The Dish

“The war in Iraq has been poorly planned and executed from the beginning, and now, like a hurricane over warm water, the insurgency is in a position to take immense energy from the fundamental divisions in that nation. The rise of Chinese military power, although lately noted, has met with no response. America’s borders are open, its cities vulnerable, its civil defense nonexistent, its armies stretched thin. We have taken only deeply inadequate steps to prepare for and forestall a viral pandemic that by the testimony of experts is a high probability and could kill scores of millions in this country alone. That we do not see relatively simple and necessary courses of action, and are not led and inspired to them, represents a catastrophic failure of leadership that bridges party lines.
Perhaps this and previous administrations have had an effective policy just too difficult to comprehend because they have ingeniously sheltered it under the pretense of their incompetence. But failing that, the legacy of this generation’s presidents will be promiscuous declarations and alliances, badly defined war aims, opportunities inexplicably forgone, ill-supported troops sent into the field, a country at risk without adequate civil protections, and a military shaped to fight neither the last war nor this one nor the next.” – Mark Helprin, today. A very astute piece, I’d say. It amounts to an indictment of Clinton’s negligence, Bush’s incompetence, and Rumsfeld’s misjudgment. We need better.

A fascinating photo slide-show from a New Orleans survivor. It’s a useful reminder of the timeline. And of how many New Orleanians were actually optimistic on Day 2, after the hurricane had first passed. The guy got out before the real carnage, though. Thank God. If you’re a photo-journalist or photo-blogger and have unique images you want to share, email me with the link. Oprah did an amazing job of bringing home some of the reality. But people on the ground are the best recorders of history.

“Schwarzenegger may even be doing the right thing in turning back the bill that’s been sent to him — it’s difficult to say just what the Legislature’s powers are in this case, given California’s odd experiment with mixed, sort-of-representative-sort-of-direct democracy.
Yet it’s crystal clear where public opinion is headed, both in California and nationwide. The younger the demographic polled, the more support is found for gay marriage and civil unions.
Really, what gay marriage opponents are looking to do is write anti-gay provisions into as many state constitutions as possible — and maybe even into the federal Constitution — before the people invested in the so-called “defense of marriage” all die off.
And, well, while we may not have a Living Constitution, constitutions govern the living. A last gasp of anti-gay animus threatens to rule us from the grave, but its time is running out.” – Ryan Sager, a next generation conservative, on TCS.

Lawrence Kaplan makes the case.

Glenn Reynolds pulls a MoDo. From this entire piece, he quotes governor Blanco as saying: “Nobody told me that I had to request that.” The full quote is:

“I need everything you have got,” Governor Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Tuesday, when New Orleans flooded. In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. “Nobody told me that I had to request that. I thought that I had requested everything they had,” she said.

It seems to me that the context and the full quote are important. The context shows that both president Bush and governor Blanco screwed up in equal measure. And while I’m in the category of desperate denial, this one at NRO defies parody: “MICHAEL BROWN, CONFIRMED BY DEMOCRATS.” Who was the guy who nominated him, again? The name escapes me …

BAD NEWS FOR MOST EVANGELICALS: Humans are still evolving – and at quite a brisk pace, according to new research. Bad news for liberals: at the rate research is going, you will soon have to choose between believing in evolution and denying any subtle, genetic differences between broad racial groups.

Egypt’s elections were a sham, but they were something. And without the elections in Iraq and Lebanon and the Bush policy of favoring democracy, they wouldn’t have happened at all.

Time magazine investigates

discrepancies in FEMA director Michael Brown’s online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA.

More here.

The story from the administration is changing. Now we get an answer to the question my eleven year old nephew asked his mother: why didn’t they send troops to help right away? Rove or Card or someone is now telling the NYT the following:

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Governor Blanco would have resisted surrendering control of the military relief mission as Bush Administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established. While troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.

“Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?” asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.

Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.

“I need everything you have got,” Governor Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Tuesday, when New Orleans flooded. In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. “Nobody told me that I had to request that. I thought that I had requested everything they had,” she said.

Blanco and Bush in my opinion deserve each other. I don’t know why we’re arguing which of them is to blame more. We should be furious at both. They were worried about partisan politics and how things might be “perceived” if they acted to respond to what was by then obviously a monumental crisis. Then there’s this caveat in the anonymous quote: “unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result.” Wasn’t that completely clear to many at that point? The first responders were overwhelmed and these politicians were worrying about gender issues and partisan politics? Given the fact that thousands of lives were at stake, “perception” is not or surely should not be an issue. Nor should petty fights over jurisdiction or legal wrangling. Nor should the relative incompetence of governor Blanco. If she was incompetent, then that’s all the more reason for Bush to have over-ruled her. The dead and dying in this country deserved better than this. So much better. And ultimately, with a disaster of this magnitude, it is up to the president to deliver that. He failed. There’s no getting around it. He failed. In the most basic task required of him.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You write: ‘What I worry about is the basic security of this country. I don’t trust this administration with it. Do you?’

The basic security of the country is the bottom line for me, too. And I suspect it was for many of the Bush/Cheney voters last November. It was, after all, what Bush’s campaign was based upon – “Vote for us because we can protect you” – and he just demonstrated inexcusable incompetence in the area that is supposed to be his strong suit. Inexcusable because Americans DIED due to this incompetence. Even if the locals and the state did everything you could reasonably expect of them (and clearly they didn’t) you still need the cavalry to swiftly ride in to handle the biggest disaster since at least 1906.

What has this administration been doing for the past four years? The excuses about being too focused on responding to terrorism don’t cut it, because obviously you need the cavalry after a terror attack, too. That’s the scary-as-hell part of all this. The cronyism at FEMA (FEMA, for God’s sake) is a sick joke. And frankly, I’m stunned that not a single prominent Democrat has called for Bush’s resignation. Apparently, the Democrats are just too cowed by their electoral losses, but it’s still stunning. Not that Bush would actually resign, of course, but calling for his resignation would force Republicans up and down the line into the unenviable position of defending this indefensible incompetence. How long do you suppose the GOP would have waited to call for President Kerry’s resignation?

That just might be why the GOP is in power, do you suppose? And al-Qaida is taking notes, no doubt. God help us.”

The devastation along the Gulf coast is mind-boggling. This story from CNN captures part of the trauma:

As relief efforts sputtered in the days after the storm, Verlyn Davis Jr., an out-of-work electrician, took charge. He transformed his parents’ bar and seafood restaurant, Lehrmann’s, into a shelter where he dispatches people to clear roads, hook up generators and help in the disaster relief process.
About 20 people have been staying there these days. On a boarded-up window out front is a blue spray-painted sign: “ABOUT TIME BUSH!”
“The governor and the president let thousands of people die and they let them die on their roofs and they let them die in the water,” said Davis, 45. “We got left. They didn’t care.”

Do the spinners believe that this is somehow pre-meditated “Bush-hatred”? Or genuine, righteous, deserved anger at the failure of all levels of government to perform the most basic of rescue operations? To reinforce the point: Canadian rescue workers arrived in St Bernard parish a full five days before the feds did.

It seems that the military and rescue services have stopped impeding the press and especially photojournalists from doing their job. Glad to hear it. Something is very wrong when we can send soldiers to keep the truth from journalists but not to prevent looting when it was happening. NBC’s Brian Williams deserves some kudos for his complaints yesterday on his blog. However gruesome, we have to see what nature and incompetence – local and federal – wrought. Next up: release all the Abu Ghraib photos. Same principle. Same administration. Same incompetence. Same press.