A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease. …
[Showing] a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.
Wow, people are surprised by Bush’s diffident detachment? mjh
When Government Is ‘Good’
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A29
The sight of rescue workers, the police and the Coast Guard, governors, mayors, and federal officials struggling desperately with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina brings to mind Cohen’s Law: “Government is the enemy until you need a friend.”
Bill Cohen, the former defense secretary, minted the phrase nine years ago when he was a Republican senator from Maine. He was speaking then of a plane crash and the public’s hankering for more effective safety regulation. Cohen’s point was that government-bashing is easy in good times for those doing just fine. But when disaster strikes, many turn around and ask why government didn’t do more to prevent a catastrophe — or why it wasn’t doing more to relieve its effects. …
Yet this is a moment in which individual acts of charity and courage, though laudable and absolutely necessary, cannot be enough. It is a time when government is morally obligated to be competent, prepared, innovative, flexible, well-financed — in short, smart enough and, yes, big enough to undertake an enormous task. Not only personal lives but also public things must be put back together.