Here's What's Left

Right-wing rationalization watch, Part I

Given that republicans are too cowardly to admit that their administration fucked up the response to Hurricane Katrina and that their governing philosophy is not compatible with a competent or compassionate response to such a disaster, we've seen both Operation Blame the Victim and Operation Blame the Locals in effect. 

But there are just too many facts that are against them.  So we're starting to see conservatives admit the truth even while exhibiting an astonishing inability to let go of their increasingly perverse ideology.  The American Enterprise Institute:

Those who remained behind in New Orleans despite the orders to evacuate did so for many reasons (no car, nowhere else to go, etc.). But at heart, the fact that they did not make a more concerted or even desperate attempt to leave implies that they expected to be taken care of.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is really trying.  That kind of rationalization really takes some fucking effort.  OK, sure, we admit that poor people don't have cars or a lot of money -- but they didn't try desperately enough to get out.  See, it's still their fault!  Let's have a little more desperation next time, OK?  See, the fact that poor people don't own cars can only mean that they're lazy, worthless, and expect to suck at the federal welfare teat for the rest of their lives. 

It's an impenetrable fact-resistant shield, built by Enron with billion dollar tax breaks out of a combination of stupidity, stubborness and indifference.  And there's nothing you can do about it.

-- Michael

A scary thought

It's pretty clear to everyone with a brain that the administration is going to scapegoat Michael Brown (the FEMA director who apparently waited until after Katrina struck to ask for Homeland Security workers to be dispatched), given that the info in this AP article (via Josh) must have been leaked by someone in the administration:

The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region — and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Given that Brown is, of course, a totally incompetent political appointee with no background in what he's supposed to be doing, it seems like blaming him for a lot things is warranted, and of course he deserves to be fired and humiliated and all that. 

But my real question is this: why was he appointed in the first place?

That's a serious question: I have a hard time believing that any administration could be so careless in appointing someone with no experience to such an important position. 

Sure, there are a lot of political appointees in every administration, and we all know that cronyism is particularly rampant in this one.  But I've been assuming that the administration is merely callous and indifferent, not that it actually wants people to die in a catastrophic natural disaster. 

You'd think that someone in the administration might have thought that there was a real problem in appointing an unqualified person to a position that is so uniquely responsible for protecting the lives of American citizens.  Surely there was some guy shut up in an West Wing office somewhere that looked at Brown's FBI file, stopped thinking about repealing the estate tax for a second, and said to himself, "whoa, this guy isn't qualified for this position!  Maybe we should get someone who is.  If there's a natural disaster a lot of Americans could lose their lives if we don't get someone who's minimally qualified."

I mean, I'm assuming there was one guy like that.  Right? 

Right?

Anybody? 

-- Michael

When will they learn?

Though I'm not generally a Tom Friedman fan, his column in the Times tomorrow about Bush and Katrina is on the better side as far as he goes.  Having said that, why it is that anyone is still saying stuff like the following is beyond me:

On the day after 9/11, I was in Jerusalem and was interviewed by Israeli TV. The reporter asked me: "Do you think the Bush administration is up to responding to this attack?" As best I can recall, I answered: "Absolutely. One thing I can assure you about these guys is that they know how to pull the trigger."

It was just a gut reaction that George Bush and Dick Cheney were the right guys to deal with Osama. I was not alone in that feeling, and as a result, Mr. Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.

Bush/Cheney, even if they seemed like they were the "right guys" to Tom at the time, turned out to be the wrong guys.  Tom Friedman knows this.  Surely it's not worth reminding him that they haven't actually, um, caught Osama? 

I'm sorry, Tom, did you miss that?  Here is it again:

Right guys = people who catch Osama. 

Wrong guys = people who waste military resources not catching Osama.

Maybe Friedman is right that 9/11 and Katrina will be viewed as the big markers in the Bush presidency.  But that's only because they'll both be viewed as failures.  Bush isn't and wasn't serious about protecting his own citizens from terrorism, as he showed by invading a country that wasn't a real terrorist (or any other kind of) threat.  Nor is he serious about protecting his own citizens from natural disasters, as all but the most willfully blind partisans are forced to admit. 

And the fact that a liberal hawk can continue to perpetuate the myth that the Bush administration is remotely competent, well, about anything at all, can only be a sign of similarly willful blindness. 

-- Michael

New Orleans in '08?

Wow, I really hope they do this.  The National Review has an idea:

But symbolism will matter too. No single step would go further to dramatize the GOP's commitment to rebuilding New Orleans than announcing now that the party's 2008 convention will be held in the recovering city. Such a move would signal the party's confidence in the Big Easy's renewal, and put it at the forefront of what should be similar commitments from private actors to do their part to help New Orleans come back.

You can't make this shit up.  That's the best thing I've ever heard.  Yes, hold a republican convention in a city that's two-thirds African-American that was destroyed as a result of a republican incompetence, callousness, and veiled racism.  I'm sure that'll go over well with the locals.  Please, hold a republican convention in New Orleans, the city that was destroyed by God, some republican allies believe, for its gays and abortionists.

Critics will call it a transparent attempt to burnish the party's image after the Bush administration "failed" with the initial relief effort. The gesture would, however, reflect the genuine sentiment of Republicans who, like all Americans, want to help a city facing such a bleak future.

I don't know guys.  The genuine sentiment of republicans, I believe, is more along the lines of one your party's most powerful men, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert:

It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's 7 feet under sea level.

Or if not Rep. Hastert, at least the National Review's own Jonah Goldberg:

Lots of readers ask why national taxpayers should be asked to foot the bill for the reconstruction of New Orleans. I think that is a perfectly legitimate question[...]  There are real issues of federalism and fairness when it comes to asking Americans to spend untold billions on the reconstruction effort.

Man, those are some compassionate motherfuckers, those republicans, and some genuine fucking sentiments to go along with them. 

Hold your convention in New Orleans in '08, republicans.  I'll buy your fucking plane tickets.

-- Michael

Partisan politicals and Katrina, Part II

Matthew Yglesias shows us why Democrats lose elections:

The White House strategy on Katrina seems to be to try and shift blame away from itself and onto the governor of Louisiana who is, needless to say, a Democrat. Shameful, yes, but I would urge liberals not to take the bait people. People are angry. Obviously, something has gone badly wrong. He said, she said finger-pointing will just leave everyone where they are -- conservatives blaming Blanco, liberals blaming Bush.

Substantively speaking, there seems to be blame to go around here. Certainly, the government of Louisiana is not without fault here. Why not let them all hang? In cynical terms, the Louisiana Democratic Party would be a small price to pay in exchange for the national Republican Party.[...] Accountability for all can only be a good thing, both in terms of future disaster preparedness and broader political terms.

Of course, he's right about the general point, which is that accountability is a good thing, regardless of party affiliation.  But Yglesias's "let them all hang" strategy, apart from completely misrepresenting the reality of the situation, is bad politics.

First of all, let's stipulate that the state and local government are probably not completely blameless.  I have a hard time believing that in such a complex disaster there isn't something that they could have done better. 

But to pretend, or even vaguely insinuate that whatever the state government did even approaches the catastrophic negligence and incompetence of the federal response is ridiculous, and easily proven false.  For them to even be put in the same thought misrepresents the reality of the situation. 

But worse, it plays right into a republican talking point, and this brings me to my second point: that using "let them all hang" rhetoric is a losing strategy.  Because we've seen that our republican administration, apart from being incompetent and negligent, is unscrupulous and dishonest.  We see Operation Blame the Locals in full effect, and you've probably all seen the lie that a Bush administration offical told various news outlets (that Gov. Blanco didn't declare a state of emergency until Sept. 4, when in reality she declared it on Aug. 26).

(For what it's worth, I feel certain that the "senior administration official" knew they were lying about the emergency declaration but just wanted to get the talking point into the media, even it would be corrected later.)

Long story short, these republicans are just straight up liars.  They will say the most demonstrably false thing in order to score political points, and they will use anything that they can muster to win the PR battle, including well-intentioned Dems.  The second that any Democrat starts pretending that there's any equivalence between the federal response and the state and local response, Ken Mehlman will be on TV saying, "even the liberal so-and-so admits that..."   

Even the most well-intentioned of "accoutability for all" rhetoric has a problem because the other side doesn't see any need for integrity, and we've seen all too often that the American public is willing to buy whatever lies pop of republican mouths. 

Fortunately, in this case, good politics also happens to accord with the truth.  This is overwhelmingly the fuck-up of a republican administration, and let's not pretend like it's anything else. 

-- Michael

Responsibility

Armando at Daily Kos copies the following from the Department of Homeland Security website.  Normally, I don't do posts like this: that essentially copy another post on another site, but I feel like this is an important bit of information to have in as many places as possible, especially since some of our commenters in the last few days have seem intent on blaming the mayor and governor for the Katrina disaster.  Here it is: 

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort.  The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.

To my conservative friends who don't want to admit that their government does anythig wrong: it's time to give up.  There's too much evidence, even for you.  The Bush admin fucked it up, dropped the ball, and people died.  We need a competent government.  I look forward to getting one in '06 and '08.

-- Michael

Fair and accurate reporting

Last night, I saw what may just be a turning point in media coverage of the Bush administration.  After four years of pathetic on-the-one-handism, I saw a network anchor say something that should have been said a long time ago.  Here's CNN's Aaron Brown, after a piece about the Pentagon's response to Katrina:

BROWN:  I know. But you know, at some point, you know, these guys, I mean, I shouldn't say this, but you hear these people in Washington saying oh, no, this is - things are going fine. It's OK. And you want to say what planet are you people on?

I mean, come on. Now I've vented that. And I'll stop. Jamie, have a good weekend.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, PENTAGON CORRESPONDANT: Thanks, you, too.

BROWN: Good work.  I apologize, sort of.

Good job, Aaron, and good job not apologizing, too. 

Later in the same program, they ran the following story.  It's forceful, accurate, and critical.  It does exactly what an independent media in a free country is supposed to do.  I'm printing the entire transcript because I want to congratulate CNN for finally getting its head out of its ass:

BROWN: After every disaster, there are inevitable inquiries to what went wrong and why. And hindsight as they say has the clarity of 20/20. But this is not one of those stories. This is a story of a disaster and terrible consequences that were mapped out very precisely years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where are the police in there? Where are the National Guard?

BROWN (voice-over): If you only listen to officials, local, state, or federal, you would think it never occurred to anyone that this could happen in New Orleans.

LT. RUSSEL HONORE, COMMANDING GENERAL OF FIRST ARMY: None of us, nobody was clairvoyant enough to perceive the damage that was going to be brought by this storm.

BROWN: In fact, emergency services, people at all levels of government knew or should have known, this is exactly what would happen.

WALTER S. MAESTRI, DR., DIR. JEFFERSON PARISH EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Many people who chose not to leave are going to simply drown in their beds.

BROWN: A major hurricane in New Orleans has long been near the top of the government's list of most likely catastrophes. And journalists have warned of a doomsday scenario in the Gulf. Three years ago, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a five part series on what could happen if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. It reads like a screenplay for what's been unfolding in the last week.

JOHN MCQUADE, STAFF WRITER, TIMES-PICAYUNE: Our article said that you would have rising waters, and that people would be trapped in their houses, would have to climb up on rooftops because there would be no way to get out of the city, and thus have to be rescued by helicopter or boat.

Most of the things we talked about in our article, regrettably, did come true.

BROWN: For instance, the paper reported "If enough water from Lake Pontchartrain topped the levee system along its south shore, the result would be apocalyptic. Vast areas would be submerged for days or weeks until the engineers dynamited the levees to let the water escape."

The lake did just that. And now engineers are scrambling to plug the brakes and drain the city where the levees are now holding water in, rather than keeping it out.

The paper also predicted, "A large population of low income residents do not own cars and would have to depend on an untested emergency public system to evacuate them."

The faces of the left behind are of those people. Mostly poor, overwhelmingly black, people for whom evacuation would have been difficult, if not impossible.

The reports warned of a human storm. "Amid this maelstrom, the estimated 200,000 or more people left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome." We have witnessed now this week that hellish struggle for survival at the Superdome.

The paper also quoted Red Cross estimates that tens of thousands would die.

MCQUADE: I would expect that - and hope that the death toll would be lower than the Red Cross prediction, but of course, nobody really has an accurate count right now.

BROWN: So while officials, local, state and federal, can say they are doing all they can, and they can promise to do more, what they can't say is that they didn't know.

MCQUADE: It's pretty obvious to everybody that there was not an adequate plan to deal with this scenario. There was not an authoritative play book on everything everybody should do to move material and personnel into the city, rescue people quickly enough so that the breakdown in order would not have occurred.

I assume this kind of accurate reporting will produce a whole new round of "liberal media" name calling.  Conservatives can complain all they want, but they can't hide from the truth.  It's only unfortunate that it took such a tragic disaster for the media to remember what's it's around for. 

So for once, let me say, good job CNN.  Keep it up.

UPDATE:  CNN's now a piece called "The Big Disconnet on New Orleans."  Check it out.

-- Michael

Does this count as a flip-flop?

Here's George W. Bush this morning:

The results are not acceptable. I'm heading down there right now. I'm looking forward to talking to the people on the ground.

Here he is a few minutes ago:

Of course I want to say a few things. I am incredibly proud of our Coast Guard. And we have got courageous people risking their lives to save life.

And I want to thank the commanders and I want to thank the troops over there for representing the best of America.

I want to congratulate the governors for being leaders. They didn't ask for this (INAUDIBLE), but you're doing a heck of a job.

[...]

And, Brownie [Michael Brown, FEMA Director], you're doing a heck of a job.

I just don't know what to say.

-- Michael

Partisan Politics and Katrina

Two days ago I wrote the following words:

I'm generally of the opinion that the unmitigated disaster that is Hurricane Katrina shouldn't be unnecessarily politicized.

And those are words that I would say again today.  But something has fundamentally changed since then, and that's what the word "unnecessarily" means.

Katrina is one of those galvanizing disasters in American history, obviously the most significant event in human terms since 9/11 and possibly more damaging.  And it's moments like these when the stakes of partisan politics become clear -- when there's an obvious right and an obvious wrong.  As the unfortunately fictional President Bartlet said on the West Wing to a republican opponent:

Every once in a while, every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts.

This week has been one of those days, and it has included body counts. 

There is a right way to handle a natural disaster in New Orleans in both the long and short term.  It might include things like spending money prudently, preparing extensively, clear command and control, gaining an immediate grasp on the scope of the disaster, mobilizing resources quickly, getting the right amount of supplies to people who need them, and showing strong leadership to a shocked country. 

There is also a wrong way to handle a natural disaster in New Orleans in both the long and short term.  It might include things like budget cuts that slowed improvements to the New Orleans levee system, a slow response by FEMA, lying about how slow FEMA's response was, a war of choice that ensures that the national guard is understaffed on US soil, a president who is more interested in guitar strumming than in leading, a basic incompetent unawareness of the facts on the ground, a suggestion that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt, and a lack of compassion for those stuck in the situation. 

The Bush administration has virtually written a textbook on the wrong way to handle a natural disaster. And if you think that's a partisan thing to say, well, it is.  But it's also an honest thing to say, and anyone who would deny it is just not in touch with reality.  But then, we know that many republicans pride themselves on not being members of the reality-based community. 

Fundamentally, we live in a republic, in which people are supposed to elect their leaders based on their ability to govern, their philosophy of governing, and their actions in governing.  The Bush administration has failed miserably in all three of those categories: they don't have the ability to run government, their philosophy is wrong, and their actions have been incompetent.  Though the administration has consistently fooled the people for the last four and a half years with threats of non-exist weapons and treacherous opponents, as well as a lot of American flag lapels, this failure is too massive, too catastrophic, too incompetent for even Karl Rove's black magic to cover it up. 

When people running the government fuck it up, they should be held accountable.  And so complaining about their fuck-up with the view of kicking them all out of office next year and in the years after isn't unnecessary partisanship.  It's what's supposed to happen.  Our republican executive branch has showed itself unfit to handle precisely the thing it needs to handle most.  And to call them on it is every citizen's duty. 

Call it politics, call it real life, I don't care.  Calling it something doesn't change the fact that they have failed at it, and that they should and will lose their governing power as a result. 

-- Michael

Incompetence

How is it that a NPR reporter seems to know more about what's going on on the ground in New Orleans than the Secretary of Homeland Security does?  I don't know, but read this transcript of excerpts that I just made from this piece on today's All Things Considered.  It's really disturbing.  Chertoff doesn't admit until the end that he apparently didn't even know that there were thousands of people trapped in the Convention Center in New Orleans.   

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: Let me ask you about many images Americans are seeing today and hearing about.  They are from the Convention Center in New Orleans.  A CNN reporter described thousands of people, he says many of them[...] in the streets, no food, corpses and human waste.  Our report John Burnett has seen the same things.  How many days before your operation finds these people, brings them at least food water medical supplies if not gets them out of there. 

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well first let me tell there have been food water medical supplies to the superdome and that's happened almost from the beginning.

SIEGEL:  But this is the Convention Center. These are people who are not allowed inside the Superdome.

CHERTOFF: Well but ya know we have brought this to the Superdome.  There are uh stations, um in which we have put food water medical supplies.  The limiting factor here is not that we don't have enough supplies.

[...]

SIEGEL: We are hearing from our reporter, and he's on another line right now, thousands of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans with no food.  Zero. 

CHERTOFF: I am telling you we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging.  And uh ya know the one thing about an epispode like this is if you talk to someone and you get a rumor, where you get someone's anecdotal version of something.  I think it's dangerous to exprapolate it all over the place.

[...]

SIEGEL:  But Mr. Secretary, when you say that, uh, we shouldn't listen to rumors, these are things coming from reporters who have not only cover many many other hurricanes but who have covered wars and refugee camps.  These are rumors they're seeing thousands of people there.

CHERTOFF: I would be... I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the Convention Center who don't have food and water.  I can tell you that specifically the Superdome which was designated staging area for a large number of evacuees does have food and water and that we have teams putting food and water out at other designated staging areas.[...]

SIEGEL:  And our reporter said two thousand people at the Convention Center without anything. 

CHERTOFF: I understand and I can't argue with you about what your reporter tells you.  I can only tell you that we are getting water and food and other supplies and people to where we happen to stage and where we can find them and where we can get it to them.  And if you're asking me if somehow the national guard missed a group of people I will certainly call and make sure they don't miss them but I'm not in a position to argue with you about what your reporter says. 

If you want to hear the following-up report from NPR's reporter, that's here.  It's horrifying.

SIEGEL: [...]We heard some skepticism form the Secretary that there are a lot of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans without food.  He says he hasn't heard of that.

JOHN BURNETT, REPORTER: Let me clarify for the Secretary and for everyone else what myself and producer Ann Hawk just drove away from, uh, three blocks from here at the Ernest Morial [sp?] Convention Center.  There are, I estimate, two thousand people living like animanls in the city Convention Center and around it.  They've been there since the hurricane.  There's not food, there's absolutely no water, there's no medical treatment, there's no police and no security, and there are two dead bodies lying on the ground and in a wheelchair beside the Convention Center.[...]  We understand that there was a 10 year old girl who was raped in the Convention Center in the last two nights.  People are absolutely desperate there.  I've never seen anything like this.[...]

It only gets worse from there, but you can listen to the whole thing.  The report ends with this terse statement from Siegel:

SIEGEL: And later this afternoon Sec. Chertoff's spokewoman called and said after our interview with the Secretary of Homeland Secruity that he recieved a report confirming the situation at the Convention Center[...]

There's a reason we have partisan politics in this country, folks, and it's this.  Incompetent people shouldn't be running things.  The people of New Orleans are now paying the price for it.

-- Michael