Monday, September 05, 2005

Look, I'm on vacation is this really an emergency?

The Rovian response to the delay of federal action in the wake of Hurricane Katrina [emphasis & link added]
A senior White House aide said there was no reason for Bush to return to Washington to deal with the disaster before Wednesday, though he was told of the gravity of the situation in briefings late into the night on Monday. Bush cut short his working vacation at his ranch near Crawford, Tex., but spent Tuesday night there. The aide said Bush wanted to allow his Cabinet and staff time to get back to Washington and in place to brief him. [WaPo]

We must understand that, despite the fact we're in the middle of a nasty war, all the major players are on vacation which makes them a bit hard to reach in the case of a catastrophic event (or two)
"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.
As a country, we've never experienced a one-two punch before and could never have expected a combination of catastrophes, especially interrelated ones resulting from some sort of cascade effect. And while we're on the subject, let's be honest, it's not like we had much advanced warning or anything.

In short, it's really OK that the Federal government was a little slow on the draw to pitch in and help. After all, the Federal Government is only a supporting player [emphasis added]
"The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials,” Mr. Chertoff said in his television interview. “The federal government comes in and supports those officials.”
Stop pointing the finger at the administration already, it's not as though any of their statements contradict anything in the National Response Plan
"directed the development of a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal coordination structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach to domestic incident management. . . .The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America's communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management."
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