight to the top and attack a President simply because you don't like him. That's all I see Drum and others doing: the only public official we need to criticize here is the President--the elected official with the least control in the entire chain? Because he does have the least control. The ones with the most control are at the local and state level, and with the next level of control are in the Congress.
Which gets us to another unseemly practice in politics: blamestorming. Fingers pointing in all directions and throwing mud.
I'd rather note the fact that for more than a decade there have been warnings that something like this might come to pass, and that the city never planned to handle anything worse than a category 3 hurricane, and had been warned repeatedly that wasn't good enough, and that all the Feds had planned was preliminary studies to see if they could do more. Which may have not been fast enough, but then, ultimately, it is a state responsibility, not a Federal one in my view.
This is probably the #1 bone of contention these days between the old school left and modern libertaranoids and conservatives: the proper role of the Federal government in handling issues of local import. I don't know what the solution to that impasse is, honestly. I simply don't think dikes for New Orleans is an appropriate national project, unless the city comes forward and says it's a huge emergency and asks the feds for immediate relief--which should have been done decades ago, but which apparently received only moderate attention the last few generations.
but it's subscription only
I apologize for not have a free link - it is the article by Sharon Begley if you have a paper copy.
They were too late. They would have had to start in 1980, or 1990 at the latest. And even then they would have to strengthen buildings for Category 5 winds.
US Army Corps of Engineers Riverside (Sept.-Oct. 2004 issue.)
www.mvn.usace.army.mil
You will have as much effect sacrificing a virgin to appease the Weather God as blaming mere humans for this disaster. Get over your arrogance and save the blame for later.
After all, if every Republican who genuinely believed that the GOP was the party of fiscal restraint, actually voted on that issue, they'd be out of power so fat our heads would spin.
You're assuming the Dems would be more restrained, which runs counter to pretty much all the evidence, including what the Dems themselves say.
For fiscal conservatives, the GOP is the lesser of two evils. Trading bad for really bad is not rational.