THERE'S NEVER a terrorist around when you need one. Even a couple of suspicious-looking foreigners playing soccer near the Superdome as Katrina began to make landfall might have done the trick to get this easily distracted president focused. The war on terror is, after all, George W. Bush's obsession, obliterating any other consideration of the nation's well-being.
With a terrorist sighting, Bush likely would not have lingered on his Crawford ranch vacation, which he interrupted only for politicking and fundraising opportunities. Nor would Condoleezza Rice have gone shoe shopping while the world witnessed the sorry spectacle of the Gulf Coast in deadly disarray. And surely Donald Rumsfeld, who blithely attended a San Diego Padres game as New Orleans was filling with water, wouldn't have dithered for days before sending in troops to aid desperate Americans.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday September 20, 2005 Home Edition California Part B Page 13 Editorial Pages Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Michael Brown: A Sept. 13 commentary about FEMA said that former director Michael D. Brown was a "college buddy" of his predecessor, Joe Allbaugh. The two have been friends for more than 25 years but did not know each other in college.
Even if our high officials bothered to care about the poor, mostly black victims of Katrina enough to change their schedules, the administration would probably have bungled the relief effort anyway, because the Federal Emergency Management Agency is now run by political hacks appointed by Bush who know zilch about disaster relief.
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president said to Michael Brown a few days before the FEMA chief was relieved of his oversight of the relief efforts after massive public pressure over the agency's response to the hurricane. Brown, who reportedly doctored his unimpressive resume and didn't have a background in emergency management, resigned Monday. He had secured this plum job because he was a college buddy of his predecessor, Joe Allbaugh, who managed Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
During the Clinton years, FEMA was turned into a model of efficiency, as demonstrated after the Northridge earthquake and the Oklahoma City bombing. How bizarre, then, that in the wake of 9/11, the administration handicapped FEMA by axing its Cabinet-level status, turning it back into what some call a "turkey farm" for patronage jobs and slashing its budget because, as Allbaugh complained, it had become "an oversized entitlement program."
