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September 27, 2005

The silence of the lambs

The next steaming pile of responsibility dodging by a member of Team Bush is in full swing.

Former FEMA Director ( and current FEMA consultant..yeah, you read that right) Michael Brown gave testimony today, shoveling up all the blame at the State of Louisiana for the problems after Hurricane Katrina:

Former FEMA director Michael Brown aggressively defended his role in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and put much of the blame for coordination failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," two days before the storm hit, Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.

Multitudes of pixels have already gone forth demonstrating the fundamental lack of competence on the part of Brown. He quite obviously didn't know what he was doing and it's nonsensical to rehash (again) the myriad of things he did and didn't do.

That said, Brown's statements to the sham Republican committee alledgedly investigating the government failures after Katrina is looking more and more like a big set up.

The federal government needs to demonstrate that the states can't manage themselves in a disaster. The cause du jour for the White House is now a complete usurpation of local authority following these large scale messes.

Am I the only one cringing at the idea of the United States Military coming into a region of the US, completely taking over and residents having absolutely no local recourse contact if and when there are problems? Not to mention the fundamental legal problems of the military being used as domestic law enforcement.

Prior to Bush taking office, this country had a functioning National Guard at the various state levels whose job it is to be called up by a governor under such circumstances. The Guard has been decimated by Bush's policies. Had they not been squandered in Iraq, the Louisiana Guard would have been available in force to deal with any security and rescue issues rising from Katrina. Further, had FEMA not been turning away assistance from various local, state and international entitites, many of those in crisis would have been able to access resources.

It's apparent to me that the Republicans are going to use these fake investigatory hearings to drum up excuses for widening federal authority.

I can't believe that conservatives aren't screaming about this. The lambs of the GOP have truely been silenced.

Posted by Carla at September 27, 2005 10:18 AM