As if to punctuate RWB’s post yesterday about the big lie of Federal culpability over Katrina, today there was the tape of Lousiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, on that crucial Monday, telling the White House that she believed the levees had not been breached.

When the Governor of a state that routinely encountered hurricanes, and had been waiting and planning for years to deal with the “big one” that would surely one day hit New Orleans, was providing false information about what the real situation was on the ground, how can the Feds be blamed for any confusion at their end?

And when President Bush stated a few days later that, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” this is exactly what he was talking about. It was that crucial period when those officials with the most direct responsibility failed to perceive what was going on. After a hurricane had hit New Orleans, what’s the one vital thing both the Mayor and the Governor just had to have firm and authoritative information about, above all else? The condition of the levees. And what’s the one thing that they clearlydidn’t know?

No marks for a correct answer.

The Feds may have made the kinds of mistakes that always get made in an operation of this magnitude, but I stand by what I said yesterday and have believed all along: the only thing they could have done to “save the day” was to have sent in Lt. General Honoré on Day One to take over, by force if necessary, from the inept Blanco and Nagin. And that is definitively not something that the Federal government should have been expected to do, or should ever be expected to do in a situation like this. In the end, the people of Louisiana hopefully learned something from this, albeit at an unacceptably high cost: elections have consequences. The kinds of bumbling, completely self-serving, contemptible politicians that people can often tolerate during “normal” times will show what they are truly made of when the chips are down. And the language standards of this website force me to refrain from speculating about what exactly constitutes the composition of such as Nagin and Blanco.

...................
Share this!

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
• The Story of the Hurricane
• It’s Unbelievable