September remember how we used to love you?
September is fast becoming a bad month for America
Interesting article on the government's response to Katrina:
(September 03, 2005) -- While a rising chorus in the press has taken
the White House, FEMA and the Pentagon to task for performing miserably
in their response to the human disaster on the Gulf Coast, few have
focused on the most telling aspect of the entire failure. It’s not just
incompetence. It’s a shameful lack of concern: The 9/11 “My Pet Goat”
dithering on an administration-wide scale.
Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action.
While
the media has done a good job in portraying the overall deadly failure
of leadership, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of
duty.
President Bush, in his weekly radio address on Saturday,
said: “In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour
of need.” But Bush, and his top aides, quite frankly, did just that.
I
was reminded of this today, seeing pictures of Vice President Dick
Cheney finally showing up at the White House after riding out the
storm-of-the-century in Wyoming. Perhaps he brought back with him a
couple dozen trout to throw on the grill for the White House staffers.
His
absence, and the president’s performance during it, can only add to the
rumors that Bush is clueless without the Big Guy at his side.
This
follows Bush himself remaining on vacation for more than two days after
the storm hit, despite acknowledging this was the worst disaster in the
nation’s history. He did take a trip during those days, not back to
Washington but out to San Diego to deliver a political speech comparing
his Iraq war to World War II. It got little play because nearly
everyone else in the country, beyond his inner circle, was focused on
New Orleans instead.
What that trip did produce was a picture
of Bush laughing with a country singer and strumming a guitar. But at
least the president did start heading home late Wednesday. As he did,
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was still enjoying her vacation in
New York.
In fact, that night she enjoyed a few good yucks
while attending the goofy Broadway play “Spamalot.” Ironically, the
Bush team's performance this week did indeed seem like something out of
a Monty Python skit. Each, in his or her own way, took a bunch of
"silly walks."
Condi also played tennis with Monica Seles and on
Thursday went on a shoe-shopping spree on Fifth Avenue until a fellow
customer yelled at her for not doing her job and bloggers exposed all
of this. Then she hurriedly headed back to Washington. Whoops, we
discovered she was overdue in getting a grip on offers to help that
were pouring in from overseas governments and organizations.
Paging Andrew Card: Turns out he was Bush's Maine man.
And
what of FEMA chief Michael Brown? He was so out-of-it that he didn’t
even know about 10,000 evacuees living and dying at the Convention
Center, even after they had received wide TV coverage for a solid day.
The next day, the president greeted him with, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." A medal is surely on the way.
At
a press conference on Thursday, the fourth day of the disaster, with
newspapers and TV reporting tens of thousands stranded at hospitals,
homes and a highway overpass, Homeland Security chief Michael Cherotff
was asked by a reporter if he thought only hundreds or maybe many more
needed rescued. He replied:
“I'd be guessing. I mean, a thousand
seems like a very large number, but we have already rescued several
thousand. Hopefully, most people have gotten themselves onto roofs and
have been picked up. But, as I said, rather than give you a
guesstimate, I can tell you that as long as there is someone on a roof
waving a flag, we're going to be sending a helicopter out there to get
them.”
At the same press briefing, Cherotff was asked if he
thought there were enough soldiers on the ground to control the
situation. His answer: “I'm satisfied that we have not only more than
enough forces there and on the way. And frankly, what we're doing is we
are putting probably more than we need in order to send an unambiguous
message that we will not tolerate lawlessness or violence or
interference with the evacuation.”
While the 9/11 “My Pet Goat”
episode was certainly illuminating, it’s not certain what might have
worked out better that day had the president dropped the book and taken
action. But his failure to grab the reins in the hurricane catastrophe
for three days this week probably doomed hundreds, or more, to death.
This is not mere incompetence, but dereliction of duty. The press should call it by its proper name.
Interesting article on the government's response to Katrina:
(September 03, 2005) -- While a rising chorus in the press has taken
the White House, FEMA and the Pentagon to task for performing miserably
in their response to the human disaster on the Gulf Coast, few have
focused on the most telling aspect of the entire failure. It’s not just
incompetence. It’s a shameful lack of concern: The 9/11 “My Pet Goat”
dithering on an administration-wide scale.
Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action.
While
the media has done a good job in portraying the overall deadly failure
of leadership, it has not focused enough on this deadly dereliction of
duty.
President Bush, in his weekly radio address on Saturday,
said: “In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour
of need.” But Bush, and his top aides, quite frankly, did just that.
I
was reminded of this today, seeing pictures of Vice President Dick
Cheney finally showing up at the White House after riding out the
storm-of-the-century in Wyoming. Perhaps he brought back with him a
couple dozen trout to throw on the grill for the White House staffers.
His
absence, and the president’s performance during it, can only add to the
rumors that Bush is clueless without the Big Guy at his side.
This
follows Bush himself remaining on vacation for more than two days after
the storm hit, despite acknowledging this was the worst disaster in the
nation’s history. He did take a trip during those days, not back to
Washington but out to San Diego to deliver a political speech comparing
his Iraq war to World War II. It got little play because nearly
everyone else in the country, beyond his inner circle, was focused on
New Orleans instead.
What that trip did produce was a picture
of Bush laughing with a country singer and strumming a guitar. But at
least the president did start heading home late Wednesday. As he did,
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was still enjoying her vacation in
New York.
In fact, that night she enjoyed a few good yucks
while attending the goofy Broadway play “Spamalot.” Ironically, the
Bush team's performance this week did indeed seem like something out of
a Monty Python skit. Each, in his or her own way, took a bunch of
"silly walks."
Condi also played tennis with Monica Seles and on
Thursday went on a shoe-shopping spree on Fifth Avenue until a fellow
customer yelled at her for not doing her job and bloggers exposed all
of this. Then she hurriedly headed back to Washington. Whoops, we
discovered she was overdue in getting a grip on offers to help that
were pouring in from overseas governments and organizations.
Paging Andrew Card: Turns out he was Bush's Maine man.
And
what of FEMA chief Michael Brown? He was so out-of-it that he didn’t
even know about 10,000 evacuees living and dying at the Convention
Center, even after they had received wide TV coverage for a solid day.
The next day, the president greeted him with, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." A medal is surely on the way.
At
a press conference on Thursday, the fourth day of the disaster, with
newspapers and TV reporting tens of thousands stranded at hospitals,
homes and a highway overpass, Homeland Security chief Michael Cherotff
was asked by a reporter if he thought only hundreds or maybe many more
needed rescued. He replied:
“I'd be guessing. I mean, a thousand
seems like a very large number, but we have already rescued several
thousand. Hopefully, most people have gotten themselves onto roofs and
have been picked up. But, as I said, rather than give you a
guesstimate, I can tell you that as long as there is someone on a roof
waving a flag, we're going to be sending a helicopter out there to get
them.”
At the same press briefing, Cherotff was asked if he
thought there were enough soldiers on the ground to control the
situation. His answer: “I'm satisfied that we have not only more than
enough forces there and on the way. And frankly, what we're doing is we
are putting probably more than we need in order to send an unambiguous
message that we will not tolerate lawlessness or violence or
interference with the evacuation.”
While the 9/11 “My Pet Goat”
episode was certainly illuminating, it’s not certain what might have
worked out better that day had the president dropped the book and taken
action. But his failure to grab the reins in the hurricane catastrophe
for three days this week probably doomed hundreds, or more, to death.
This is not mere incompetence, but dereliction of duty. The press should call it by its proper name.