Bacon's Rebellion

Spinning hard; revisionism at work

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by

James A. Bacon
in

DOING THE BEST WE CAN: BUSH
6.9.2005. 08:43:04

US President George W Bush has visited hurricane affected areas on the US Gulf Coast in a second attempt to neutralise searing public criticism of his handling of the crisis.

On Friday the President surveyed the devastation in New Orleans by air and visited residents in Mississippi.

He was that state again and parts of Louisiana this Tuesday, but the now neared-deserted New Orleans was off the agenda.

Mr Bush, who on Saturday described the initial response to the disaster as unacceptable, told reporters the government was doing the best it could.

The World News/Australia

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  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    :((

  2. subpatre Avatar
    subpatre

    I for one am sick of the screeching Chimp BushHitleriburton hysteria. We’re (still) owed two things:
    The metric on which FEMA’s to be judged by.
    Not “somebody died!” rhetoric. Concrete data: how many responders with what equipment in how many hours.
    The cost of doing what Mr. Day thinks should be done.
    I can’t recall if he quit the GA before or after financial impact requirement on bills, but it’s an important consideration.

    Unless some information appears, the articles are simply spam, no different than ‘Great post. See my cialis site’. We’re waiting….

  3. PM Avatar
    PM

    Here’s a new interesting item –the FEMA blunder in putting Operation Blessing on the front page of its charity list — the reference has since been removed but some websites havepreserved the image. What follows is just an excerpt, which I’ve included because of the corruption it suggests that is rife in Va. politics:

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/blumenthal

    Far from the media’s gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing’s planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire’s then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

    After a lengthy investigation, Virginia’s Office of Consumer Affairs determined that Robertson “willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications.” Yet when the office called for legal action against Robertson in 1999, Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, a Republican, intervened with his own report, agreeing that Robertson had made deceptive appeals but overruling the recommendation for his prosecution. Two years earlier, while Virginia’s investigation was gathering steam, Robertson donated $35,000 to Earley’s campaign–Earley’s largest contribution. With Earley’s report came a sense of vindication. “From the very beginning,” Robertson claimed, “we were trying to provide help and assistance to those who were facing disease and death in the war-torn, chaotic nation of Zaire.”

    (Earley is now president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, an evangelical social-work organization founded by born-again, former Nixon dirty-trickster Charles Colson. PFM has accepted White House faith-based-initiative money and is currently engaged in hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana. Earley remains a close ally of Robertson.)

    Absolved of his sins, Robertson dug his heels back in African soil. In 1999 he signed an $8 million agreement with Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor that guaranteed Robertson’s Freedom Gold Ltd.–an offshore company registered to the same address as his Christian Broadcasting Network–mining rights in Liberia, and gave Taylor a 10 percent stake in the company. When the United States intervened in Liberia in 2003, forcing Taylor and the Al Qaeda operatives he was harboring to flee, Robertson accused President Bush of “undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country.”

    You Va. political pros — is this true? Did Earley really do this?

    Finally, anyone seen this breaking news report? “NEW ORLEANS Even as crews in New Orleans try to find and count the corpses that are decaying in the 90-degree heat, reports of the extent of the tragedy are starting to emerge.

    A Louisiana congressman says more than 100 people died at a warehouse along a New Orleans dock. Congressman Charlie Melancon (muh-LAWN’-suhn) says they died as they waited for rescuers to take them to safety.”

    We’ll see how that story pans out.

    Somebody help me on this Bush

  4. NOVA Scout Avatar
    NOVA Scout

    Sorry to keep cluttering up your nice place with this, but I still think it’s important: Would the response to a similar storm with similar effects have been qualitatively or quantitatively superior under another Administration (not some hypothetical future administration, but any that we know of historically)? I think that the honest answer has to be that there’s no empirical reason to think so. If that’s the right answer, then we can drop all the R v. D stuff and all the anti-Bush stuff and start doing what this site does so well: talking about structures, costs, and functions of government at various levels. I really want to see that conversation happen. What is our baseline for measuring an adequate response? What is the appropriate federal role? Is it a safety net for local/state first responders? Should the feds be the first responders? Do we have a structural problem at the federal level because of DHS having too large a mission? Are responses to terrorism so distinct from responses to natural disasters that these functions and personnel should be separated at the federal level? Did the local and state governments in Louisiana contribute substantially to the magnitude of the problem? If a similar storm with similar effects had hit (pick a state, pick a city in that state), would the results have been different? What’s happening in Mississippi compared to Louisiana? Is one jurisdiciton doing much better than another in terms of response? If so, why? Do we want the federal government to have authority to mandate evacuations? Should that be a local decision enforced by local authorities (inherent in that question is whether the armed-forces of the United States should be placed in the position of shoving citizens out of their homes)? I’m sure there are many more questions, but let’s get into these issues. I respectfully posit that the major factors leading to the shortfalls in this response were the magnitude and location of the storm, the ingress of flood water into so wide an area after the hurricane had passed (we’ll have to look at levee maintenance/design etc), thus making return of inhabitants and relief access by land difficult. Do we design a response system to “fight the last war”? Or do we restructure and fund something that’s less than what was reqruied here, but better than what we had before?

  5. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    You’ve overplayed this, Barnie.

  6. Not Guy Incognito Avatar
    Not Guy Incognito

    Nobody is overplaying this.

    Yes, there were issues that could not be avoided, but there’s a simple string of mistakes that are being made here, not so much by Bush but the people he trusted to make key decisions (much like the war in Iraq, many would say.)

    The response to this disaster makes me wonder what would happen if a major attack (greater than 9/11) did happen. Do you think the response would be significantly better?

  7. PM Avatar
    PM

    NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — Authorities in a suburban parish began retrieving the bodies of more than 30 people from a nursing home Wednesday, while New Orleans police prepared to start forcing the evacuation of up to 15,000 remaining residents.

    comment: I’ll let this speak for itself

  8. PM Avatar
    PM

    USA Today Story: Lots of Americans are reading the folllowing story this a.m. Witt, Clinton’s FEMA guy, apparently was an expert in the field. Here’s USA Today’s take:

    Exposed by Katrina, FEMA’s flaws were years in making 1 hour, 15 minutes ago

    When Hurricane Katrina submerged a city, ravaged three states and disrupted hundreds of thousands of lives, it also laid bare huge gaps in the nation’s ability to respond to disasters. None is more jaw-dropping than the ineptitude shown by the federal agency created to respond to natural disasters.

    Many failures of FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency – have been reported in recent days: People stranded for days on New Orleans’ rooftops without food or water. Patients dying for lack of medical supplies. The agency couldn’t even get supplies to thousands marooned at the Morial Convention Center – though reporters and even singer Harry Connick Jr. managed to reach the scene.

    But a deeper review of the agency’s history, the records of its top managers and internal memoranda reveal far deeper problems than a momentary burst of poor decisions. Over the past four years, the Bush administration has replaced competent leaders with people long on political connections but short on disaster management expertise. At the same time, the war on terrorism has drained the agency’s resources and reduced its effectiveness.

    Katrina would have been devastating regardless, but those actions turned FEMA into something akin to New Orleans’ famous levees – a structure sure to fail when a big disaster struck.

    Since Katrina, blame for FEMA’s blundering has zeroed in on the agency’s director, Michael Brown. His failure should not have been a surprise. He had almost no experience in disaster work before he was appointed in 2003 by President Bush, and confirmed by the Senate, to lead the agency. Before joining FEMA as its counsel in 2001, Brown, a friend of the FEMA director who hired him, worked for nine years as a commissioner at an Arabian horse association.

    FEMA’s history1979: President Carter creates the Federal Emergency Management Agency by executive order out of 16 major agencies. FEMA’s initial mission is centered on natural disasters and civil defense.

    1992: Hurricane Andrew ravages Florida and Louisiana. Criticism of the agency hurts President George H.W. Bush’s re-election efforts.

    1993-94: President Clinton appoints James Lee Witt as the first career specialist in disasters to head FEMA. With the Cold War over, Witt reorganizes the agency to focus on natural disasters. FEMA’s response to the Mississippi River flooding and the earthquake in Northridge, Calif., wins praise.

    2001: Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s 2000 campaign chairman, is made FEMA director. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon prompt FEMA to focus its efforts on terrorism as well as natural disasters.

    2003: FEMA is rolled into the new Department of Homeland Security. Michael Brown, Allbaugh’s former assistant and college friend, ascends to the top job.

    2005: Hurricane Katrina slams the Gulf Coast; FEMA’s response is criticized.

    But that’s only the tip of FEMA’s management problems. Brown’s top deputy, Patrick Rhode, is equally inexperienced, according to his résumé. Rhode worked for Bush’s 2000 campaign and for the White House doing advance operations. Another senior FEMA manager, Daniel Craig, had been a lobbyist for electric cooperatives.

    In addition, FEMA has seen an exodus of experienced officials over the past four years. By the time Katrina struck, three senior positions were either vacant or filled on an “acting” basis, including the director running Katrina-ravaged Mississippi and Alabama.

    The reasons for most of the departures are unclear. But since 2003, FEMA has been downgraded – swallowed up by the new Homeland Security Department, created to protect the nation from terrorism. The shift is logical. Responding to a major terrorist attack has a lot in common with responding to a natural disaster. But instead of building on the existing disaster response system, terrorism became a new and largely separate focus.

    According to a Government Accountability Office report, more than 75% of the agency’s preparedness grants next year are targeted to state and local readiness for terrorism – a mismatch to reality. Leaders of the National Emergency Management Association feared the impending result. Five of the group’s leaders came to Washington just days before Katrina struck to warn Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that the shift, including more proposed erosions of FEMA’s role, was weakening their readiness for disasters. The warning was prophetic.

    James Lee Witt, the Clinton-era FEMA director who earned rare bipartisan praise for lifting the agency from scandal-prone backwater to a professional operation, says “it’s like a stake has been driven through the heart of emergency management.”

    That is where FEMA stood as Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29 along the Gulf Coast. Hours later, and more than a day after he was warned of the huge storm, Brown sent a memorandum to his boss asking for 1,000 volunteers to support rescuers. Brown said the volunteers would be sent for training within 48 hours. Part of their mission? “Convey a positive image of disaster operations.”

    What has FEMA been doing with its budget, if not gauging how many people it would need to react quickly to a huge disaster, identifying their skills and training them to be ready?

    The path toward improvement is clear. It seems obvious that the FEMA leadership needs to be replaced with professionals. But sacrificial firings would not excuse the decisions that put them there, nor would they entirely fix the problem.

    What’s needed is a speedy and impartial investigation of what went wrong with a focus on finding the best way to address the dual threats of terrorism and natural disaster.

    Bush declared Tuesday that he would lead an internal review. That is neither practical, given the demands on a president, nor would it likely be regarded as credible.

    What about Congress? On Wednesday, Republican congressional leaders said the House and Senate will jointly investigate the disaster response at all levels. Oversight is Congress’ job, but in the current climate, it’s likely to have a hard time finding truth as Democrats try blame Bush while Republicans defend him. Congress also contributed to the problems by ignoring pleas for money to refurbish levees and natural barriers.

    A better option might be an independent panel like the 9/11 Commission, or perhaps even the 9/11 Commission itself, given the terrorism connection.

    The government got it wrong after 9/11. It can’t afford another miss.

  9. Laszlo Avatar
    Laszlo

    Steve,how do you overplay 25,000 body bags. CNN

  10. subpatre Avatar
    subpatre

    “how do you overplay 25,000 body bags?“
    Dunno, but the Left’s certainly popping a vein trying it. Looking over the data available now –who of which Party did what– it almost looks like the disaster’s been deliberately staged by Democrats. If so, it’s sick, sick partisanship that abandoned so many to death; simply to satisfy their own craving to abuse the other party.

    It was a Democrat who delayed issuing prompt evacuation orders.
    The first delaying tactic was trying to claim he didn’t know who had the authority.

    It was a Democrat who delayed issuing prompt evacuation orders.
    Then the excuse was that he needed to check with his lawyers on ‘liability issues’.

    It was a Democrat who ditched those without cars by leaving city-owned buses parked (the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool) then bitterly complained that Greyhound hadn’t sent any.

    It was a Democrat who sent thousands to misery, even death, by deliberately leaving Shelters closed, sending them to Last Resort Refuge instead.

    …and that’s just the beginning of the facts as they happened.

    The Left’s been screeching “Chimpy Bush McHitlerburton” so long they’ve turned into feces-flinging monkeys themselves.

    What’s especially disturbing is every time the Democrats screw-up they start crying for totalitarianism: “Send in the Army/FEMA/National Guard”. But maybe we should consider it; if the entire government chain is Democrats, they’re now (proven) incapable of rational decisions and need authority taken away from them.

  11. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    There is a special place in hell for people who use 25,000 body bags for political gain, and I won’t participate. Compare this to the follow on four years ago, one of America’s finest hours — and a far less daunting challenge for the long-term care givers. The damage was measured in city blocks — this is measureed in thousands of square miles. This is the worst displacement of Americans since the Civil War, the biggest economic hit since the Great Depression and on this blog at least people are behaving like ward heelers of the lowest order. I am called not to judge lest I be judged, and that admonition is much on my mind. If Bill Leighty wants to unload, I’ll listen, but you folks sitting at your PC’s need a life — as I’ve said before.

  12. Bill Kenny Avatar
    Bill Kenny

    No one is overplaying this. Bush screwed up, it’s obvious. He is always slow to react. FEMA blew it and so did the Governor. Lots of people to blame for this. But blaming doesn’t bring back the dead or lessen the tragedy.

  13. subpatre Avatar
    subpatre

    “Bush screwed up, it’s obvious. He is always slow to react“

    Tell us exactly what Bush screwed up, or how slow he was.

    The facts are that Bush –you know, the “Chimpy Bush McHitlerburton” guy– was begging the Governor and mayor to move…. and they failed. They failed to act according to their own procedures, they failed to act according to law, and they failed their own people. They failed. Period.

    Not Bush. Not FEMA. Democrat leadership failed: the people with immediate, clear, legal and moral responsibility to act failed.

    It was the Mayor’s responsibility to order evacuation. He failed.

    It’s the Governor’s responsibility to mobilize state militia –Louisiana National Guard– and to request Federal aid. She failed.

    Every step of the way, Democrat leadership has had to be prodded to take any action at all. If it wasn’t for Bush’s role, urging action, there may never have been any evacuation.

    FEMA may yet be sued for illegal actions. They had some teams positioned before they had legal authorization to be there from the slothful Governor.

    So please. Tell us all how “Bush screwed up”.
    Tell us precisely how.

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The Left’s been screeching “Chimpy Bush McHitlerburton””

    What do you make, then, of all those on the right who agree that there were serious failures at all levels (in fact, it seems like MOST on the left agree with that assesment. They just know from experience that one level in particular is unlikely to face any responsibility or need to change whatsoever, unlike the others which will) and that the President’s leadership skills were way off on this one. Are they all rabid Bush haters? Michelle Malkin is a crazypants Sena Penn fan because she wants Brown fired? Sorry, don’t see it.

    “If it wasn’t for Bush’s role, urging action, there may never have been any evacuation.”

    Bush’s call came just before the press conference announcing the evacuation. It wasn’t the impetus for the evacuation as you imply. This is an example of a careful falsehood that wouldn’t make much sense if there were nothing to do apologetics for.

  15. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    You kids in the backseat need to stop slapping each other and have a serious conversation about this issue. Anyone have any thoughts on some of the questions I asked in the earlier comment?

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Cosmic Mojo said:
    It’s sobering to note how much time and concern and energy Bush put into saving one comotose woman (Terri Shavio) compared to the apathy he showed towards tens –if not hundreds– of thousands of people who really needed him.

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