The big lie: FEMA dawdled due to legalistic jurisdictional disputes resulting from Governor Blanco's inaction.
The truth: This "Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana" issued by the White House on August 27. The ball was in Bush's court from that moment.
The hard truth: FEMA head Michael Brown received his position because he was an old college chum of former FEMA head and long-time G.O.P. fixer Joseph Albaugh. Albaugh now is a bigwig with a lobbying firm. He's been in Louisiana of late, scurrying after lucrative relief contracts with -- you guessed it -- FEMA.
Which may explain why Brown's FEMA has turned down the aid offered by WalMart, Canada, Chicago, Amtrack and a host of others. He couldn't allow cost-free charity to get in the way -- not when there was so much money to be made. The aid contracts had to go to Brown's old roomie.
For further examples of FEMA's active prevention of aid delivery, try here.
8 comments:
Oh, so it is all so simple, of course it's just a heartless profit motive. These soulless people call themselves Christians? Christ is ashamed of them!
Dawdled due to Bush's poorly-constructed thought process, handily diagramanized for you.
“Good job” Brownie is kicked upstairs
It’s as old as the Roman emperors: Those fresh in power chop off the heads of all who will not swear fealty to the new god in town and save the really choice patronage plumbs for their own – those who helped clear the way for the emperor’s ascension. He wants the really important positions however - the ones upon which his security and the efficient operation of Roman affairs of state to be occupied with not only loyal operatives but also with proficient ones. It’s OK to appoint your feeble-minded cousin, Claudius* to the Ministry of Silly Walks. It’s a far different matter however, to appoint him as the overseer of the Coliseum Plumbers or the head of the Praetorian Guard. You’d better have men who know what they are doing in these positions. Emperors who failed this first lesson in Politics 101 usually didn’t live long enough to regret their error.
So it usually goes with American politics. Before the age of sacred terror, a president could get away with simply promoting the head of FEMA from within the ranks. FEMA’s activities could usually be equated to the sequence of events in a baseball game i.e. long periods of standing around punctuated by brief periods of intense, frenzied activity. Even though the protocol was fairly well established, common sense usually dictated that the head of this agency had to have at least the semblance of experience and competency.
Not so with Bush. This pretender to the office of president of the United States, seems to have a penchant for appointing incompetent political hacks, ideological cool-aiders and cronies to posts that they are wholly unsuited for. I guess like prefers like. He seems to take a special delight in these mis-appointments. The top three administrators for FEMA were filled, not with experienced executives, but hold-overs from the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign
Parenthetically, another incongruous appointment will cap off this week with the instatement of Karen Hughes as “Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy” (Bush’s ambassador to pacify the Moslem tribes). That’s like John Bolton’s UN ambassador appointment. Not only is she totally unprepared for the role, but her abrasive manner might just give her the dubious honor of personally inciting her own little war somewhere in the Middle East. People like Hughes and Bolton are worse than incompetent. They are dangerous.
I was surprised to hear that “good job, Brownie” had been moved back from the front lines, presumably to a desk position less subject to public and press scrutiny. He’s not being fired, mind you, the Emperor makes NO mistakes; he’s just being moved to a position where he can grasp the big picture more wholistically.
Hopefully, his “promotion” was somebody’s idea to at least try to run FEMA with a small semblance of competency. It looks like his operational “replacement’ in the form of Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who is already knee deep in the New Orleans rescue operation, seems like the guy who should have had the job in the first place.
I guess brighter minds than Bush’s finally prevailed. I would have loved to have been the wall-fly and overheard the sort of arguments they used to sway our bull-headed Head of State. I’ll bet the humanitarian ones didn’t phase him one bit. He was probably the same old stubborn “stay the course” Bush until someone said something like, “If you keep Brownie in there you can kiss your political reputation good by. And forget about us helping you whitewash this whole debacle in front of Congress.”
We, on the other hand, will have to wait for some sort of a truly bi-partisan post-mortem to definitively sort the whole thing out and I do not mean Bush’s usual whiteout artists. Kudos to Nancy Pelosi for digging in her heels and declaring that there is some crap up with which she will not put.
In conclusion, I will link to Joseph Cannon’s Cannonfire blog which is one of the best I have found to deal with a lot of deeply buried material that others just whistle past.
Here then, center stage, is Joseph Cannon singing “The Ballad of Michael Brown” from the Pirates of Penance by George W. Bush:
I am the very model of a modern FEMA handle-er
Corrupt as any character you’ll find in Raymond Chandle-er…
To read the rest – go to http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/
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*In the case of the elevation of the real, historic Claudius to the position of Emperor, this rule of politics seems to have mercifully miscarried. After the assassination of Caligula by his own Praetorian Guard, Claudius was dragged out from behind the drapery where he had been hiding. Instead of putting him to the sword like the other members of the royal family, the Guard decided to declare him Emperor. Little was expected of Claudius whose speech defect was mistakenly interpreted as feeble-mindedness. To everyone’s surprise, Claudius went on to be an able navigator of the Roman Ship of state - unlike our own good King George II who’s feeblemindedness is mistakenly interpreted as down home, country charm.
Bob Boldt
Good analysis, bob boldt. I like the historical perspective. Post more often.
Agreed. Thanks, Bob.
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