Advance Men in Charge – New York Times

Political patronage has always been a hallmark of Washington life. But President Bill Clinton appointed political pals at FEMA who

actually knew something about disaster management. The former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose tenure is widely considered a major

success, was a friend of Mr. Clinton’s when he took office in 1993, but he had run the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. His top

staff came from regional FEMA offices.

Surely there are loyal Republicans among the 50 directors of state emergency services. But

President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified cronies – a sure sign that he wanted to hasten the degradation of an

agency that conservative Republicans have long considered an evil of big government. Katrina has proved that federal disaster help is

vital, and that Mr. Brown and his team of advance men can’t do the job. What America needs are federal disaster relief people who

actually know something about disaster relief.

Point Those Fingers – New York Times By

PAUL KRUGMAN

The administration followed the same principles in staffing FEMA. The agency had become a highly professional

organization during the Clinton years, but under Mr. Bush it reverted to its former status as a “turkey farm,” a source of patronage

jobs.

As Bloomberg News puts it, the agency’s “upper ranks are mostly staffed with people who share two traits: loyalty to

President George W. Bush and little or no background in emergency management.” By now everyone knows FEMA’s current head went from

overseeing horse shows to overseeing the nation’s response to disaster, with no obvious qualifications other than the fact that he was

Mr. Allbaugh’s college roommate.

All that’s missing from the Katrina story is an expensive reconstruction effort, with lucrative

deals for politically connected companies, that fails to deliver essential services. But give it time – they’re working on that, too.

Why did the administration make the same mistakes twice? Because it paid no political price the first time. …

Will this be

enough to let the administration get away with another failure? Let’s hope not: if the administration isn’t held accountable for what

just happened, it will keep repeating its mistakes. Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff will receive presidential medals, and the next

disaster will be even worse.

Osama and Katrina – New York Times By THOMAS

L. FRIEDMAN

And then there are the president’s standard lines: “It’s not the government’s money; it’s your money,” and, “One

of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government.” Maybe Mr. Bush will now

also tell us: “It’s not the government’s hurricane – it’s your hurricane.”

An administration whose tax policy has been

dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist – who has been quoted as saying: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want

to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” – doesn’t have the instincts for this

moment. …

The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be

another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn’t

happen on Mr. Bush’s watch – that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.

Mr. Bush’s Storm

Among the sound bites of his presidency that Mr. Bush will most regret, one will surely be “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” That was Mr. Bush’s valentine last week to his hapless FEMA director, Michael D. Brown.

The ‘Stuff Happens’ Presidency By Harold Meyerson

[A] can’t-do spirit, a shouldn’t-do spirit, guides the men who run the nation. Consider the congressional testimony of Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign manager, who assumed the top position at FEMA in 2001. He characterized the organization as “an oversized entitlement program,” and counseled states and cities to rely instead on “faith-based organizations . . . like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service.”

news > Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway” href=”http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0536,ridgewaycolu,67514,2.html”>village voice > news > Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway

Meanwhile, the high gas prices are adding to the profits of the big companies. Says the watchdog group Public Citizen:

“Since George Bush became president in 2001, the top five oil companies [selling gas] in the United States have recorded profits of $254 billion: ExxonMobil: $89 billion, Shell: $60.7 billion, BP: $53 billion, ChevronTexaco: $31 billion, ConocoPhillips: $20 billion.”

The group adds:

“As Americans shell out more dollars at the pump, the profit margin by U.S. oil refiners has shot up 79% from 1999 (the year Exxon and Mobil merged) to 2004.”

Bush refuses to increase the energy efficiency standards for motor vehicles, which use 70 percent of total oil production, and he recently signed the energy bill that hands out billions in new subsidies to the industry. Even he seems to recognize what a shuck this is: In April, with prices moving ever higher and the Congress debating the energy bill, Bush said, “With $55 oil, we don’t need incentives to oil and gas companies.”

But this summer, Congress, with the president’s enthusiastic support, adopted a series of new subsidies for the oil and gas industry. “Officially, the energy bill’s giveaways are supposed to cost $14.6 billion over the next 10 years, offset in part by $3.1 billion in higher gasoline taxes on consumers,” says Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. “But that doesn’t include the bill’s $70 billion in authorized but unfunded subsidies, for which cash will have to be appropriated later.”

ABQjournal: Disaster Areas Stun Bush

“If we can’t respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?” asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

President Bush looks out the window of Air Force One inspecting damage from Hurricane Katrina while flying over New Orleans en route back to the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Critics Say Bush Undercut New Orleans Flood Control
By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A16

President Bush repeatedly requested less money for programs to guard against catastrophic storms in New Orleans than many federal and state officials requested, decisions that are triggering a partisan debate over administration priorities at a time when the budget is strained by the Iraq war.

Even with full funding in recent years, none of the flood-control projects would have been completed in time to prevent the swamping of the city, as Democrats yesterday acknowledged. But they said Bush’s decision to hold down spending on fortifying levees around New Orleans reflected a broader shuffling of resources — to pay for tax cuts and the Iraq invasion — that has left the United States more vulnerable.

Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding – FactCheck.org

Our fact-checking confirms that Bush indeed cut funding for projects specifically designed to strengthen levees. Indeed, local officials had been complaining about that for years.

It is not so clear whether the money Bush cut from levee projects would have made any difference, however, and we’re not in a position to judge that. The Army Corps of Engineers — which is under the President’s command and has its own reputation to defend — insists that Katrina was just too strong, and that even if the levee project had been completed it was only designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane.