Post-Brownie "See, I Told You So"
Wow, I'm used to being proven right, but this is quick even for me.
Just to review....
Last Friday I posted this:
This morning there's this story that just came over the wires:
Of course, there weren't any Administration "missteps"; the bungling took place entirely at the state and local level. Indeed, to find federal "missteps" in a hurricane relief effort you have to go back to George Bush's predecessor to find them.
But none of that matters now because, just as I said four days ago, heaving his FEMA director overboard has done nothing to appease the President's enemies and in point of fact has given tacit validation to this "tidal wave" of left-wing BS.
If you're in a boat surrounded by circling sharks, you don't get them to go away by throwing more chum in the water.
Good thing the next "great white" won't come swimming along until 2008.
UPDATE: The President compounds his grievous error:
Here's what the Left heard:
This isn't a case of "stopping the bleeding"; it's a self-inflicted wound where none existed.
Let the record show that it took four years, seven months, and twenty-four days, but the Democrats have finally succeeded in bullying George Bush into pleading guilty to a "crime" he never committed.
What that portends for the remaining three years, four months, and seven days of his presidency - if indeed he has that much time left in office - is ominous, indeed.
UPDATE II: Governor Blanco wasted no time seizing this opening:
I suspect it's far more the latter.
UPDATE 9/14: Newsmax sums it up well:
President Bush hasn't yet taken Oprah Winfrey's advice last week and apologized for the federal government's so-called bungling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But judging from Bush's tone yesterday, it sounds like an abject apology is just around the corner.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush told reporters. "And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
Bush's public handwringing shows that he still hasn't learned his lesson from the Abu Ghraib fiasco, where countless presidential apologies only seemed to feed the media's faux outrage. [Leading news outlets are currently suing to have even more gruesome Abu Ghraib photos released by military censors.]
More frustrating still, it appears that Bush and everybody else associated with Katrina's federal rescue effort has precious little to apologize for.
In fact, as chronicled over the weekend by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Jack Kelly, the so-called villainous, incompetent feds actually performed quite well this time - in comparison with past efforts.
"The federal response here was faster than [in Hurricane] Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne," a National Guardsman involved in the Katrina rescue effort told Kelly.
"The federal government pretty much met its standard timelines, but the volume of support provided during the [first] 72-96 hour[s] was unprecedented."
After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, National Guard troops didn't arrive on the scene in strength for five days.
And as NewsMax noted last week, FEMA's response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999 - with the agency then under the vaunted leadership of President Clinton's appointee James Lee Witt - was fraught with month-long delays.
After Katrina's floodwaters hit, however, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, yes, FEMA - was on the scene in force in three days.
In just the first week after New Orleans' levees had been breached:
• More than 32,000 people had been rescued by Coast Guard helicopters.
• Shelter, food and medical care had been provided to more than 180,000 evacuees.
• The Army Corps of Engineers had all but repaired the breaches and had begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Unnoted by columnist Kelly is the fact that the extraordinary first week's effort took place while roving bands of Katrina "victims" were shooting at the rescuers.
Considering the complete collapse of city and state rescue efforts - where even the most basic stipulations of New Orleans' evacuation plan were ignored - the federal operation was a model of efficiency.
It's just too bad that the head of the federal government can't muster the political courage to say so out loud.
Just to review....
Last Friday I posted this:
Still, it wouldn't turn me one way or the other if Brown departed for the next professional port of call - as, apparently, he was planning to do in another couple of months anyway. What does cause me to say, to quote Quickdraw McGraw, "Hoooooold on thar!" is the context in which axing him now would be taking place. If Brown wasn't, shall we say, politically savvy, this move would be a propaganda disaster for the Administration. Not only would it be an overreaction, but an admission of culpability that would vindicate every last scrap of the "unfair criticism" that the DisLoyal Opposition has been spewing at the President for the past week and a half. And it would only encourage the Dems to intensify their attacks. You think Brown would be the only scalp? Bullbleep - they'd go after HLS Secretary Michael Chertoff next (hell, Tim Russert already demanded his resignation to his face last Sunday). They'd try to overturn the entire Administration "boat" and work their way through the poor bastards in the water like the sharks did the crew of the USS Indianapolis after delivering the first atomic bomb to Tinian in 1945. [emphasis added]
This morning there's this story that just came over the wires:
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu said Monday that Michael Brown's resignation as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would not be enough to stem the tidal wave of criticism leveled at the Bush Administration over its handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis.
Brown's departure, Landrieu said, "will not alone solve all the problems that plagued the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and the devastating floods that followed the levee breaches."
In a statement posted to her Web site, the Louisiana democrat insisted that the Bush White House still needed to be held responsible.
"The people of our nation, and in particular, the Gulf Coast, deserve and demand full accountability for this Administration's missteps in protecting and helping Americans in need," Landrieu complained.
Of course, there weren't any Administration "missteps"; the bungling took place entirely at the state and local level. Indeed, to find federal "missteps" in a hurricane relief effort you have to go back to George Bush's predecessor to find them.
But none of that matters now because, just as I said four days ago, heaving his FEMA director overboard has done nothing to appease the President's enemies and in point of fact has given tacit validation to this "tidal wave" of left-wing BS.
If you're in a boat surrounded by circling sharks, you don't get them to go away by throwing more chum in the water.
Good thing the next "great white" won't come swimming along until 2008.
UPDATE: The President compounds his grievous error:
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
Here's what the Left heard:
"blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-the federal government didn't-blah-do its job right, I take responsibility."
This isn't a case of "stopping the bleeding"; it's a self-inflicted wound where none existed.
Let the record show that it took four years, seven months, and twenty-four days, but the Democrats have finally succeeded in bullying George Bush into pleading guilty to a "crime" he never committed.
What that portends for the remaining three years, four months, and seven days of his presidency - if indeed he has that much time left in office - is ominous, indeed.
UPDATE II: Governor Blanco wasted no time seizing this opening:
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco lashed out at FEMA on Tuesday, complaining the agency is moving too slowly in recovering the bodies of those killed by Hurricane Katrina.I can't figure out if she's trying to get out from under her personal responsibility for the deaths her paralytic indecision caused or if she's disappointed there aren't a lot more corpses than have been found thus far (297 at last count) now that President Bush has taken responsibility for them.
The dead "deserve more respect than they have received," she said at state police headquarters in Baton Rouge.
I suspect it's far more the latter.
UPDATE 9/14: Newsmax sums it up well:
President Bush hasn't yet taken Oprah Winfrey's advice last week and apologized for the federal government's so-called bungling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But judging from Bush's tone yesterday, it sounds like an abject apology is just around the corner.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush told reporters. "And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
Bush's public handwringing shows that he still hasn't learned his lesson from the Abu Ghraib fiasco, where countless presidential apologies only seemed to feed the media's faux outrage. [Leading news outlets are currently suing to have even more gruesome Abu Ghraib photos released by military censors.]
More frustrating still, it appears that Bush and everybody else associated with Katrina's federal rescue effort has precious little to apologize for.
In fact, as chronicled over the weekend by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Jack Kelly, the so-called villainous, incompetent feds actually performed quite well this time - in comparison with past efforts.
"The federal response here was faster than [in Hurricane] Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne," a National Guardsman involved in the Katrina rescue effort told Kelly.
"The federal government pretty much met its standard timelines, but the volume of support provided during the [first] 72-96 hour[s] was unprecedented."
After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, National Guard troops didn't arrive on the scene in strength for five days.
And as NewsMax noted last week, FEMA's response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999 - with the agency then under the vaunted leadership of President Clinton's appointee James Lee Witt - was fraught with month-long delays.
After Katrina's floodwaters hit, however, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, yes, FEMA - was on the scene in force in three days.
In just the first week after New Orleans' levees had been breached:
• More than 32,000 people had been rescued by Coast Guard helicopters.
• Shelter, food and medical care had been provided to more than 180,000 evacuees.
• The Army Corps of Engineers had all but repaired the breaches and had begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Unnoted by columnist Kelly is the fact that the extraordinary first week's effort took place while roving bands of Katrina "victims" were shooting at the rescuers.
Considering the complete collapse of city and state rescue efforts - where even the most basic stipulations of New Orleans' evacuation plan were ignored - the federal operation was a model of efficiency.
It's just too bad that the head of the federal government can't muster the political courage to say so out loud.
posted by JASmius at 9:14 AM
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