The New Orleans Disaster: Our Leadership in Action

Excuse my tone (or don’t), but I can’t forbear from sharing some of my favorite soundbites from our political leadership on the New Orleans disaster. Here is our commander in chief sharing his thoughts , or as many thoughts as he can manage to muster and put into prepositional speech, about the cause of the disaster:

In an interview Thursday on"Good Morning America," President Bush said,"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." He added,"Now we're having to deal with it, and will."

Some lapses may have occurred because of budget cuts. For example, Mr. Tolbert, the former FEMA official, said that"funding dried up" for follow-up to the 2004 Hurricane Pam exercise, cutting off work on plans to shelter thousands of survivors.

As for the next obvious question—why didn’t anyone anticipate the breach of the levees?—don’t expect George W. Bush either to ask or to answer it. And don’t expect the posing or answering of such questions to be any part of what the president means by “dealing” with the disaster. A wager: the one respect in which Bush is obliged to “deal” with the disaster is the one respect in which he won’t. Neither thought nor leadership are in the man's repertoire--or vocabulary.

President Bush, surveying the carnage of what was once New Orleans, tells us that the disaster relief effort has been “unacceptable.” Here is a question: Tell us, Mr. President, was it acceptable not to have spent enough money to prevent things from getting to this point? Did anyone “anticipate” the results of doing that?

Don’t expect our cognitively overburdened President to “deal” with those questions, either. As he so gallantly told Bob Woodward (in Bush at War), one of the “interesting” things about being president is that he doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone. It’s so much easier to play the drama-queen about the “unacceptability” of the rescue effort at the eleventh hour. As for his leadership when it might have mattered, just read this article and weep a bit.

When you're done, dry your tears and reflect on the wisdom of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, a man who, in point of perspicacity, is clearly a match for our President. Here he is in a rambling and incoherent interview with New Orleans radio station WWL-AM--one that makes George Bush seem like Cicero by comparison:

And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

Oh--he’s pissed. Really. Maybe he should start wondering how we feel, knowing that the City of New Orleans rested in his manifestly incompetent hands. As for getting a “clue,” does it occur to him that thinking through the logistics of an evacuation was partly his responsibility?

No, it doesn’t occur to him at all; what occurs to him is that having defaulted on his responsibility, he sees the golden opportunity to make demands and divert attention elsewhere.

NAGIN: I said,"I need everything."

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.

They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like,"You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

Translation: “The disaster that resulted from my lack of foresight requires that we now establish a totalitarian government in which the military is given plenipotentiary control to run everything, and the government simply seizes whatever it claims to need, and directs it to whatever use it deems appropriate at the spur of the moment.” Thus speaks the voice of self-proclaimed sanity.

It’s a true clash of titans when Negin collides headlong with Bush in moral combat:

WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?

NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price.

Thanks for dragging God into the equation: God's eyes were watching us, but where were his hands? Anyway, excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but: Who didn’t do everything in his power to save those people in the preceding years when there was a chance to think things through? Who had no idea what he was doing, or what he is doing, or what he should have been doing, or what might have happened, or how to deal with any of it? And who exactly ought to “pay the price”? When you get a chance, glance at a mirror.

The government we deserve? A good question. I'd hate to think so.