Eleanor Clift, Newsweek: "A Colossal Failure of Leadership"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

A Colossal Failure of Leadership
Saving people and maintaining order are the first order of government in any disaster. In New Orleans, neither has been achieved.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 12:29 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9174806/site/newsweek/

Where is Rudy Giuliani when we need him? We’ve had four years since 9/11 to prepare for a crisis with mass casualties, yet we seem totally unprepared. To be sure, there are countless unsung heroes performing tasks of kindness and going out of their way to help their fellow man. But this was a moment for national leadership, and nobody rose to take charge the way Giuliani did in New York. This has been a colossal failure of government. President Bush spent Tuesday, the day after Katrina struck, at a Medicare event in Arizona and then he made his way to a San Diego naval base for yet another anniversary tribute to the Greatest Generation. His concession to reality was adding a few words of compassion to his prepared remarks. Meanwhile, the greatest natural disaster in a century was unfolding at sickening speed with television cameras capturing footage of looting reminiscent of the days after the invasion of Iraq. Things were so bad “you almost wonder if Donald Rumsfeld is in charge,” said Marshall Wittmann, an analyst with the Democratic Leadership Council.

Saving people and maintaining order are the first order of government in any disaster, and neither was achieved. The much-touted Department of Homeland Security appeared too caught up in its internal bureaucracy to perform, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) called off its rescue missions Thursday because residents trying to board boats were getting violent. The disorder and lawlessness was breathtaking to watch. At one point, the evacuation of patients from a hospital was halted because of gunfire. Bush talks about “zero tolerance” for looters, but there aren’t enough police to stop them and the jails are under water. One third of the National Guard from the affected states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they’re the ones trained to perform the police functions that restore civil order.

Bush’s comment that nobody thought the levees in New Orleans would break is false, and he will regret those words just as Condoleezza Rice did her comment that nobody could imagine a plane flying into a building like a missile. Local authorities and the Corps of Engineers had war-gamed hurricane scenarios and issued repeated warnings about the vulnerability of the levees. Their pleas were turned down and funding cut instead. Now the money will flow. Congressional leaders rushed back to Washington early to pass legislation to free up $10 billion for hurricane relief, a mere down payment on what it will cost to rebuild the stricken areas.

Congress had been planning to eliminate the estate tax, draining billions from a federal budget already reeling under the costs of a war. Marshall Wittmann, who used to advise John McCain, predicts that Bush’s tax-cutting days are over. “We’ve been living in la-la land,” he says. “This is a moment of sobriety when business as usual can’t continue.”

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. La La land indeed...recommended.

MKJ

[babylonsister]

2. Ms. Clift hits another homer; nom! nt

[peaches2003]

3. McCain

I'm not giving McCain a pass on his behavior either. He was fully capable of cancelling his party if he gave a damn.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. And give up an opportunity to be with his HERO?????

[Drum]

7. even gay people would be ashamed of this couple n/t

[peaches2003]

5. McCain

I'm not giving McCain a pass on his behavior either. He was fully capable of cancelling his party if he gave a damn.

[novak goes postal]

6. This just about says it all

Loved the Pictures....LET THEM EAT CAKE INDEED... Except, when Marie Antoinette said it there really was cake to share with the poor. This time the dying got nothing but pictures of the former Governor of Texas licking his thumbs and "yucking it up" with the former war hero McCain. The poor and dying could have been saved by a little CLINTON type compassion.

[mattclearing]

8. Yeah, his presidential ambitions are over. n/t

[roguevalley]

9. la-la-land? Vote them ALL out. Now.

[roguevalley]

10. la-la-land? Vote them ALL out. Now.

[moondust]

11. Is there any way to air drop some leadership into the White House?

Can we get a chopper in there?

:smoke:

[Robbie Michaels]

12. Nominated & Kicked

:kick: