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Hurricane Katrina Response Shameful at Best
This is not a political web site; but since I and most of its visitors are American, that's a good excuse to deviate from the norm and offer observations about this past week - as all media serving America should do.
I can't help but picture President George Bush striking the famous Alfred E. Newman pose of "What, me worry?" when considering how poorly the federal government responded to Hurricane Katrina.
Michael Brown, FEMA Director, is a disgrace. Any person watching him interviewed is left with no doubt. Yet, President Bush has offered this assessment: "You're doing a heck of a job."
As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd points out: "The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island." Draw your own conclusion.
The Army Corps of Engineers budget for New Orleans has been cut three years in a row - diverted to Homeland Security.
Active duty military personnel are patrolling New Orleans' streets. LA National Guard troops are patrolling Baghdad. What's wrong with this picture?
President Bush has acknowledged he doesn't watch network newscasts or read newspapers. Would he have been more adequately informed of the damage, in a more expeditious manner, if he had?
How could a Secratary of State be so cold as to go on a shoe-shopping trip at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue, and then cap that by playing tennis while a hundred thousand people pled for help? Today, she is boasting of the government's recent response.
I, for one, am tired of hearing this administration answer questions that were not asked. We now have a pattern (with a long track record) of dodging specifics and answering with generalities. It has become tiring to hear a glossing over of criticism with words that reflect the little that has been done. (Apply this to any time the President speaks on any subject.)
This sidestepping of the criticism is magnified with media reports of Hurricane Katrina because, unlike Iraq, there is no censorship. There will be no ban on running pictures of caskets either.
Perhaps, if President Bush would quit surrounding himself with supporters whenever a personal appearance is made, he would get a taste of what Americans are saying about his administration.
The words "not good enough" are becoming the words heard most after the administration argues it responded as best it could under the circumstances. No words adequately describe the disgust generated by its poor reaction to this tragedy.
What we've witnessed over the past nine days is not an abnormality in government, but the result of an administration's policy to stay isolated from reality. All is lost as we stay "on course," and officials refuse to look at the pain it's causing America.
Related Article:
Editor & Publisher
Posted:
12:04 8/25/2005
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