Nice Speech, But We Need Action

by hilzoy

I thought the President gave a good speech. The trouble is, a speech isn't what's needed. Neither, for that matter, are more trips to the Gulf coast. What we need is some sign that the President meant what he said when he took responsibility for the failures in the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

The first step, without which any verbal assumption of responsibility is hollow, is to establish an independent commission to investigate what went wrong. This is, of course, what the Democrats are proposing. In this case, the Democrats are right. Only an independent investigation will have the credibility to actually establish what went wrong, so that we can learn from it.

The President has promised that his own administration will investigate itself. But this isn't nearly enough, for two reasons. First, the administration has no credibility on this score. The President also promised us that he and his administration would get to the bottom of the Valerie Plame leak, and we can see how that turned out. Second, even if the administration had not squandered all credibility in the past, no administration can investigate itself and expect the results of that investigation to be credible to the American people. If the President orders such an investigation in addition to others, well and good; but by itself it is not nearly enough.

The Republicans in Congress want to hold their own investigation, which they call 'bipartisan' despite the fact that, last time I checked, no Democrats were participating in it. (Apparently they belong to the Humpty Dumpty school of rhetoric: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'") But a Congressional investigation has the same problems as an administration investigation. First, the Republicans in Congress have completely failed to exercise oversight over this administration since they took over. They deliberately blocked any investigation into the administration's use of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, for instance. They have thereby squandered any credibility they might have. Second, while they obviously had less to do with the response to Katrina than the administration, it is not inconceivable that a thorough investigation would consider whether Congress had done a decent job in matters relating both to appropriations for FEMA, levees, and so forth, and to oversight. They should not be in the position of investigating themselves.

An independent commission, if it were set up along the lines of the 9/11 Commission, would have both Democrats and Republicans. Its members would be people with records of public service and (in some cases) emergency management. There is no reason to think that it would have to be in some way slanted against the administration. The only reason to object to the formation of such a commission that I can think of is a desire to avoid serious independent scrutiny. I can understand why the administration might have want that, but I can't see why the rest of us should indulge them.

If the administration continues to block an impartial, independent investigation of the response to Katrina, then I see no reason to think that President Bush meant what he said when he accepted responsibility for the federal failures. As I wrote earlier, one of the points of ascribing moral responsibility is to see who or what is responsible for something going wrong, and how things can be changed so that whatever mistakes were made are not repeated. Without an impartial investigation of what went wrong and a determination to fix it, assuming responsibility is just a form of words.

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

This is really all anyone needs to know about how seriously the President takes Katrina:

Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effortlink

It's a public relations disaster: Bush & Co want to fix the public perception, not the reality.

And, since Rove has only one strategy - divide and attack - presumably the main strategy will be, whatever's actually done for Halliburton and SCI and other corporations who expect to do as well out of Katrina as they've done out of Iraq, to make Democrats, and indeed anyone who criticizes Bush, look bad.

Actually helping people? Low priority. Actually taking responsibility? Not even there.

[bob mcmanus]

The boldness of their moves, their indifference to public perception, their total control of Congressional appropriations frightens me.

Josh Marshall has a bet on what major media outlet will be the last to mention that Karl Rove is in charge of reconstruction. The last.

Meteor Blades Here are some links about where the money is going.

[felixrayman]

What would your proposed investigation investigate? This is conservative ideology in action.

Nothing failed here. Democracy triumphed. This is small government at work. The corpses floating in the water in New Orleans are victims of an ideology to which the majority of Americans has subscribed.

If you wish to investigate something, investigate the voters. They chose this.

[a]

Shorter hilzoy: "screw the New Orleanians, the main thing is the Bush-bashing".

Pretty pathetic, really.

[Gromit]

George Bush is the Alcoholic President.

Not literally; I know he cleaned up his act in that regard decades ago. But figuratively. He smashed up the car in an ugly DUI incident a couple of weeks ago, but not before gambling away the savings and generally behaving badly. Now here he is on the doorstep with a dozen roses and a lot of pretty promises about how good everything is going to be from now on, how he's going to straighten up and fly right, and come on baby, you know I love you...

Yeah, he says he's taking responsibility now, when he's feeling sober and shame-faced, and when he realizes he needs us to sign the checks, but when push comes to shove it's always antiwar protestors or "obstructionist" Democrats or people playing the "blame game" who are the real source of his problems, never you-know-who. After this many screwups, and after he has failed to take real, practical responsibility for any of those mistakes, the real question isn't whether he will really, truly, honest-to-God change his ways. The only real question is if the American people will, once again, be suckers for his sweet-talk and give him one more chance to screw up all over again.

I'll be offline for a few days. I'm sorry I'll miss the remainder of this discussion. I mean no offense to actual alcoholics by employing this metaphor. It's a serious disease. But then, so is what is inflicting our nation at the moment.

[blogbudsman]

I just found a new hero. Aaron Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish. No matter how hard the CBS interviewer tried to drag him down, he was upbeat, focused and looking forward. He decried the 'witch hunting' of the Democrats and the Media (sound familiar here?) and pledged that the citizens of the Gulf States would fall in behind the Presidents leadership and rebuild their lives. Broussard for Governor!

[blogbudsman]

And Jes, perception IS reality. Always has been.

[notyou]

And Jes, perception IS reality. Always has been.

Meanwhile, despite appearances, the Earth, which is round, spins on its axis and revolves around the sun.

[cleek]

perception IS reality. Always has been

which explains Bush's abysmal approval ratings, overalll and for Katrina specifically.

[kenB]

perception IS reality. Always has been.

That's not how I see it.

[CaseyL]

George Bush put Karl Rove in charge of Gulf Coast Reconstruction.

Can any of Bush's supporters on this board explain what a political strategist is doing in charge of disaster recovery?

Particularly a political strategist whose only known talent is for filthy political tricks?

[slarrow]

First post here. I'm one of those conservatives Charles was hoping might participate in some comment threads. I wasn't planning to, but I have some sympathy for his position, so here goes. Warning: I am long-winded.

hilzoy says:

Its members would be people with records of public service and (in some cases) emergency management. There is no reason to think that it would have to be in some way slanted against the administration. The only reason to object to the formation of such a commission that I can think of is a desire to avoid serious independent scrutiny.

Beg pardon, but there is no reason to think it would be slanted against the administration, especially after you've disqualified a purely Congressional and a purely administration-based investigation? Given those suspicions of partisanship, would you consider putting Bush partisans on such a committee an attempt to whitewash, despite whatever expertise they might have?

I ask because you cite the 9/11 commission as a model, which included partisans like Richard Ben-Veniste and conflicted "experts" like Jamie Gorelick. As a conservative, I didn't like that panel because I realize that "bipartisan" does not necessarily mean "balanced." I think the same political forces that generated the 9/11 commission (with its grandstanding and partisan sniping) are behind the call for a Katrina commission. Yet I have no reason to believe this?

If the desire to hide things is the "only" reason you can think of to oppose such a commission, let me offer a few more for your consideration.

(1) It's slow and offers a reason for delay. Proposed changes could be put off until the final report is issued, changes that could be made after a hard-headed look at the problem by the people who have the direct authority to fix them.

(2) It could easily turn into a partisan Bush-bashing circus. Make it public, and the locals will desperately blame the feds in an attempt to save their political careers (with the expected piling on by the usual anti-Bush suspects.) Make it private, and many will complain (including hilzoy?) that it's a whitewash. Do we really need another venue for grandstanding that generates more heat than light?

(3) Government commissions tend to be staffed by professional government types who live political, CYA lives. Recommendations, then, tend to be attempts at reorganizing power structures, giving new opportunities to catch miscreants but also offering new places for slackers to hide. Consequently, I doubt the effectiveness of the recommendations of such a commission. (Now make the members part of the logistics teams at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, and you might get somewhere. Then again, those people have better things to do than listen to a bunch of scuttling bureaucrats and politicians try to pass off the blame.)

(4) Would the purpose of such a commission be to assign blame or to come up with solutions? I know the answer is supposed to be "both", but is the nature of such commissions (a glorified committee, recall) to produce effective solutions? Forgive me, but I've seen too many good ideas ruined by committees to have that kind of faith. Given hilzoy's distrust of Republicans and a demand for the commission, I strongly suspect such a commission would be fixated on assigning blame. I also predict partisans would use these proceedings to inflict political damage instead of fixing problems, especially during the 2006 elections, and how does that improve local and federal disaster recovery plans?

Enough of the filibuster. But really--no reason?

[slarrow]

Ah, a cutoff; I must have passed a word limit. Must be more disciplined in the future. To finish:

(Now make the members part of the logistics teams at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, and you might get somewhere. Then again, those people have better things to do than listen to a bunch of scuttling bureaucrats and politicians try to pass off the blame.)

(4) Would the purpose of such a commission be to assign blame or to come up with solutions? I know the answer is supposed to be "both", but is the nature of such commissions (a glorified committee, recall) to produce effective solutions? Forgive me, but I've seen too many good ideas ruined by committees to have that kind of faith. Given hilzoy's distrust of Republicans and a demand for the commission, I strongly suspect such a commission would be fixated on assigning blame. I also predict partisans would use these proceedings to inflict political damage instead of fixing problems, especially during the 2006 elections, and how does that improve local and federal disaster recovery plans?

Enough of the filibuster. But really--no reason?

[slarrow]

(Oops--bad browser refresh led me to believe there was a word limit. If possible please delete last post. If not, kindly ignore.)

[McDuff]

This is the state of politics right now?

A commission is not "independent" because it contains an equal number of people ideologically committed to twisting the facts to favour both supposed sides of the issue.

[John Thullen]

Slarrow: I roughly share your cynicism regarding governmental commissions. But hilzoy's distrust of Republicans would have no effect on the makeup or the deliberations of a commission, given her status in the power heirarchy, that is, no status whatsoever, although I'm willing to begin a Draft Hilzoy for President movement.

Also this: "..., I strongly suspect such a commission would be fixated on assigning blame."

Well, we certainly can't have people running around assigning blame. After all, courtesy of the Republican Party, we've had 70 years of assigning blame for all social, economic, and governmental problems in the United States, and we all know who the perpetrators are.

If there is a commission, however, let's wait until Karl Rove has rasputined the $50 billion. We'll get two for the price of one.

The following is not aimed at Slarrow.

Let's see: Karl Rove has been given the New Orleans reconstruction portfolio. John Kyl of Arizona is saying this would be the optimum time to start pushing Republican ideology into all walks of American life, using the Katrina survivors as a laboratory. Tom Tancredo and his little demagogic caucus in the House are pushing huge budget cuts and the selling of Federal lands. "He looks at this as a historic opportunity --handed to Congress by God -- to actually reduce the size of government.", according to today's Rocky Mountain News.

They love Katrina. Think about that. They are making it their own. LIke 9/11, it's their favorite disaster.

Velociraptors and Signorney Weaver's Aliens come to mind. Between sequels, they manage to morph and adapt some new awful viciousness, but they have the same old goals -- universal, inexorable, reptilian. Who knew the Aliens would come back like sychronized swimmers in the funky waters of New Orleans -- sh--, they can swim underwater, too! And the velociraptors in that last "Jurassic Park" -- now they can talk and make picnic lunches out of the tactical nuclear weapons dropped on them last time, before they continue removing your flesh from the bone.

Somebody -- of any political stripe -- deny to me that Bob McManus has been wrong about anything regarding these people.

End of rope here, like Edward's end-of-rope post yesterday regarding Ratzinger. It's time the debate broke out into entirely new, fresh, and savage territory.

[liberal japonicus]

Hey slarrow,
It seems to me that a commission should necessarily ask some embarassing questions of DHS, because it is not simply disaster recovery plans that need to be improved, but why, 4 years after 9-11, we can have this kind of disaster response. Given both the amount of deference that Republicans have given this administration and the unwillingness to make the administration look bad, it is difficult to imagine a non bipartisan commision would be able to ask the kind of probing questions that would be needed to make sure that we do have an idea to protect cities against a terrorist attack. (take a look at some of the questions that the republican Senators are asking Roberts, and you get an idea of how things might go 'so Director Chertoff, are you sure that your department did everything it could' 'Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think we did.' 'well, thank you for enlightening us on this vexing question')

There are two counter arguments to this that I can think of, which are, the danger of a terrorist attack is greatly overstated, or that this disaster is so completely different from a dirty bomb being exploded in a major city that a commission analysis of Katrina would not improve our response. But both of these would require a complete rejection of not only folding FEMA into DHS, but would also be contrary to the impression that the administration has been giving. If there is another reason why, please let us know, but the notion that this doesn't need to be investigated by people willing to break into the President's attention ignores the fact that Bush has taken the position that the response was unacceptable.

Anyway, welcome and don't let us liberals frighten you off like we have everyone else ;^)

[hilzoy]

slarrow: W know that this Congress and this President have demonstrated either an unwillingness or an inability to seriously investigate the actions of this administration, however, so if we want to understand what went wrong, we need some body or other to conduct an investigation. Given the alternatives, and also given that Congress and, especially, the administration would be investigating themselves, and it seems to me that the only reasons for objecting to it would have to involve either (a) a desire not to do any investigating at all, or (b) some suspicion that an independent commission would be worse.

The reason I discounted the second was that we don't know who a commission's members would be, or even who would appoint them, and so it's hard to make any objection on that score that isn't just a hunch. I also think that objections of this form work only if you take some alternative to be better. I'm not sure which alternative that would be.

I don't think most liberals would complain about Republicans per se. I wouldn't. Honestly, it's not about party; it's about who will actually do the best job at figuring out what actually went wrong. And the reason for caring about that is that if we don't figure out what went wrong, we can't fix it. Four years after 9/11 showed us that we really needed to prepare for another terrorist attack, we now learn that we have not done some of the basic things we'd need to do in order to deal with the aftermath of an attack. We have to figure out how not to waste another four years doing some other wrong thing.

[slarrow]

John Thullen: my point about fixating blame was to express concern about those merely looking for another political club to hit the President with regardless of the facts. That is a far cry, I claim, from hilzoy's expressed point about the importance of assigning responsibility so we can fix the problem.

Liberal japonicus: certainly, hard questions need to be asked of DHS. I don't think Congressional reluctance would stem from Republicanism, though, so much as it would from the fact that it was Congress' idea to stuff FEMA into DHS and institute years of bureaucratic foot-shuffling. Put a commission on that, though, and the scope expands tremendously.

Now, I'm still unsure precisely how bad this disaster response actually has been; I don't think we'll be in a good position to figure that out until we get the final death toll and a good first estimate of property damage. Then we can start measuring performance and results against expectations. That's another reason why I'm not excited about a commission; the moves prompting it (exacerbated by the President's political admission of culpability) would set it up with a predetermined outcome which, I think, would either lead to untrue assumptions in the fact-gathering process or dismissal of its conclusions after an evaluation of the facts. I mean, if the cries for accountability were formed when the death toll was believed to be 10,000 and the result ends up only 1K-2K, is that really going to make for a good process?

Keep in mind that I am NOT presenting a case as to why we should have NO investigation; I am merely providing the reasons that hilzoy couldn't think of that such a thing might not be so grand.

Oh, and after cutting my teeth in Linux/Microsoft and Free Software/Open Source discussions, I'm not easily frightened. But I can lose patience with tedious and blinkered folk who attempt to accomplish with repetition that which requires reason (which was part of Charles' point, I believe.) But honest, generous debate keeps me sharp. I'll stick around as long as that's prevalent.

[Jeremy Osner]

"we all know how that turned out"

Do we? I thought the investigation was still ongoing.

[John Thullen]

Slarrow: I second LJ's welcome to you.

By the way, I'll do my best to be reasonable, as long as you realize that my method of delivery wears the cloak of metaphorical insanity. Although, like Richard Nixon, the fact is that I might really be insane.

But, my representative is the tedious, blinkered, and repetitive Tom Tancredo, so when I'm unreasonable, it's got nothing to do with you.

[slarrow]

hilzoy: I think you're setting up a false dilemma here. First, I reject the premise that Congress and President Bush will not investigate this step because they haven't "seriously" investigated prior administration actions. (I do not concede, by the way, that no actions of the administration have been seriously investigated/criticized/rethought, nor do I have they have been; without more research, I consider it an open point upon which I have not yet decided what I think.) I think this situation differs in that political pressure will come from the right and give Republican politicians a reason to really want to get this right--as long as the Left doesn't overplay their hand thirsting for blood and cause Republicans to close ranks and treat this as yet another club.

So I think a serious investigation IS possible, and I think there is probably enough competence to figure out what went wrong without involving a public, prominent commission. However, I think this possibility is likely ONLY in the absence of a concerted effort to attach partisan blame (which I do NOT say hilzoy is doing). In those kind of circumstances, though, I think the suspicion that a commission would be worse than another alternative is indeed justified.

I don't know that it will, but I do hope that people figure out the problem so we can fix it (nice formulation there; seems like I've run across it somewhere else.) All of this wrangling about politicians and bureaucrats, though, isn't the real problem. The real problem is that people don't really expect disaster to strike them and thus don't make the kinds of plans and exert the kind of pressure to stop things from happening. Part of that is due to the success President Bush has had in the war on terror (which I will defend but not now; let's stay on point); we haven't been attacked. But the hidden needle in that is the poison of complacency. That's our real vulnerability, and it cuts across all kinds of political and economic divisions.

[nous_athanatos]

Despite the fact that I have signed the petition at MoveOn.org for a real, bi-partisan commission, I really do not have any faith in the effectiveness of any such commission.

The federal government under this administration has given me a profound sense of deja vu because I have worked for people with this management style before. It seems pretty clear that GWB has a vision of how things should work and that he will doggedly cling to these notions despite all evidence to the contrary, blaming failure on poor execution and sabotage.

I think what is needed is for the people in the state and federal agencies responsible for the actual implementation of disaster preparedness and relief programs to evaluate the process and hammer out the details of what went wrong and how to fix them. It is then up to the federal government to make sure that these programs get the resources they need to implement these fixes, whether they meet with their greater ideological vision or not.

This is not a call for smaller government or greater federal control. This is a call for proper perspective--something I despair of finding within a process warred over by two groups who seem unable to focus on anything beyond the next election cycle.

We don't need less bureaucracy, we need better bureaucrats with more autonomy. And where we already have better bureaucrats we need to make sure that we don't get in their way.

[Ken]

"What would your proposed investigation investigate? This is conservative ideology in action.

Nothing failed here. Democracy triumphed. This is small government at work. The corpses floating in the water in New Orleans are victims of an ideology to which the majority of Americans has subscribed.

If you wish to investigate something, investigate the voters. They chose this."

Where's the small government ideology? Are you seriously proposing that the Bush Administration subscribes in any real way to small government ideology? And if the Bush Administration and a voting majority have subscribed to small government ideology, why does Social Security still exist in its present form?

Not only that, the fact that people suffered in New Orleans largely because the State of Louisiana prevented a private organization from supplying them with food and water doesn't exactly drive a stake through small government ideology, now does it?

"It seems to me that a commission should necessarily ask some embarassing questions of DHS, because it is not simply disaster recovery plans that need to be improved, but why, 4 years after 9-11, we can have this kind of disaster response."

Because the main thrust of antiterrorism is prevention, not recovery. Unfortunately, that doesn't work with hurricanes.

[Paul]

And Jes, perception IS reality. Always has been.

"He accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. He remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender, and everything else followed."

A cliché, yes, but worth pointing out that some "conservatives" actually believe--or want to believe--such tripe.

As for Rove, I have to laugh at such a ballsy act of grand larceny. I trust that his pasty skin and his Presidential authority will keep this looter from being shot on sight.

[M. Scott Eiland]

"Very nice--keep up the good work, everyone. Particularly round #867 of whining about Haliburton. I get so cheerful when I read that over my breakfast of condor eggs moistened by the tears of evicted widows."

Yours In Darkness,

KR

[Paul]

Very nice--keep up the good work, everyone.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Osner]

"Because the main thrust of antiterrorism is prevention, not recovery. Unfortunately, that doesn't work with hurricanes."

It does however work reasonably well with levees which are insufficiently sturdy to withstand the hurricanes.

[Morat]

And the cognitative dissonance marches on. I've been watching my Dad rather closely. He's 61, lives outside of Houston, and a very solid Republican.

The contortions he's putting himself through lately can't be healthy for a man his age. He also didn't bother watching Bush's speech.

Very few people I know did. I suspect that Bush has overused the Presidential Address -- there's been far too many "Important Speech" that turns out to be Bush rehashing his topic de jour and containing nothing new.

[bob mcmanus]

"deny to me that Bob McManus has been wrong about anything regarding these people."

Ex cathedra, I make no claims to infallibility, impeccability, or inspiration.
I am, however, famous for my innuendo.

[John Thullen]

M. Scott Eiland:

I thought you had been frightened away. ;)
Welcome back!

[bob mcmanus]

DOJ Memo

No further investigation necessary; tree-huggers drowned Nawleens.

[Francis]

optimistic francis:

Management of massive environmental catastrophes is incredibly difficult. A bi-partisan commission could be valuable in developing a "lessons learned" program applicable across the country to respond to terrorism.

cynical francis:

1. The principals of disaster management are known, and scale across disaster sizes: put competent people in administrative positions with real authority to move state and federal assets around with limited oversight by political patronage appointees.

2. serious disaster specialists, including those advising both republicans and democrats know this. they also know that while al qaeda can sting the US hard, it cannot cause real damage to the US, so they are not all that interested in spending billions of dollars on hardware and planning for an extremely low likelihood event.

3. therefore, the debate about a Katrina commission is pure posturing on both sides. the democrats, who want to embarass the president, want the subpoena power to drag DHS's name through the mud purely for political reasons. the republicans want to protect the president, so they want to creat a commission that will appear to be doing something while actually doing nothing.

4. while a disproportionate share of DHS dollars are going to red states and republican party contributors, incumbent democrats are getting control of a very nice stream of dollars. As the minority party, the democrats recognize that they are doing as well as can be expected and have no real interest in eliminating the gravy train. so no Katrina investigation will take all that hard of a look at misspent homeland security dollars.

Conclusion: cynical francis is more likely correct.

[bob mcmanus]

"Where's the small government ideology? Are you seriously proposing that the Bush Administration subscribes in any real way to small government ideology?"

I alone in the world remain open to this possibility. Ok, Fred Barnes, too.

If the intent is to eliminate the entitlement programs, we have recently seen how difficult it will be, and the catastrophic circumstances that will need to be created to get the job done. Probably total bankruptcy, default, world economic collapse, possible nuclear confrontation.

Not saying that is necessarily the intent of massive federal spending and deficits, just saying I keep an open mind. I am no Karnak.

[socratic_me]

Slarrow: "Oh, and after cutting my teeth in Linux/Microsoft and Free Software/Open Source discussions, I'm not easily frightened. But I can lose patience with tedious and blinkered folk who attempt to accomplish with repetition that which requires reason (which was part of Charles' point, I believe.) But honest, generous debate keeps me sharp. I'll stick around as long as that's prevalent."

As someone who has lived with anywhere from 5-15 CS majors over the last 5 years of my life, and several others who don;t have degrees but are adamant about such things, let me say that all my worries about running you off have been put to rest. That, and, well, coding arguments loaded with an almost religious fervor make me happy :-)

[slarrow]

Cynical Francis makes altogether too much sense (and in far fewer words than I) for my comfort.

[cleek]

That, and, well, coding arguments loaded with an almost religious fervor make me happy

me too

[slarrow]

Yes, well, we computer types probably ought not be so passionate about the merits of CSS vs. table layout or so elegaic bemoaning the sacrificing of elegant code to meet a deadline. But we are.

(And we're also used to being overruled by people who don't understand exactly what it is we do--especially if those people are part of a committee. Hence my distrust of blue-ribbon commissions/panels/etc.)

[Anderson]

Rove. My God.

This administration is like The Aristocrats: the same bad joke, over & over, just differently worded.

[Morat]

Francis: Given the rather...manifest...screwups DHS and FEMA managed over the last few weeks, I think "dragging their names through the mud" would make them cleaner.

While the Democrats are undoubtably salivating over the sheer incompetence and confusion reigning in DHS because pointing that out will benefit them politically, they DO have the bonus of being on the side of angels here too -- pointing it out will help prevent future screwups of this magnitude.

I realize it hardly seems fair or objective that the Democrats would get a twofer out of an independent investigation -- better government AND a political boost -- but that's a sad side effect of the screwups being so heavily concentrated on the GOP side.

"Because it will lead to partisan gain" is not a sufficient cause to block anything. It's politics -- every act of government, from the noble to the venal, will garner SOMEONE political gain.

The DHS need a thorough, open investigation because they screwed the pooch. The investigation will be embarassing to DHS because of the aforementioned pooch screwing, and be an embarassement to Bush because he not only set the thing up and staffed it, but has oversight over it.

[vida]

Recall how adament the administration was against a nonpartisan (or bipartisan?)investigation of 9/11. Only the political clout generated by victim families forced their hand. I am sure that much still remains "secret" but at least some of it came out.
With the R's still in full control, the only way there will be a non (or bi) partisan investigation is if the hurricane victims can shame them into it. Given that they are a much more amorphous and largely less influential sort of group (i.e., poor people), will this happen?

[slarrow]

Interesting piece here about what went right in the Katrina rescue. The author's point is that so much of this bravery and determination simply occurred under the radar. I especially liked this line: "What looked like a hurricane relief breakdown was in fact a press release breakdown."

The events of the story still don't mean that there weren't mistakes and areas for improvement--for one thing, it emphasizes the need for quicker coordination and information gathering on the scene. But it seems quite possible that the Katrina response hasn't been the disaster people think it has, largely due to a bunch of unsung heroes.

Here's the zinger: will certain people be disappointed by that fact? Will certain people feel let down--dare I say cheated?--if all the thud and blunder about Katrina dissipates after all the facts are in?

For your consideration, as I prepare to depart for the weekend (don't check the 'Net on weekends usually--slow Internet connection and too much to do.)

[ral]

slarrow, welcome.

To answer your question directly (from my avowedly partisan point of view): I think the disaster is quite bad enough, I will feel only relief if it turns out that things are no worse than the facts we know so far.

I have to say that your question reminds me of discussions of Iraq.

[Jesurgislac]

Slarrow: Here's the zinger: will certain people be disappointed by that fact?

It will be a great relief if it turns out that not nearly as many people died as looked likely on Tuesday 30th August - or Thursday 1st September.

But I think you should hold off referencing hopes such as The death toll from Katrina in New Orleans will inevitably rise, but it will likely be in the hundreds rather than the thousands, contrary to the ghoulish projections as a "fact" until, well, we know the facts. As I understand it, right now the authorities are only releasing the numbers of identified dead bodies.

Discovering (roughly) the number of casualties at the WTC or the Pentagon was a simple task by comparison. Even if no body was discovered, if someone had gone off to work at the WTC or as a firefighter, or to the Pentagon, and had not come back... then they were almost certainly dead.

What is the strategy for determining the missing/dead from Louisiana? Evacuees are scattered all across the country. I know that SCI's subsidiary Kenyon was hired to do the job of recovering/identifying the dead: who has the task of finding out who is missing and must be presumed dead?

[slarrow]

Jesurgislac: point taken. Consider that sentence to be replaced with this one: "will certain people be disappointed by that, if things really aren't as bad as they seem right now?" Also, I do not mean that to be an accusation but an opportunity to pause for reflection. In the maelstrom of righteous indignation, it is possible to slide into unsavory habits of thought without the occasional gut-check.

Your point about the identified dead is well taken; I may be too optimistic too soon. Regardless, there are twostories that must be told. If the death toll does not rise above a thousand, still the communication breakdowns and flaws in decision making must be examined. But even if the death toll jumps, the people who flew helicopters and ferried people out on boats must also be recognized. As I wrote in a piece in my local paper this week, let us not forget that we are also noble.

Okay, that's it. Good weekend, all.

[liberal japonicus]

The whole question about the number of dead is one that hasn't really been discussed, though I am glad that the MSM hasn't because it would be one of those "X happened so my side is better" "no, X happened because mine is better"

To wit, if we have a low death toll, one could argue that the local and state officials, in charge of first responders, were on the ball. On the other hand, one could argue that a lower death toll absolves the federal government of its sins. I've been painfully consistent that we need to give local officials more room for doubt, because they have less distance and therefore less objectivity, so I obviously lean towards the latter, but I can see one arguing that a lowered death toll could mean that the DHS response was at least closer to adequate than has been claimed.

Why this bothers me is that given this dynamic, we will now have bitter arguments about the death toll and they will be in both directions.

For example, should this death

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, the singer and guitarist who became famous with juke-joint stomp numbers and built a 50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died in his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he’d gone to escape Hurricane Katrina. He was 81.

Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill-health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent, in a telephone interview Saturday. Cady, who received a call from Brown’s manager Jim Bateman, said the musician was with his family at his brother’s house when he passed away Saturday
Brown’s home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New Orleans, was destroyed by the Katrina, which wiped out much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, Cady said.

“He was completely devastated,” Cady said. “I’m sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit but I’m sure it weighed heavily on his soul.”

be counted and whose poor planning does his death represent? (the question is rhetorical, as I recognize there is no way to get agreement on something like this, so I hope that we don't end up arguing it)

It also depresses me to no end to find that my parents lived 30 minutes away from him and I didn't know it. I'm not one of those people who likes to track down the famous, but it makes me wonder.

[hilzoy]

slarrow: I think it's always really important, for all sides, to catch any hint of happiness at bad news, or disappointment at good news, that's motivated by politics. Of course it's a relief if fewer people died.

That said, I don't agree with the RCP piece that the helicopter rescuers were unsung: I think they did a great job, and were celebrated for that. It's just that other pieces of the relief effort did not. When tens of thousands of people are stuck without food, water, electricity, shelter, or medical care for days on end while people bicker bout who has what authority, that's not a press breakdown; that's a breakdown in a part of the relief effort that should never have happened, especially four years after 9/11.

[Paul]

will certain people be disappointed by that fact?

Now that's a question that deserves a counter-question: will certain people be disappointed if certain other people aren't disappointed?

Which is to say, this is a meaningless question without any purpose at all that I can see except advance grievance-mongering. Some of my relatives have already lost everything in this disaster. I assure you, they're disappointed enough already. So, you know, splinters, eyes, etc.