Very Moving This American Life

Ira Glass & team knocks one out of the park. Visit the site where you can buy it now, or stream it next week.

Surprise! FEMA sucks.

From Spenser Hsu at WashPo: "Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience"

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Meanwhile, veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman -- who led FEMA's offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively -- have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials.

No wonder they were so concerned with PR. That's all these guys knew. Might as well have put Karen Hughes in charge.

A question

When did accountability become known as "the blame game"?

Gimme a break. The White House is expending a great deal of energy in redirecting blame elsewhere while patiently and repetitively insisting that this is no time to be "blame-gaming." Hey, it's a noun AND a verb. Handy.

Well, here's a bunch of links on this topic:
Amy Sullivan, WashMonthly
Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Kevin Drum, WashMonthly
E&P on the media HAMMERING poor Scotty
Bruce Reed on the end of compassionate conservatism

For those interested in facts, a timeline is being prepared and updated regularly to understand what happened when, where key admin officials were, and what the various statements and repspones have been.

Katrina timeline

Times-Picayune Calls for Resignation

Via Editor & Publisher

Plus a round up of editorial condemnations.

Locally, the Chicago Tribune has an odd editorial, which concludes, "rebuilding New Orleans as it was "looks to be folly:

The hope here is that the city's residents, and the Americans who will help them recover, craft a master plan that preserves the city's brash spirit while protecting it from another disaster on this scale.

Then New Orleans can reinvent itself--as a devastated Chicago did after 1871.

The facing page reprint of an editorial that followed the 1871 Fire is called Cheer Up.

"My Pet Goat" in the Bayou

Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher gets medieval on BushCo: "Simply stated, the president and his top advisers chose vacation over action."

Bush Fires People for Disloyalty, Not Incompetence

If anything were a better indication of the autocratic, dare I say fascist, inclinations of BushCo, it is their willingness to fire or marginalize competent people who disagree with Dear Leader but keep on incompetent cronies and kiss-asses who have FUBAR, and then added a big pile of FUBAR on top of that.

The latest incompetent? FEMA Chief Mike Brown, who is NOT doing a great job, who is clearly in over his head, and (see link) had a difficult time managing horse shows. He would probably appreciate being relieved of duty. Just show some leadership, Shrub, and FIRE HIM!!!!! Lincoln fired about 5 generals before finding Grant on the western reaches of the country.

Leaders should not just expect loyalty. They should expect competence and accountability.

Football fans show their heart

Previously, in the Deep South, many hotel had warned Katrina escapees that they would have to vacate their hotels for football fans who had booked their rooms months in advance. But CNN reports that many of these fans have opted to stay home, give up their rooms, and some have offered their tickes to evacuees. Menschitude is spreading. Story here.

Relief Shows Up

CNN has the story.

Looks like this Gen. Honore has the right idea:

CNN's Barbara Starr, who is traveling with the three-star general, said Honore is "very determined to keep this looking like a humanitarian relief operation."

"A few moments ago, he stopped a truck full of National Guard troops ... and said, 'Point your weapons down, this is not Iraq,' " Starr reported.

Yes, please don't shoot the starving, thirsty, helpless victims.

Faith-based Leadership Faces the Music

Our administration can no longer pretend that everything is great, that all is well, help is on the way, when the pictures and interviews say the opposite. Finally our beloved media, who fiddled while BushCo sashayed us into Iraq, cannot ignore the lies, deception and incompetence. I guess it's easy to let such things as Swift Boat lies slide--that stuff is all part of the fun and games of politics. But this disaster cannot be spun aside. It's not a game, and it's no longer fun.

The media giant is waking up from a deep slumber, rubbing the Jesus dust out of its eyes, and seeing clearly. Politics ain't beanbag, as the great Mayor Harold Washington famously said. And politics has left a major American city devastated.

CNN documents the lies, so far. They call it the disconnect. More like a chasm, a gulf, a vast expansive wasteland between reality and spin.

Slate's Jack Shafer rounds up the media "rebellion"

Dad Argues with Callous Barber

My dad braved a scissors-wielding barber. I'll let him tell the story (as communicated via email):

I haven't been able to work on anything all week. One minute I'm so angry I want to explode; the next minute my eyes tear up. I can't remember when I've been this distraught. Maybe JFK's assasination, after which the world changed for the worst.

I got into it with ... my barber, today. He's a typical working-class Republican. Also, I think, although I was unsure until today, a racist. We were watching the coverage.

I said, "it's a shame our government cut funds on a levee system that might have saved New Orleans."

He grunted.

I ploughed on, "Well, I have to say, this is the worst performance by the federal government I've ever seen." "

"You can't be everywhere," he said, "anyway, where were the local and state people?"

I exploded: "The local and state people?!! You've got to be kidding. They don't have the money, the manpower, the troops, the ability to do anything. it's a federal responsibility, and they ducked it. And This president, this idiot, is the worst fucking president in the history of the nation. It's a disgrace that we're fighting a ridiculous optional war and can't find the means to deal with disaster right here at home."

"Well," he said a propos of nothing (which sealed my feeling about his racism), "nobody has to live in New Orleans."

"Yeah," I said, "and nobody has to live in Biloxi (where he goes to play golf every winter with his buddies), but they do, don't they? People live in all sorts of dangerous places. Does that mean we abandon them? The next time Chicago floods or gets snowed under, maybe we say, 'Oh, well, they choose to live there.'"

I concluded, "the people get what they vote for, and this time the people got a fucking, Jesus-freak dimwit for a president. Maybe he'll pray us out of this mess."

Do you think I was too subtle? If he hadn't been wielding the scissors, I might have been more direct.

More direct? I think you did good, Dad. God knows what might have happened if you had run into Condi Rice while she was shopping for shoes yesterday.

My Disgust and Anger

I cannot believe what I have seen and heard in these last two days. An unbelievable report from the NO Convention Center showed thousands (2,000, 5,000, 15,000?) stranded with no water, food, medical care, toilets, transportation, and perhaps worst of all information. People are DYING. Babies and older people are dying first, dehydrated and lacking the most basic care. These people aren't criminals, looters, or drug addicts. They are citizens. Families, many many young children and babies, pregnant women. I can barely control myself thinking about it.

The mayor of New Orleans was a voice in the wilderness (download the audio file here) crying out for support. Transcribed here.

Even President Bush has stepped out of his boy-in-the-bubble world to admit that the help has been "not acceptable."

Not acceptable? NOT ACCEPTABLE?!!!!! It's shameful. Disgusting. Just simply staggering. I'm no logistics expert, but where are the air drops?

I woke up this morning hoping to hear that those people at the convention center got help. No indication yet.

Krugman Sez...

It's a "Can't Do Government":

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

Who Dares Question Dear Leader?

Joe Conason says we all should.

Other People Ranting

Wes Clark: It All Comes Back to Leadership
NY Times Editorial: "Waiting for a Leader"
letter writers to the National Review (via Laura Rozen)
Washington Monthly "FEMA Mismanagement"
admitted incompetence
Liberal Oasis summary
Diarist Hunter from the Daily Kos
Anatomy of a Disaster from Salon
If We Had a Real President from Daily Kos Diarist Stirling Newberry
ProgProg on the right.

For hurricane relief donations:
The Red Cross
Other Relief Organizations

Worst.President.Ever: A RANT

Back in my youth I took a class on ecology and energy public policy and crisis management. The instructor made the point that after any disaster, a white paper, report or other document predicting the exact nature of the disaster is found. One might think that "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US" is one of those.

Now there is an entire paper trail of article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune predicting disaster for New Orleans if repairs were not made to the levee system. And if wetland barriers were reduced. Guess BushCo had better things to do with our money than invest in infrastructure and environment.

Blumenthal on Salon has some details. As does Tim Grieve.

The Chicago Tribune reports today in "Flood-control funds short of requests". The article (registration required) quotes Michael Parker, " a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget." Guess he joins a long list of officials (Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Genl. Shinseki, and now Susan F. Wood) who attempted to bring the bright light of rational thought to a fundamentalist regime. The Trib article says:

A corps plan to shore up the levees began in 1965 and was supposed to be finished in 10 years but remains incomplete. "They've never put enough money in to complete it," Parker said. He said the corps' budget has been regularly targeted by the White House because public works projects are perceived as pork and aren't considered "sexy."

"Go talk to the people who are suffering in New Orleans," Parker said. "Ask them do they think it's pork."

I can only hope that historians will dissect the Bush governance and identify not just its mendacity, but its greed and incompetence. Bush makes Warren Harding look like Franklin Roosevelt. He makes his father look like Abraham Lincoln. He is a disaster--a selfish, spoiled, ignorant, callous, vengeful and downright wicked leader. He is remote from the people, acting more like a King than an elected leader. His stage-managed Potemkin-town meetings and speeches are attempts to shut out having to respond to the real voice of the American people.

Bush has hidden himself behind a country-boy Jesus-loving facade while he has dismantled federal support of science, reason, social structure and community. He has waged a war based on a ever-shifting rationale: WMD (none); 9/11 revenge (false premises); democracy/human/rights/peace in the Mid-East (Iraq is the domino? not likely); now it's the security of oil (well, that's getting a little closer).

He is a bad man, bad for this country, bad for the global community. As bad I thought he was in the election cycle, I see he is exponentially worse now. He has blood on his hands. I can only hope that finally, FINALLY, a great wave of citizens and our media representatives will see this man for what he is. Perhaps now people will respond. Ask questions. Demand answers. Vote these evil people OUT.