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Fake “Think Tanks” – Spinning Hurricanes (Katrina)

I think every right wing “think tank” and conservative online journal in the country has come out to defend the Bush administration’s complete failure in dealing with this disaster. And while hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes are equal opportunity disasters, right wing “think tanks” are not. They have a single task at hand to rally around their Failure-in-Chief and attempt to spin a consensus that the real blame lies with Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (not to say their own ranks).

One example (and the only one I will use here since they are all saying the same thing, you can Google the rest… think John Locke Foundation etc…) is the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF). EFF’s Bob Williams berates Blanco and Nagin for not making the correct decisions and pathetically tries to give Bush the credit for calling prior to landfall to tell the Governor to get people out of there.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His Office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.

Oh…. by the way you jackass… that WAS A MILLION PEOPLE that needed to evacuate. The best laid plans would have enormous problems evacuating that many people with the limited resources available. And he goes on…..

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.

That may very well be, but knowing those resources would be too thin to manage an evacuation and storm like this, I think much more could have been done, much earlier. Frankly, none of us knows what was going on in the mind of FEMA director Brown. Sounds to me like he was a deer in the headlights. Unable, unprepared, and unqualified to act outside of some established bureaucratic procedure. But I think the people of New Orleans would have forgiven him for breaking protocol.

Should the blame be spread around? I think so. Not that I don’t think Brown is an idiot and should lose his job, and no less to the folks managing the levy system in New Orleans (probably already happened – check this out). And voters can decide the fate of their leadership when or if they get back to Louisiana and vote.

Should WE let Bush off the hook? I think NOT. After all, he did promote the crony Brown after Allbaugh left for the spoils in Iraq. The people he has hired to oversee these and other positions, crony after crony, are bungling the job. No, we should not defend Bush anymore. Enough lives have been lost during his reign that it is time for him to stand on his own two feet and let him (and his humanity) speak for himself. And all that rhetoric coming from Williams and the other “think tank” groups working the damage control spin. They should not defend him either. It will likely affect their underlying agenda for union busting cheap labor conservatism. But then perhaps they need to stand on their own two feet as well.

Cross posted at Washblog: http://washblog.typepad.com/main/2005/09/fake_think_tank.html