Remembering Blanco, Katrina and an appalling political strategy
President Bush said this today in his press conference with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in San Diego, during which the governor praised everyone’s efforts during the wildfires:
It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the state house willing to take the lead
No doubt President Bush was comparing the competent performance of Governor Schwarzenegger to that of the deplorable former governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco. As we noted two years ago, there were numerous warnings, available in plenty of time, to get out of New Orleans before Katrina hit. President Bush pleaded with Blanco to issue timely evacuation orders, to no avail. As the devastating storm hit, the vile or inept Blanco did not mobilize readily available state resources or call on federal government equipment or personnel. Indeed, she did precisely the opposite, as the WaPo noted at the time:
Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.
So instead of taking decisive action after her first mistake, Blanco decided to double down with another bet showing political calculation or gross ineptitude. Instead of mobilizing the National Guard and Louisiana’s interstate cooperation agreements, she decided to hire Democratic consultants. And then she let matters drag on and fester for days more. Though the storm struck over the weekend, Blanco dithered until midweek. According to the WaPo, “Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday.”
One reason among several for the vast differences between the Superdome and Qualcomm Stadium is the almost criminal ineptitude of the state and local governments in Louisiana in 2005. By contrast, the local and state governments and emergency services’ infrastructures, and even the local media, have done a splendid job in dealing with the wildfires in California. And of course the megatonnage of individual initiative displayed during the crisis was awesome to behold. Such crises as this are always best handled by those closest to the situation, and Californians rose to the occasion.
We believe it is possible that the dithering by Blanco during Katrina was part of a conscious and planned political strategy. The idea would have been to use the discomfort generated by a rainstorm as a metaphor for the performance of the Bush administration. (The tragedy is that the events turned out to be far more serious than a normal hurricane.) The Democrat talking points about Katrina were that (a) Bush is incompetent; (b) Bush doesn’t like poor people or African Americans; and (c) Bush sent all the equipment and the National Guard to Iraq. But the reality was that Governor Blanco herself was the roadblock. As Howard Dean disingenuously said at the time, “what you need when there’s an emergency, is National Guard. The National Guard was in Iraq….And the equipment was in Iraq.”
These Democratic talking points, repeated by the willing and gullible media, unfortunately have become the legend of Katrina — though they did Blanco’s career no good. Now we see them being recycled in the case of the fires by Senator Barbara Boxer, who said that “the ability of the state’s National Guard has been compromised because too much of their equipment and personnel is in Iraq.” We wish her the same good fortune in her political career that Blanco currently enjoys.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
I clicked on the top link in the post and my eye was drawn to this article:
Such “reporting” is consistent with Jack’s conjecture:We believe it is possible that the dithering by Blanco during Katrina was part of a conscious and planned political strategy….(p)These Democratic talking points, repeated by the willing and gullible media, unfortunately have become the legend of Katrina — though they did Blanco’s career no good. Now we see them being recycled in the case of the fires by Senator Barbara Boxer, who said that “the ability of the state’s National Guard has been compromised because too much of their equipment and personnel is in Iraq.”No matter what the emergency, no matter what the calamity, the first and overriding concern of some people in public life is the effect on their political fortunes. Despite my harsh opinion of Bush’s performance as President, I grant that he hasn’t sunk that low.
October 27th, 2007 at 2:04 am
As someone who lives in San Diego and has lived through these terrible days, I want to commend our city and county officials. They came to us often and gave us what information that was available. The local media also did a good job of keeping everyone informed. Our local officials managed to evacuate over half a million people with competence and efficacy. They had a good plan and everybody did their bit. The outpouring of help and generosity of those citizens was instantaneous and supplies of everything from water and diapers, to medical help for those in shelters flowed in.
Then the state and federal officials finally came to town. I won’t go into the motives of those who feed on disasters like this, but the display was truly disgusting. The mayor and county supervisor, who managed the crisis in fine fashion, were demoted to the role of emcee, were shoved aside after introducing the important persons. Our congressional delegation laughed, bragged about what a great team they made, and patted themselves on the back for strong-arming the head of one area into writing a letter absolving the head of another area of following the regulations put in place by … blank out. Whether the one had the authority to offer this kind of dispensation to cut through the red-tape isn’t known.
That crap about supplies and equipment being ill-spent on the war and unavailable for use here is an equivocation Sen. Boxer should not be allowed to get away with. It would not have mattered one whit if we had had every plane capable of dropping fire-retardant lined up on a runway in San Diego County, they would not have been able to fly for the first three days of the fire due to the erratic Santa Ana winds. We couldn’t fly what we had. We couldn’t use much of anything as long as the gale-force winds were shifting minute by minute and creating dangerous sudden up- and down-drafts.
Like the global warming nonsense, the facts of the matter play almost no part in any of the rhetoric we are now being subjected to.
October 27th, 2007 at 2:06 am
Geez. Forgive all the gross mistakes, please. Disgust overrides all former knowledge of grammar and composition.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:32 am
JMB, thanks for the report. This story is consistent with your perceptions, but I’m going to stifle my snark until the crisis is over. Good luck to you and yours.