Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

...But now that the death toll from Katrina is threatening the inviolable aura of "3000 dead," rightwingers are playing their own form of hopscotch to put things in "proper perspective." They recognize they're in danger of losing a mass grave marker on the high moral ground.

Today, James S. Robbins pulled a Mailer on NRO, using not automobile accidents but a household item found in every medicine cabinet as his point of comparison...

in reference to Norman Mailer noting that far more people die in auto accidents every year than on 9/11, and then getting overwhelmed in attacks for that observation.

...In any event, whatever the wisdom of Brown’s appointment in hindsight, firing him now would be an admission that FEMA performed poorly in the current crisis--an assertion that is constantly repeated, but for which I have seen, at this point, little hard evidence. There will be time enough for sorting out, in a rational environment, the pros and cons of FEMA’s efforts; firing Brown now would accomplish nothing but to uselessly fan the flames of hysteria.

Basically, think 9/11 Commission. It took a ridiculous amount of time for that, and this is an ongoing disaster. Looking at everything retrospectively under a microscope won't be able to be done for perhaps 6 months to a year with any accuracy. As it is, its pretty much the death knell for anyone choosing to run under the Republican banner in '08 (and probably '06), unless they decide to break rank.

But wouldn't it be weird of New Orleans came under a Republican mayor?

"The Left Celebrates Katrina Destruction,
Terror Attack They've Been Waiting For"

Thirdly, the private sector has responded beautifully because it's great PR to do so. There's an easy conflation in everything I've read from the right on this topic between private charity and private industry acting like charity (or being prevented from doing so by red tape). But the Red Cross is designed to complement the public response in this kind of situation. It makes no difference from their end who they're complementing -- Haliburtan of the FEMA. WalMart and the charter bus companies are doing it either out of charity or out of the desire for PR or both. But once you hire somebody who's job is to do disaster relief, the PR benefit of "going the extra mile" disappears completely. You get no kudos for just doing your job.

But the problem for these guys is, they actually don't know how to make the federal government function well. It's not part of their portfolio. That's not what they do. It's like having a pit crew that has no actual idea how a racecar works, they just know how to make it shiny for the cameras and hope it wins a race or two.

Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Correspondent
Published: 11 September 2005

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

His intervention came as President Bush's approval ratings fell below 40 per cent for the first time. Yesterday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the screw by criticising the US President's opposition to the Kyoto protocol on global warming. He compared New Orleans to island nations such as the Maldives, which are threatened by rising sea levels. Other US sources spelt out the extent of the danger from one of America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as "Cancer Alley". The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage depots churn out 600m lb of toxic waste each year. Other dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the port of New Orleans. No one knows how much pollution has escaped through damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now drowning the city. Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.

Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem. Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste programme. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."

Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."

He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being tested for pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, and endanger people using it downstream.

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

His intervention came as President Bush's approval ratings fell below 40 per cent for the first time. Yesterday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the screw by criticising the US President's opposition to the Kyoto protocol on global warming. He compared New Orleans to island nations such as the Maldives, which are threatened by rising sea levels. Other US sources spelt out the extent of the danger from one of America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as "Cancer Alley". The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage depots churn out 600m lb of toxic waste each year. Other dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the port of New Orleans. No one knows how much pollution has escaped through damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now drowning the city. Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.

Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem. Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste programme. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."

Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."

He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being tested for pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, and endanger people using it downstream.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article311818.ece

“If I’m Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we’re living in Rwanda?” said the supporter, who spoke only anonymously because he did not want to antagonize Mr. Rove.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40792000/jpg/_40792812_bushducks-afp203i.jpg

"Sorry, there's something interesting over there..."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103581,00.html
President Bush was seated in the White House Situation Room, watching military and disaster officials beaming in from the Gulf Coast on the giant screen of his secure video- teleconferencing system. It had been nearly a week since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, ripping gashes in the Superdome and swamping homes up to their eaves. Bush, more fidgety than usual, was hearing a jumble of conflicting reports about the number of refugees in the Convention Center and the whereabouts of two trucks and trailers loaded with water and food. Furious, he interrupted and glared at the camera transmitting his image back to Mississippi. "I know y'all are trying as hard as you can, but it ain't cuttin' it," the Commander in Chief barked. "I wanna know why. We gotta do better."

This was not so much a moment of executive command as one that betrayed Bush's growing sense that his presidency was taking a beating too. A TIME poll conducted last week shows how badly it has been wounded: his overall approval rating has dropped to 42%, his lowest mark since taking office. And while 36% of respondents said they were satisfied with his explanation of why the government was not able to provide relief to hurricane victims sooner, 57% said they were dissatisfied--an ominous result for a politician who banks on his image as a straight shooter.

Longtime Bush watchers say they are not shocked that he missed his moment--one of his most trusted confidants calls him "a better third- and fourth-quarter player," who focuses and delivers when he sees the stakes. What surprised them was that he still appeared to be stutter-stepping in the second week of the crisis, struggling to make up for past lapses instead of taking control with a grand gesture. Just as Katrina exposed the lurking problems of race and poverty, it also revealed the limitations of Bush's rigid, top-down approach to the presidency. "The extremely highly centralized control of the government--the engine of Bush's success--failed him this time," a key adviser said.

The third move: Develop a new set of goals to announce after Katrina fades. Advisers are proceeding with plans to gin up base-conservative voters for next year's congressional midterm elections with a platform that probably will be focused around tax reform. Because Bush will need a dynamic salesman to make sure that initiative goes better than his Social Security proposal, advisers tell TIME there is once again talk of replacing Treasury Secretary John Snow. There are no plans to delay tax cuts to pay for the New Orleans reconstruction or the Iraq war, and Bush is likely to follow through on his vow to veto anticipated congressional approval of increased federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research.

(one worry I have though is that many of the seats up in 2006 are with safe candidates or in safe places, like Montana, or with Richard Luger. R. Michael DeWine and Rick Santorum will be especially picked on. plus Frist is retiring, which might help)

he didn't invent that. some of the rescue guys have been using it too. it's funny to think of "dewatering" as some kind of actual scientific term.

Santorum is toast, but it'll take more than that pickup for the Democrats to take the Senate next year.

frankly, i am pretty fucking despondent about the general state of things. sorry.

Dewatergate!

Oh man, the "tax reform" fight is going to be a riot. If you can watch it from a spaceship or something. The thing is, they probably won't make any more headway on it than they have with "Social Security reform," but the whole shebang might be enough to keep the Dems on the defensive and negate any hopes for congressional gains in '06, which is all Karl's really aiming for. I think that's what Democrats maybe haven't fully grasped about these guys, is that it's all about survival from one election to the next, staying in charge. It doesn't matter if they actually get any laws passed or anything, it's enough for them to just control the levers of money and influence, because as long as they can do that, their friends can get paid. Krugman and a few others have written about this, but what we're really dealing with here is just straight machine politics, and the machine mostly exists to keep the machine running. Assorted ideologies are welcome to come along, for as long as they juice the engine, but they're really just means to an end, and the end is to just keep going.

CNN breaking news email

Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters may have damaged 160,000 homes in New Orleans beyond repair, an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said today. Also today, President Bush said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

the attached article says El Doofus will address the nation on Thursday from Louisiana. Who wants to take bets whether he'll say shit like, "Ya see, this great response just shows how well private industry can respond to disaster," or make at least 3 separate 9/11 references...

It's important not to overstate the impact of FoxNews though. It's oft-cited ratings are more a result of a devoutly loyal following than a large mass of viewers. All that stuff mainly serves to rally the believers rather than convince the non-believers.

I also don't buy at all that the Democrats have somehow "lost the news cycle" on this one. Bush is still really vulnerable on this and will be for a long time. His approval rating is looking pretty bad, and people are very upset. No one wants to hear that, in the event of an emergency, only their local government is responsible for their safety.

who's claiming that? i don't think that's the case considering even the older, conservative types in my family (most of whom live in the south) are forwarding around the same jokes and negative bush stuff that's on this thread!

Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency.

People helping people is what we do
And FEMA is there to help see you through
When disaster strikes, we are at our best
But we're ready all the time, 'cause disasters don't rest.

word -- there be some REAL right-wing crazies in pennsyltuckey (esp. out towards allentown and york/hanover/gettysburg). on the other hand, if my relatives are right man-on-dog has worn out his welcome in the philly metro area and he should capture precisely ZERO counties down there (including places like bucks, delaware, and montgomery counties).

Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth
September 14, 2005 | Issue 41•37

HOUSTON—On Tuesday, Halliburton received a $110 million no-bid government contract to pry the gold fillings from the mouths of deceased disaster victims in the New Orleans-Gulf Coast area. "We are proud to serve the government in this time of crisis by recovering valuable resources from the wreckage of this deadly storm," said David J. Lesar, Halliburton's president. "The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches."