The blame game has taken on a life of its own.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune blames President Bush and is calling for heads to roll. In the New York Times, Bob Hebert blames President Bush. Also in the New York Times, Paul Krugman blames "the lethal ineptitude of federal officials,"while "not letting state and local officials off the hook."
On Fox News Channel this afternoon (Brit Hume's show?), Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA) made it clear that he placed much of the blame on bureaucracy. Not any one bureaucratic organization, but on the behemoth that grows out of Rules and Regulations and Red Tape at all levels. His frustration was with help that couldn't be provided until the right person sent an email to the right bureaucrat for the proper approval.
Also on Fox News, one of the "All-Stars" on Brit Hume's show blamed New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (who blamed federal officials) for ordering mandatory evacuations and then not providing any way for the transportationless residents to get out of town. He pointed out the image of a parking lot full of school buses that were flooded to their eyebrows--500 New Orleans city-owned buses that could have been used to get the poor out of town but weren't.
There's plenty of blame to go around, and there are plenty of people who will assign blame to their favorite targets, regardless of the truth.
Mark Steyn says that we really haven't learned our disaster-response lessons from 9/11:
The comparison with Sept. 11 isn't exact, but it's fair to this extent: Katrina was the biggest disaster on American soil since that day provoked the total overhaul of the system and the devotion of billions of dollars and the finest minds in the nation to the prioritizing of homeland security. It was, thus, the first major test of the post-9/11 structures. Happy with the results?
That would be a big fat "No."
Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt says this isn't the time for carping about blame. While we still have work to do (and we definitely do), we need to focus our energy on doing it.
And he's right. There will be time enough for fixing blame later.
Already there are calls for a 9/11 Commission-style investigation into who messed up after Katrina, most notably by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). My gut reaction to these calls is that any investigation will be a partisan,witch-hunt attack on the Bush administration. It's one more attempt by the Blame-Bush-First (and always) crowd to score points.
What's needed instead is a post-mortem assessment by the leaders involved or affected by the response effort. This assessment should include Bobby Jindal, Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, and others who were frustrated by hampered relief efforts, as well as those in charge at the Houston Astrodome, who can provide insights into what works. It should NOT include partisan political hacks from either side. Let the professionals determine what needs to change in the future, and keep Congress (both houses) out of it.
2 comments:
There will no doubt be, as Bill Clinton put it, a Katrina Commission. I hope that it is run as the 9/11 commission was. Their report, for my money (and it was our money that paid for it) was fair and honest. I thought it did a great deal toward addressing what happened, what should have happened, and what should never happen again.
Clearly the ball has been dropped in the Katrina disaster. To some degree that's to be expected. What remains to be seen, after the shouting, is if the situation was compounded by incompetence or worse. It's not a matter for those involved to come up with the evaluation--they have too much to gain or lose. This needs to be done by a group that can be independent.
We'll see what happens.
bfgay,
Unfortunately, the 9/11 Commission wasn't entirely independent, though I realize that was the intent. With Jamie Gorelick as a member, however, the commission lost its independence.
You've got a point about participants having something to gain or lose, but the political climate in Washington is too toxic to expect any bi-partisan committee not to spend its time grandstanding and defending political turf.
There needs to be a non-political (and that means no former politicians either) group of analysts who know the subject well and can cut through defensiveness of people with reputations to salvage and axes to grind.
But maybe I'm too naive...
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