Final Post on Katrina?

Maybe not, but I hope I don't have to write too much more on Katrina. Before I get back to attacking Bush, I'd like to point out some of the people and institutions that actually performed well in the general clusterfuck:

-The Coast Guard. Without waiting for federal authority or any BS, the Coast Guard went in to New Orleans immediately and has rescued thousands. The helo crews are apparently flying right up to the legal limits of flight time, before their commanding officers refuse to let them fly any more. Many thanks for the Coast Guard.

-Lt. Gen Honore, the US Army general who took control of the situation after things began to fall apart. Some of the praise coming his way is probably the usual drooling for the black berets, but he actually seems to deserve much of it. It's no accident that the situation improved dramatically after actual US Army troops marched in - until then, all Honore could do was "reccomend" to the Mayor and Governor what to do. So kudos to him, too.

I'm sure there are endless others, but these two are the first I've heard where nobody - nobody - has said a bad word about them. If only we could say that about others...

The situation around Bush, it turns out, was about as bad as everybody assumed. Via Brad Delong, Newsweek reports:

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington.

Read that again. "The bad news... was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington." Apparently, the bad news wasn't that a city of 2 million people, America's largest port, had been destroyed. The "bad news" was that Bush's vacation would be cut short. Newsweek continues:

President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace....

But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around.... When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

I'd like people to bring their minds back to ye olden days of 2000 - during the election, it was said that Bush's... shall we say, lack of intellectual rigor? would be compensated for by the people he surrounded himself with.

Of course, we now know that isn't true. Even when the "grownups" were in the Bush Administration - and the list of grownups may begin and end with Colin Powell - Bush was still the President, and he was still so arrogant and stupid that he refused to take good advice. Now, four years later, the obvious result - he's surrounded by yes men who are literally afraid to tell him the obvious truths.

That he was installed in 2000 is an enduring blot on America's image. That he was elected in 2004 is America's shame.