Enough Blame to Go Around

CNN.com - House cancels hearings on Katrina response - Sep 7, 2005: "Tempers flared Tuesday during a contentious closed-door meeting between House members and Cabinet secretaries in charge of directing Katrina relief efforts. A Republican representative stood up and said, 'All of you deserve failing grades. The response was a disaster,' CNN was told by lawmakers emerging from the meeting.But DeLay countered that assessment later in a news conference by saying that the onus for responding to emergencies fell to local officials."

From Karl Rove's play book: Keep everyone on message. Talk about everything we've done right. Admit no fault. And blame the locals - it's all their fault. And try out these themes: "No one knew this would happen." "No one knew it would be this bad." "It was a slowly unfolding disaster. We applied the right resources as we learned at each stage." "All these people will be able to make a fresh start - they'll be better off." "All of these people should have left anyway." And don't forget, "We're enforcing law and order out of chaos." That plays big in the sticks.

But everyone in the world with access to a TV knew last Tuesday morning that New Orleans was in serious danger. I new it by 7 A.M. and I'm no disaster planner. Everyone else in the world knew it too.

And now we're humiliated in the face of the world. We can't take care of our own people, can't deal with this level of disaster. Not quite the super power we made ourselves out to be, are we?