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I still find the Homer Simpson-type response to this disaster a travesty on every level.
We have the so-called "tip of the sword" for FEMA, not on the ground coordinating a response, but--you guessed it--visiting the Larry King Live show in studio around 9PM. the night the storm hit New Orleans.
Feb. 27, 2006 issue - At 9 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, FEMA Director Michael Brown appeared on "Larry King Live" and announced, "This is a catastrophic disaster ... We've got some storm surges that have come across the levees."
I'm super-impressed that the mother-of-all damaging hurricanes is ravishing a historic jazz town, and getting a soundbyte is the former-FEMA directors top priority.
Then, three of the most powerful men in the free world stay on vacation while New Orleans is being destroyed, ward by ward, like a slow, sad jazz song.
Like President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and homeland-security adviser Frances Townsend, Card was on vacation when the hurricane struck. Back at the White House, the job of monitoring the storm was left to Kenneth Rapuano, Townsend's deputy. At 10 p.m., Rapuano left the White House to go home for the night, believing everything was under control.
The White House post, Kenneth Rapuano--Townsend's deputy--even turns out the lights and goes home to his McMansion thinking everything was OK--shock, it wasn't.
It wasn't. Half an hour later, at 10:30 p.m., the Homeland Security Operations Center sent out a two-page bulletin reporting massive flooding and bodies floating in the water. Rapuano later told Congress that no one at the White House woke him to tell him about the report, and he didn't realize the extent of the damage until 6 the following morning, when another Homeland bulletin warned that "it could take months to dewater" the city. Only then did it begin to dawn on top administration officials, including the president, how grave a human--and political--disaster they were facing.
Six months later, only the seats on Airforce One and the White House walls know exactly what went on.
The confusion and lack of a timeline is only aided by the White House's refusal to turn over many of the records and e-mails requested by the Senate and a special House committee investigating the fiasco. Why won't they disclose these documents which our tax dollars pay for, unless there is something to hide?
The passages in the bible about "the truth will set you free" couldn't be any more paramount in this situation.
Now we have an administration that has basically thrown its own to the wolves. If I was Brownie, I would flip on the dogs and tell all.
Brown, now trying to restore his image, gave Congress a set of e-mails sent as the catastrophe unfolded. The e-mails, obtained by NEWSWEEK, provide the latest--though still incomplete--picture of senior officials' chatter amid the chaos.
In an interview last week, Brown told NEWSWEEK he was frustrated because Chertoff tried to micromanage the disaster. "I couldn't do my job," he said. (Neither Chertoff nor the White House responded to requests for comment.) By the time he exchanged e-mails with Johnson, he says, he was ready to "walk off" the job. As it turned out, he didn't have the chance. Three days later, Chertoff sent Brown back to Washington--where he remains, awaiting the results of the White House's own probe of what went wrong.
I guess this story ends here for now because FOX News isn't reporting on it anymore.
This is one of several examples of a White House that has failed America on every level.
In the end, who will remember the plight of those who lost everything in the blink of an eye only to be let down by a government they loved.
I can sadly say that during these events, I was not proud to be an American. I was sickened to see the images of those who were supposed to lead and be the "tip of the sword," instead, eating cake.
I hope the cake was sweet to the taste because Karma is a bitch, and I know some people who have a boatload of bitterly bad karma in route for them.
These things have an unusual way of working themselves out in the end.
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