Kevin's right, piling on Mike Brown will get old. But, let's not stop piling on the man who hired him and nor, frankly, the senator who didn't even try to do his job when he presided over his confirmation.
Yglesias thinks my previous question about national greatness being for other people boiled down to an accusation of hypocrisy. There was an element of that, I suppose but it certainly wasn't the central point of the question. It isn't simply a matter of "why ask others to sacrifice for your notion of greatness when you aren't willing to yourself." Whether or not David Brooks joins the military or the peace corps, or did previously (no on both accounts) should not necessarily impact his ability to imagine that the country would be better if more people did so. What I was referring to was more along the lines of what Yglesias has in the post linked. This "national greatness" stuff is largely about appealing to a few peoples' aesthetic desires, and its an aesthetic desire largely borne out of inability to participate in anything which personally gives you that sense of greatness. It's imagining that if only your favorite football team wins, you'll feel good. You will, probably, for a day or two but that's about it. You'd get a lot more satisfcation out of joining the local flag football league and winning your own championship.
I don't think David Brooks need to join the peace corps before he tells me I should, but I think maybe if David Brooks would just go and join the goddamn peace corps himself (peace corps here being symbol of any number of things he might participate in) he might get something out of it which will make him less concerned with the rest of the country conforming to some aesthetic.
It's going to be boring, monotonous, dreary work, mostly leading to a bunch of boring, monotonous stories that no one cares much about. It's going to involve maps and city council meetings and minutes and documents and building permits and construction contracts and titles. But, it will, if done right, also involve people.
Please, press, both local and national, do your job following the saga of the reconstruction of New Orleans. There are going to be land grabs and corruption and bribery and efforts by the NO elite to keep the poor from returning.
Please, follow the story. You'll be the only watchdog for this.
NPR takes a lot of beating from here, usually, but these timesline reports that they established are stunning. They're really too long to provide much of a useful excerpt, but they should be read through by everyone.
ZWERDLING: Now it's Wednesday afternoon. Local officials like Walter Maestri say they haven't seen the food or water or medical supplies that state and federal officials promised.
Mr. MAESTRI: You know, we're hearing all kinds of excuses. We're hearing all kinds of rationales that `We don't step in until the locals ask.' Well, you know, the asking was going on.
SULLIVAN: While Maestri is waiting for supplies, FEMA contractors like Dan Wessel are trying to send them. Wessel owns Cool Express of Wisconsin, one of the main companies under contract by FEMA to bring ice and water to the area. First, he says, his fleet waits two days for FEMA to give the go-ahead. Then, he says, FEMA sends the deliveries to the wrong place.
Mr. DAN WESSEL (Owner, Cool Express): Our first trucks got staged in Montgomery, Alabama. The second trucks, second wave, got staged in Dallas, Texas.
SULLIVAN: When they are finally redirected to Louisiana and other areas that actually need supplies, there is no one around to greet the trucks or distribute the ice and water.
Mr. WESSEL: We are told to go to a certain location. We get there. There's nobody there. We don't know what to do. So it was my driver fending for himself. But pretty well what they did is they opened up the doors and let people take the water and ice.
ZWERDLING: By Thursday, there seems to be a total disconnect between what's going on on the ground and what officials in Washington say is happening on the ground. That morning, Mayor Nagin goes on local radio.
(Soundbite of local radio broadcast)
Mayor NAGIN: I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country, and get that (censored) moving to New Orleans.
ZWERDLING: Meanwhile, top officials in the Bush administration are painting a different picture. In fact, the secretary of Homeland Security sounds like he doesn't know what's been going on at the convention center in New Orleans for the past two days. Here's Michael Chertoff on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
(Soundbite of previous broadcast)
Secretary MICHAEL CHERTOFF (Department of Homeland Security): I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water.
Reader g writes in with a fun game. Who's your FEMA flunky? If, like g, you're from Seattle then your regional FEMA person is qualified to be a FEMA flunky because he was::
-- county campaign co-chair for Bush in 2000.
-- degree from diploma mill.
Luckily for me, my FEMA flunky, who of course is only an "acting" regional director due to her obvious actual qualifications, is no flunky at all and appears to be a very qualified and career FEMA employee. One of the few.
My guess is that Amtrak's massive increase of commuter fares is designed to make a relatively well-off segment of their ridership squeal loudly. If not, well, I guess they're just not that interested in the commuter fares.
WASHINGTON - Amtrak fares for monthly passes on the Northeast Corridor will increase as much as 59 percent effective Sept. 20, and tickets for other service will go up as much as 7.5 percent, the railroad announced yesterday.
Rising energy costs and other expenses were cited as the reasons for the fare increases.
The national railroad also confirmed that it would end service at the Cornwells Heights station in lower Bucks County at the end of October.
Amtrak officials said that most fare increases would average between 5 percent and 7 percent, but that costs for commuters who pay steeply discounted rates for multiple trips or monthly passes would rise much more.
For commuters from Philadelphia's 30th Street Station to New York, the price of a monthly pass would rise from $633 to $1,008, a 59 percent increase. The $53 one-way fare to New York, by contrast, would go up about $4, Amtrak said.
"... I went to Florida a few days after President Bush did to observe the damage from Hurricane Andrew. I had dealt with a lot of natural disasters as governor, including floods, droughts, and tornadoes, but I had never seen anything like this. I was surprised to hear complaints from both local officials and residents about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handling the aftermath of the hurricane. Traditionally, the job of FEMA director was given to a political supporter of the President who wanted some plum position but who had no experience with emergencies. I made a mental note to avoid that mistake if I won. Voters don't chose a President based on how he'll handle disasters, but if they're faced with one themselves, it quickly becomes the most important issue in their lives." Bill Clinton, My Life (p. 428)
THE COST OF CRONYISM [Rod Dreher] It would be very wrong, I believe, to let the ignominious Michael Brown be the scapegoat for FEMA's sins. Check out this front-pager from the WaPo. Turns out that a raft of FEMA's top leaders have little or no emergency management experience, but are instead politically well connected to the GOP and the White House. This is a scandal, a real scandal. How is it possible that four years after 9/11, the president treats a federal agency vital to homeland security as a patronage prize? The main reason I've been a Bush supporter all along is I trusted him (note past tense) on national security -- which, in the age of mass terrorism, means homeland security too. Call me naive, but it's a real blow to learn that political hacks have been running FEMA, of all agencies of the federal government! What if al-Qaeda had blown the New Orleans levees? How much worse would the crony-led FEMA's response have been? Would conservatives stand for any of this for one second if a Democrat were president? If this is what Republican government means, God help the poor GOP Congressmen up for re-election in 2006.
Much of the necessary response to Katrina would've been similar to that for any type of disaster, include many much-discussed acts of terrorism. I'm all for going to kill the bad guys after a terrorist act, but I'd also like to, you know, not let people die in the streets if its preventable.
Here in the tiny town of St. Gabriel, nearly 70 miles from New Orleans, FEMA has turned a massive, 125,000-square-foot warehouse into a morgue to process and identify the bodies. Medical examiners have now started round-the-clock operations to X-ray, photograph, fingerprint and take DNA samples from the victims.
Mayor George Grace says the dead could exceed even the town's own population of 6,000. GEORGE GRACE, MAYOR OF ST. GABRIEL, LOUISIANA: This is our contribution to the overall tragedy. And this is the only role that we were chosen to play, and we intend to play that role.
AMANPOUR: Most residents we found, like Evelyn Stiller (ph) and her family, say it's the least they can do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it was my family member, I wouldn't want them sitting on the interstate waiting for somebody to come collect them.
AMANPOUR: But in this poor town, average annual income $9,000, a few people do fear property values and even their health could be affected. But the blunt reaction of Theresa Roy, who owns a small grocery store, startled us, with her apparent preference for a morgue, rather than a shelter.
THERESA ROY, RESIDENT OF ST. GABRIEL: I'd rather have them here dead than alive. And at least they're not robbing you and you have to worry about feeding them.
AMANPOUR: Still, Theresa does have sympathy.
ROY: They have to go somewhere. These are people's families. They have to -- they still have to have dignity.
Before the official announcement that Vice Admiral Allen was taking over Katrina duties from Brown, he'd already been scheduled as a guest on Fox News Sunday.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EMPLOYEES URGE SANTORUM TO RETRACT HIS MISGUIDED REMARKS
The National Weather Service Employees Union issued the following statement today in response to Rick Santorum's misguided comments about the performance of the National Weather Service concerning Hurricane Katrina.
"The bottom line is that we did our job well and everyone knows it. By falsely claiming that we got it wrong, Rick Santorum is continuing his misguided crusade against the National Weather Service. It’s unfortunate that Senator Santorum would try to use this tragedy to push his own agenda. Senator Santorum's comments are aimed at jumpstarting his bizarre stalled legislation to undermine the mission of the National Weather Service, legislation that has failed to garner the support of even one of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate.” said Paul Greaves, President of NWSEO. The early warnings about Hurricane Katrina issued by the National Weather Service have been praised for their accuracy by news organizations such as NBC News, The New York Times and even internationally by The London Times.
"The fact is that we issued several warnings about the oncoming storm. Sadly, many of those warnings fell on deaf ears.
"We urge Senator Santorum to retract his remarks about the National Weather Service. Senator Santorum would be providing a better service to the nation if he focused his efforts on helping the victims of this hurricane, instead of lashing out against the hardworking men and women of the National Weather Service who prove their worth each day." said Mr. Greaves.
With thousands likely dead and a massive aid and reconstruction project requiring competent leadership, what is the priority of the Bush administration? Making sure Bush doesn't look bad. I think this event has shown the limits of their "words speak louder than actions" approach to everything, and it's a shame. At almost any step of the way - up to and even INCLUDING now - had they decided that actions might actually be important Bush would still have a chance to ride this one to heroism - and, incidentally, helped the victims. That isn't to say PR wouldn't play a part of that, but it's PR which requires a bit more than the "message: I care" approach his father pioneered.
WASHINGTON - There's an intense damage-control debate at the White House over whether President Bush should name a Katrina relief czar, and the idea's backers are pushing former mayor Rudy Giuliani as a dream candidate. But some top Bush aides think a brand-name disaster boss like Giuliani, dubbed "America's Mayor" for his leadership after 9/11, or former secretary of state Colin Powell would remind Americans of the administration's sluggish initial response to the hurricane.
"You don't want someone overshadowing the President," said an official in the "ride it out" camp. "That leaves him looking weak."
Living as they do in Washington I suppose one shouldn't be surprised that the Washington Post editorial board is incapable of seeing that everything isn't just about politics. Even real live politicians, and certainly plenty of other people tangentially involved in the business of politics, occasionally may be motivated by more than political opportunism which the Post seems to ascribe to all of the president's critics. As has been clear all along, only public outcry was motivating the Bush administration to do anything. Only harsh press coverage, where Brownie and Chertoff seemed to be getting all of their information from (if days late), seemed to make them aware of the realities on the ground. And, finally, only public criticism by politicians seemed to really inspire them to act.
Some of the administration's political opponents are reacting to the administration's fumbling with barely disguised glee, hoping it will hobble the administration's policy plans and hurt the GOP in the 2006 elections and beyond. But all Americans, Democrats and Republicans, ought to hope that the administration will right itself sufficiently to oversee an effective recovery. And that's not just for the sake of Katrina's survivors. For the president to be rendered a lame duck more than three years before he leaves office would not serve the country well, at home or abroad.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
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