I hate to say it - but Bush's politcal advisors were right (politically). Can you imagine the hate and vitriol spewing forth if he had sent unrequested troops? I think some people (like the ones on the White House lawn) should retract their claws before playing the political blame game. The governor should resign sooner or later. To be quibbling about authority at that time is just ridiculous. As late as 2 days ago, I heard her on the radio saying that she, not the mayor, had the authority to forcefully evacuate.
She confirmed what I had suspected. She screwed up pretty bad. I also blame the office of the president though for not walking her through the process to the requisite solution. Her political life is over. If Bush wasn't already in his last term, I think he'd be done anyway.
There are plenty blames to go around, each involved person, official or department should have their fair shares. Once everything is settled, those people should be held accountable for the unnessary human life loss. Local, state, FEMA, the president, and the congress, none of them acted appropriately. Any one of them did a better job in this particular situation, more lives could be saved. Critique or blame to any offical should and could not take away others' responsibility and put them at safe land, starting from local/state officials and Brownie. However, after their failure, the president and congress should step in right away. I am not familiar with how this is worked out, but I just think a natural disaster in this magnitude, should have been planed for aftermarth resue/relief mission. Mandatory state of emergency, martial law, and troops should be written in the rules. Congress could get together within 24 years to pass something preventing tubes to be removed for a single dying/dead woman, they can do much better. That being said, the Major, Governor and FEMA failed miserably.
What's more important? POSSIBLE objection from another party or human lives the president supposed to lead to protect? Geez, he's protecting those citizens by invading a remote country, and worried about critiques from Liberals? BTW, what's that crap of "president of one party"? Isn't he the president of the country, commander in chief and a great uniter? All of a sudden, people who call another party "you liberals" and "you people", start to care about their feelings? Give me a break. By that analogy, whenever an official do something to/with a citizen, he/she has to identify own political agenda and inquire about which party that citizen belongs to? Before you send someone into emergency room, you have to ask the person which hospital that person wants to go to, by researching who the biggest donor of the hospital is, whether the head of the hospital or the surgeon to operate is at the same party as the patient is? Otherwise, there might be outcry from another party?
real_egal -- as i understand it...he would have been breaking the law to send troops in without her request.
Here is an articke in WP this morning: washingtonpost.com Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience 'Brain Drain' At Agency Cited By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 9, 2005; A01 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. Because of the turnover, three of the five FEMA chiefs for natural-disaster-related operations and nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity, agency officials said. Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. "FEMA requires strong leadership and experience because state and local governments rely on them," said Trina Sheets, executive director of the National Emergency Management Association. "When you don't have trained, qualified people in those positions, the program suffers as a whole." Last week's greatest foe was, of course, a storm of such magnitude that it "overwhelmed" all levels of government, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). And several top FEMA officials are well-regarded by state and private counterparts in disaster preparedness and response. They include Edward G. Buikema, acting director of response since February, and Kenneth O. Burris, acting chief of operations, a career firefighter and former Marietta, Ga., fire chief. But scorching criticism has been aimed at FEMA, and it starts at the top with Brown, who has admitted to errors in responding to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding in New Orleans. The Oklahoma native, 50, was hired to the agency after a rocky tenure as commissioner of a horse sporting group by former FEMA director Joe M. Allbaugh, the 2000 Bush campaign manager and a college friend of Brown's. Rhode, Brown's chief of staff, is a former television reporter who came to Washington as advance deputy director for Bush's Austin-based 2000 campaign and then the White House. He joined FEMA in April 2003 after stints at the Commerce Department and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Altshuler is a former presidential advance man. His predecessor, Scott Morris, was a media strategist for Bush with the Austin firm Maverick Media. David I. Maurstad, who stepped down as Nebraska lieutenant governor in 2001 to join FEMA, has served as acting director for risk reduction and federal insurance administrator since June 2004. Daniel A. Craig, a onetime political fundraiser and campaign adviser, came to FEMA in 2001 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he directed the eastern regional office, after working as a lobbyist for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown has managed more than 160 natural disasters as FEMA general counsel and deputy director since 2001, "hands-on experience [that] cannot be understated. Other leadership at FEMA brings particular skill sets -- policy management leadership, for example." The agency has a deep bench of career professionals, said FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, including two dozen senior field coordinators and Gil Jamieson, director of the National Incident Management System. "Simply because folks who have left the agency have a disagreement with how it's being run doesn't necessarily indicate that there is a lack of experience leading it," she said. Andrews said the "acting" designation for regional officials is a designation that signifies that they are FEMA civil servants -- not political appointees. Touring the wrecked Gulf Coast with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff yesterday, Vice President Cheney also defended FEMA leaders, saying, "We're always trying to strike the right balance" between political appointees and "career professionals that fill the jobs underneath them." But experts inside and out of government said a "brain drain" of experienced disaster hands throughout the agency, hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management, has weakened the agency's ability to respond to natural disasters. Some security experts and congressional critics say the exodus was fueled by a bureaucratic reshuffling in Washington in 2003, when FEMA was stripped of its independent Cabinet-level status and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Emergency preparedness has atrophied as a result, some analysts said, extending from Washington to localities. FEMA "has gone downhill within the department, drained of resources and leadership," said I.M. "Mac" Destler, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. "The crippling of FEMA was one important reason why it failed." Richard A. Andrews, former emergency services director for the state of California and a member of the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council, said state and local failures were critical in the Katrina response, but competence, funding and political will in Washington were also lacking. "I do not think fundamentally this is an organizational issue," Andrews said. "You need people in there who have both experience and the confidence of the president, who are able to fight and articulate what FEMA's mission and role is, and who understand how emergency management works." The agency's troubles are no secret. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes careers in federal government, ranked FEMA last of 28 agencies studied in 2003. In its list of best places to work in the government, a 2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found that of 84 career FEMA professionals who responded, only 10 people ranked agency leaders excellent or good. An additional 28 said the leadership was fair and 33 called it poor. More than 50 said they would move to another agency if they could remain at the same pay grade, and 67 ranked the agency as poorer since its merger into the Department of Homeland Security. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165_pf.html
This is only half true, it seems - he had the right take control, but would have needed to invoke the insurgency act: <I>To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.</I> Both sides are to blame for playing politics here. The Democratic Gov wanted to retain control of her authority, while the President didn't want to look bad usurping her authority.
I'm still confused. She said "send me everything, blah, blah, blah". To me that is giving up the control. Is her screw up not going through the exact process, rather than just not giving control?
washingtonpost.com Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience 'Brain Drain' At Agency Cited By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 9, 2005; A01 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. Because of the turnover, three of the five FEMA chiefs for natural-disaster-related operations and nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity, agency officials said. Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. "FEMA requires strong leadership and experience because state and local governments rely on them," said Trina Sheets, executive director of the National Emergency Management Association. "When you don't have trained, qualified people in those positions, the program suffers as a whole." Last week's greatest foe was, of course, a storm of such magnitude that it "overwhelmed" all levels of government, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). And several top FEMA officials are well-regarded by state and private counterparts in disaster preparedness and response. They include Edward G. Buikema, acting director of response since February, and Kenneth O. Burris, acting chief of operations, a career firefighter and former Marietta, Ga., fire chief. But scorching criticism has been aimed at FEMA, and it starts at the top with Brown, who has admitted to errors in responding to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding in New Orleans. The Oklahoma native, 50, was hired to the agency after a rocky tenure as commissioner of a horse sporting group by former FEMA director Joe M. Allbaugh, the 2000 Bush campaign manager and a college friend of Brown's. Rhode, Brown's chief of staff, is a former television reporter who came to Washington as advance deputy director for Bush's Austin-based 2000 campaign and then the White House. He joined FEMA in April 2003 after stints at the Commerce Department and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Altshuler is a former presidential advance man. His predecessor, Scott Morris, was a media strategist for Bush with the Austin firm Maverick Media. David I. Maurstad, who stepped down as Nebraska lieutenant governor in 2001 to join FEMA, has served as acting director for risk reduction and federal insurance administrator since June 2004. Daniel A. Craig, a onetime political fundraiser and campaign adviser, came to FEMA in 2001 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he directed the eastern regional office, after working as a lobbyist for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said Brown has managed more than 160 natural disasters as FEMA general counsel and deputy director since 2001, "hands-on experience [that] cannot be understated. Other leadership at FEMA brings particular skill sets -- policy management leadership, for example." The agency has a deep bench of career professionals, said FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, including two dozen senior field coordinators and Gil Jamieson, director of the National Incident Management System. "Simply because folks who have left the agency have a disagreement with how it's being run doesn't necessarily indicate that there is a lack of experience leading it," she said. Andrews said the "acting" designation for regional officials is a designation that signifies that they are FEMA civil servants -- not political appointees. Touring the wrecked Gulf Coast with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff yesterday, Vice President Cheney also defended FEMA leaders, saying, "We're always trying to strike the right balance" between political appointees and "career professionals that fill the jobs underneath them." But experts inside and out of government said a "brain drain" of experienced disaster hands throughout the agency, hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management, has weakened the agency's ability to respond to natural disasters. Some security experts and congressional critics say the exodus was fueled by a bureaucratic reshuffling in Washington in 2003, when FEMA was stripped of its independent Cabinet-level status and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Emergency preparedness has atrophied as a result, some analysts said, extending from Washington to localities. FEMA "has gone downhill within the department, drained of resources and leadership," said I.M. "Mac" Destler, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. "The crippling of FEMA was one important reason why it failed." Richard A. Andrews, former emergency services director for the state of California and a member of the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council, said state and local failures were critical in the Katrina response, but competence, funding and political will in Washington were also lacking. "I do not think fundamentally this is an organizational issue," Andrews said. "You need people in there who have both experience and the confidence of the president, who are able to fight and articulate what FEMA's mission and role is, and who understand how emergency management works." The agency's troubles are no secret. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes careers in federal government, ranked FEMA last of 28 agencies studied in 2003. In its list of best places to work in the government, a 2004 survey by the American Federation of Government Employees found that of 84 career FEMA professionals who responded, only 10 people ranked agency leaders excellent or good. An additional 28 said the leadership was fair and 33 called it poor. More than 50 said they would move to another agency if they could remain at the same pay grade, and 67 ranked the agency as poorer since its merger into the Department of Homeland Security. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165_pf.html
You're right. I'm sorry MEOWGI. I shouldn't take any of this politico-type of crap personally. I know from your previous posts to be a well-informed, good-intentioned person who just happens to have some opinions that differ from mine.
I honestly meant to add a winky smiley or a tongue sticking out smiley on that last post but hit "submit message" instead of "preview". Serves me right I guess.
I have a relative who worked for a company in the Ship Channel area for years as their safety director. He's now doing the same kind of job for a large chunk of an occupied Middle East country. You really have to know what you are doing. That some of these chumps got the top jobs at something like FEMA is criminal. It sounds like the LA governor may be as stupid as Rick Perry. God help them. Keep D&D Civil!!
This is a breakdown of government on all levels. Federalist or centralist, the systems don't work if the politicians are incompetent. We saw this with 9/11 when power squabbles took precedence over human safety. I hope the voting public wakes up for a second over the party bickering and put a premium on competence over charisma for the people they vote in.
When Hurricane Floyd became a monster F5 Clinton cut short a foreign trip to personally oversee the possible disaster relief effort. Thankfully that hurricane wasn't a monster when it hit, but if had been the president was there to handle it personally. The president should always be the chief lead in these massive disaster situations.
