Blame game? Blame game? Mr. President, I got your blame game right here…

With respect, Mr. President and all you DC smart guys… Next Sunday is the 4th anniversary of Sept 11 attack.  What have you guys done on the home front since the attack?  After dozens of fancy investigating commissions, earnest consulting reports, detailed studies, public and private hearings, sworn testimony and dramatic appearances, deal cuttings… we have a gutted FEMA and put it in a dysfunctional DHS run by a prosecutor and jihadist hunter, laid off veteran emergency response experts, reduced its rank in the cabinet pecking order and allowed it to report to a political crony of a presidential pal who quit government early and helped his pal succeed him. FEMA rhetoric about itself is a bunch of consultant-driven new age mumbo jumbo. (NRP, NRP2, NRP3) The heart of emergency response is to be the so-called all important first responders, no matter how dedicated and heroic, who are now the foundation of our homeland security and emergency capacity, with the FEMA touchy-feely role wrapped up in feel good blather about partners, customers, resources etc.  All that's great, only FEMA's hack director and his jihad hunting bosses approved huge cuts to the FEMA budget, slashed manpower and destroyed the morale of the professional corp.  The massive and competent armed forces of the US and all its assets are given a minor role. (SHD&CS, SHD&CS2)  Yet the first responders at the local and state levels are under-prepared, under-trained and under-funded and led – in Louisiana at least, which is also the heart of our nation’s energy industry – by the political equivalent of clowns!  (UKT) (CFR, CFR2, CFR3)  Now after Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, we have revealed to the world incompetence and vulnerability on such a stunning scale we are now more vulnerable and weaker, weaker! As any buck private knows, weakness is provocative and invites attack!  This is a policy development process failure of historic dimensions.  Unlike others, I want to start the blame game now, and look in the rear view mirror and otherwise kick ass and name names while I’m doing it.  Let’s use this wake up call to our own national incompetence as yet another chance to get it right before, well…the unthinkable.

Quillnews is more than inclined to cut everybody a break on Hurricane Katrina.  The hurricane was to blame for the devastation along the Gulf coast, but the people of Alabama and Mississippi at least don’t have compounding governmental incompetence to blame for additional sufferings and death. Louisiana is another story. The New Orleans flood and catastrophic aftermath that followed was long predicted.  The Keystone Kops, Alphonse-Gaston, push-me-pull-you act between Louisiana officials, FEMA, volunteers, and the elected overseers was a national embarrassment. (LGF, CNN)  Red tape alone doesn’t come close to describing it!  To have this governmental performance, after all the effort put into disaster preparedness and response since Sept 11 is unforgivable.  Maybe Bush 43 doesn’t want to play the blame game, but the people do!  Wednesday Sept 7 the Senators Collins and Lieberman of the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs begin briefings on what happened.  Reps.  Davis and Waxmen of the House Government Reform Committee will hold hearings next week.  Quillnews has a few questions:

1. Bush 43 takes his share of the failing marks because the buck stops at his desk. But don’t let those on Capital Hill weasel out of their share. The FEMA/DHS imbroglio is inexcusable. And it was no secret. (WSJ, AP) What is going on with the members of the House and Senate, all their staff experts; and Bush’s staff, the wise cabinet counselors, the consultants…?  If there were hidden turf or personality dynamics that enabled this to occur, have the guts to end it now. How could this mess have been recommended, approved and funded?  Why haven’t the first responders been properly funded since Sept 11, 2001?  
2. Everybody says they love their state and local officials.  But what happens when those officials are idiots and come from a notoriously inept and often corrupt political system. (RLS) It is the bad luck of the people of Louisiana that it was their state that was hit by this storm.  With a few notable exceptions, their political leadership is awful, a complete disgrace. These whiners, these blame shifters, these incompetent hacks cost lives.  History, custom, state’s rights be damned.  If lives are at stake during a declared national emergency, the feds should have the authority to override local bone heads pronto.
3. Why can’t the US have the authority to authorize regular army troops like those led by Gen. Honore to run Louisiana for a while?  (WSJ) Just asking… Well, no I’m not, I’m actually serious.  Why not?  The only guys who had a clue how to do anything last week were the US uniformed services. (DoD)  Why is that?  Why does the US keep its First String on the bench at the start of the game?   Is Posse Comitatus obsolete?   
4. How can the US allow use of all its federal assets be at the decision making authority of small time jerks like this is not right. On Saturday Aug 27 Bush 43 had to call Gov. Blanco to have her order an evacuation of New Orleans. She and New Orleans Mayor Nagin delayed before acting. And after they acted, they knew they didn’t have any operational plan to evacuate the 100,000 people they knew could not leave, despite all the plans their consultants had written.  How can the victims of this inept administration be compensated for this negligence?
5. After the disaster from the flooding and inept response was revealed, Bush 43 on Friday Sept 2 wanted to federalize the Louisiana National Guard. Gov. Blanco wanted 24 hours to decide whether to give the US authority over the state’s National Guard before she eventually said no. Okay, why the delay and why the no?  Whose permission did Gov. Blanco have to ask?  What possible benefit was delivered to the people of Louisiana by her keeping control over the state’s National Guard?  She didn't even task the Guard when she had the chance. (LGF, CNN) Given the underworld’s history in Louisiana, how about a look-see at the decision making power structure of Louisiana, perhaps along the lines of the old McClellan Committee?  I’m actually kind of serious. What are Louisiana’s impediments to modern transparent government?  And forget all that charming romantic swamp gas from literature or Hollywood.  Story telling is great.  But such stories about corruption in Media-ville are based on a real-world of evil that poisons the public welfare.

Quillnews observations on Bush 43 and US federalism: I have supported Bush 43 and the US actions in the war on terror, and particularly the overthrow of Saddam.  This was a necessary act of geo-strategic hygiene and simple justice. But how can we spend so much on the war on Iraq ($300 billion by some estimates), so comparatively little on the domestic first responders and also make such a bureaucratic hash of FEMA inside Homeland Security?  It is time for Bush to take a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and assign some blame and make some changes. (Editor’s aside: He may be getting warmed up.  On Friday Sept 2, Bush told FEMA director, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” The next day, Sec Chernoff took over public duties, and assigned FEMA coordination duties in New Orleans to the chief of staff of the US Coast Guard. Is presidential praise the equivalent of a mobster’s goodbye kiss? WP, Bio, BP)  I’d also advise Bush 43 to stop using the argument that there is ample time to fix blame. We’ve had ample time since Sept 11, 2001, and we have this current mess. (WH) Credit Bush 43 on one point: he cut to the heart of the problem in his cabinet statement Tuesday – the relationship between the federal, state and local governments.  Said Bush 43: “What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong. And I'll tell you why: it's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe. And the reason it's important is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm…”  Exactly.  Stay tuned…