The Crony Fairy (Krugman)

[phantom power]

Let's talk about the history of FEMA.

In the early 1990's, FEMA's reputation was as bad as it is today. It was a dumping ground for political cronies, headed by a man whose only apparent qualification for the job was that he was a close friend of the first President Bush's chief of staff. FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 perfectly foreshadowed Katrina: the agency took three days to arrive on the scene, and when it did, it proved utterly incompetent.

Many people thought that FEMA was a lost cause. But Bill Clinton proved them wrong. He appointed qualified people to lead the agency and gave them leeway to hire other qualified people, and within a year FEMA's morale and performance had soared. For the rest of the Clinton years, FEMA was among the most highly regarded agencies in the federal government.

What happened to that reputation? The answer, of course, is that the second President Bush returned to his father's practices. Once again, FEMA became a dumping ground for cronies, and many of the good people who had come in during the Clinton years left. It took only a few years to transform one of the best agencies in the U.S. government into what Senator Susan Collins calls "a shambles and beyond repair."

(...)

So let's skip the name change for FEMA, O.K.? The United States will regain effective government if and when it gets a president who cares more about serving the nation than about rewarding his friends and scoring political points. That's at least a thousand days away. Meanwhile, don't count on FEMA, or on any other government agency, to do its job.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042806M.shtml

[madmark]

1. Cronyism across the board in all areas of this administration has

been the source of its incompetence, not just FEMA.

[ninkasi]

2. Krugman's right

After Regan and Bush Sr. had the economy in a shambles, and now seeing what Jr. has done, why would any rational person who isn't wealthy vote for a Republican? It's sad that people can be so easily diverted by having right-wingers say "gay marriage" or "abortion", that they are willing to overlook their own circumstances, and vote for the Repuke again. I hope that his approval rating goes way below 32%.