With the rare exception of economic issues, I don’t normally discuss domestic politics on this blog. However, as a departure from my regular routine, today I offer a few quick thoughts on recent criticisms of the Bush administration in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Comments are based on an article in today’s Washington Post titled, “Critics Say Bush Undercut New Orleans Flood Control.”
Would more money have helped? Probably not. The Post article notes that the President’s Democratic accusers willingly admitted that, “even with full funding in recent years, none of the flood-control projects would have been completed in time to prevent the swamping of the city. This lag between approval of funds and completion of projects seems to suggest that there is more at blame here than just Bush’s refusal to increase spending to the Army Corps of Engineers. As former assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, Michael Parker told the Post, “[e]verybody is to blame – it transcends administrations. It transcends a party.”
And this is probably the most honest and realistic assessment of the situation in the entire article. According to Parker, there is widespread resistance in government to investing in long-term projects such as those required to protect cities like New Orleans from flood damage. And why shouldn’t there be resistance? Long-term projects are often costly and benefits are not immediately seen or reaped. Furthermore, in the case of flood control projects, they may never be reaped. It isn’t difficult to imagine that for the holders of government purse strings there are always more immediate and potentially rewarding causes. The long-term gain is simply not always worth the short-term cost, be it political or monetary.
Are criticisms of the President’s refusal to allocate more money deserved? Perhaps. The details of the budget debate are not clear to me at this time and they were not elaborated upon in the article. It would therefore be premature to make assumptions about Bush’s reasoning for cutting spending on the Corps of Engineers. If a closer investigation of the matter revealed, for example, that the initial proposal to be a public works boondoggle, would anyone have blamed the President at the time for cutting funding? On the other hand, if accusations by the Democrats that Bush’s motivation was a reshuffling of resources to pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq are true – in other words Bush consciously prioritized tax cuts and the war over domestic spending intended to protect American citizens – then some degree of responsibility certainly lays with the President. It does not mean that he deliberately ignored the safety or well being of these citizens, but in the end he simply made an unfortunate decision. The bitterly ironic fact that in July the White House attempted to block $1 billion to be used for the restoration of coastal wetlands but just yesterday asked Congress for $10.5 billion as the first installment of aid seems to support this point.
Should Bush accept responsibility for this decision? This is irrelevant. Hoping for contriteness from this President might soothe some raw nerves around the country, but it is unlikely to happen, unrealistic to expect, and in the short-term not much will change as a result. The President will adopt a serious, but positive sounding, forward-looking stance, not acknowledging any missteps of his own, as he has done since taking office following every major catastrophe, natural or otherwise. Bush supporters will unquestionably stand behind the President as they have in the face of past criticisms over tax cuts or the war. Those who do not support Bush will continue to be out for his blood. And perhaps a small number of Americans might experience disenchantment great enough to shift their political allegiance. In the long-term, if combined with growing dissatisfaction over the war in Iraq, rising oil prices, or some other unforeseen disaster, might reflect negatively on the President, but for now the issue is rather moot.
Partisan politics aside, we are all faced with choices and no one gets everything right. We cannot expect Bush to get it all right either. Certainly the decisions he makes as President may have greater consequences than those made by you or me on a daily basis, but another point of similarity is that in the end we must all bear the consequences of our decisions and Bush is no exception. It is hard to say at this point exactly what those consequences might be.
I agree that this issue is irrelevant. But Bush should still be ashamed. Why are people still dying after almost a week? Why hasn’t the National Guard taken full control of the situation and staged a mass relocation of the people of New Orleans? This seems outrageous. Of course, the situation might be worse than I know (for one thing I read that there is only one useable road to get people out of the area).
As usual, somethingawful.com has probably the best commentary I’ve seen on this. I am really scared what might happen if a disaster strikes the East Coast.
Anyway, enjoy your long weekend. I’ll be braving the highway and heading up to CT.
A story from back on August 28th, when the evacuation order was finally given.
That’s honestly completely ridiculous. Bush declared it a disaster area on Saturday before the storm. The mayor insisted that there was no need to evacuate until fairly late Sunday, and apparently only did so at the urging of Bush. That’s completely and utterly insane. (As are the tales of some many Louisiana police quitting, running away, or joining in looting.)
National Guard is state-controlled, under the direction of Gov. Blanco. Takes up to 72 hours to mobilize, should’ve been mobilized beforehand. Other states did offer their National Guard units as well. The regular federal troops can’t come in without a formal request from the Governor. (Posse Comitatus Act, subject to Act IV of the Constitution.) Apparently the Mayor didn’t even know this, and no request came in for a long time.
There are very few usable roads. BUT, that applies to getting in as well. No usable ways out mean no usable ways to get in to “take control of the situation.” Still, buses should’ve been ready to take people out (the photos of the unused flooded schoolbuses are ridiculous) and evacuation should absolutely have been ordered earlier to have a chance to get tourists and people without cars out.
Also it seems like a lot of people thought that the city had been spared on Monday, and not until the levees started being breached Tuesday did they realize the true extent of the problem.
The total lack of provision for people who couldn’t get out is appalling. Note the mayor saying that “anyone who anyone who could leave the city should.” Umm, what about people who couldn’t?
Yeah, the near-miss from Ivan last year certainly didn’t help. Made people feel like that they always cry wolf over these things.
The other thing is that clearly no one was really prepared for the looting and rioting that started so soon afterwards. New Orleans has always been a corrupt, lawless city, but still.
Perhaps blaming Bush for the breech of the levees is somewhat rash, after all the problems with the system have been known for quite some time and while Bush is guilty of failing to adequately address them, so are a number of other people at all levels of government, industry, and society.
What Bush DOES deserve blame for is the decimation of FEMA. I’m not going to get into details here since everyone reading this probably already has a good idea, but I’m frankly disgusted. I would also like to say that I am disgusted not just with Bush and his Republican comrades that drafted the legislation that folded FEMA into the behemoth DHS, recued its budget, appointed an incompetent director, and ultimately crippled it, but also with the Democratic ‘opposition’ who failed to oppose these bone-headed moves and the press that failed to adequately report on them until disaster had already struck.
I’m sure that people out there can point to moments of Democratic opposition or media reportage on the damage to FEMA, but the fact is that if I, as someone who is relatively well informed, hadn’t known about the problem before, then I don’t think it can fairly be said to have been much of a public issue.
I would also like to say that I am disgusted not just with Bush and his Republican comrades that drafted the legislation that folded FEMA into the behemoth DHS, recued its budget, appointed an incompetent director, and ultimately crippled it, but also with the Democratic ‘opposition’ who failed to oppose these bone-headed moves and the press that failed to adequately report on them until disaster had already struck.
Hell yes. The absurdly lopsided votes on the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, and the Iraq War are a monkey on the Dem back it will never be able to get off. So Bush decided to loot the US — what did one expect from a neocon and Republican President? But he could only do so with Democrat permission……
I can’t seem to write or think about Katrina without getting volcanically pissed……hat’s off to your restrained posting.
Michael
You can’t place 100% of the blame for FEMA on Bush either. As much as I hate him and would like to see him go down for this, there’s no way one person could do that much damage alone. Several dozen, if not hundred people share blame for this.
You can straight-up blame the Bush administration for the problems with FEMA’s mis-management of the situation. They were a pretty competent organization until they were restructured under Homeland Security. Now, they’re utterly clueless.
Some of the things they’ve done are totally illogical. Wal Mart (for publicity reasons, I’m sure) sent 3 18-wheelers filled with drinking water after the flood, and the 3 trucks were turned away by FEMA because they said they already had enough drinking water. There are other stories of things like that if you poke around the internet.
So, while I can’t say that Bush is to blame for all this, he is ultimately responsible for the overall slow armed forces response and the extreme FEMA mis-management. Like the sign says, “the buck stops here.”
I know it’s not the most popular view right now, but the president is to blame for the critical breaking point of this disaster.
As the leader of the Nation, as demonstrated in 9/11, the president must be visable and active during times of national crisis. While State and City officials are most at-fault of the handling of the events Saturday through Tuesday morning, with a lack of preparedness and execution of evacuation plans. BUT, and a big BUT, when it became evident Tuesday, that the disaster was escalating, The president had to grasp the situation and get his appointees to be there by Wednsday morning. He had to. It became obvious to the world, to everybody, it seems, but Him. As anyone who has ever been in a senior management position knows, you are responsible for the conduct and performance of your subordinate managers. That is why you pick good, competent people to work for you and you keep them if you move on to a different organization. That is cronyism at its best. Cronyism at its worse is when you surround yourself with people who are afraid to get on the wrong side of your ego to at the expense of tactical performance. Guess which case scenario we have here. Bush is to blame because he is an incompetent who surrounds himself with “Yes” men and women at the expense of good results. See the pattern folks. We need more people not afraid to be called “Bush Bashers” and see the pattern. If not, we will fail as a nation. Honest to God..