The NYTimes has
one of many editorials denouncing Michael Brown's qualifications--or, more accurately, the utter lack of same--as director of FEMA. It was, I thought, as I was initially reading it, a pretty good editorial, making the points that needed to be made about what happens when you put an incompetent in a position that is responsible for public welfare (insert your own Bush parallel here.)
But then I spotted this sentence in the last paragraph:
But President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified cronies - a sure sign that he wanted to hasten the degradation of an agency that conservative Republicans have long considered an evil of big government.
That's the real message--the message that the Democrats need to trumpet to the hills--Bush and the Republicans did not think that public safety was important.
That's the key issue, because it goes far beyond Katrina (or, as she has been renamed by the First Lady, Corinna). If the Republicans aren't interested in public safety, then all of a sudden the lack of any real progress by the Department of Homeland Security makes sense.
Disaster relief? No profits to be made. Fuck it.
Border control? No profits to be made. Fuck it.
Oversight on nuclear materials? Prevents profits from being made. Fuck it.
What, we need to show some results? Ah, shit--Here's a little color chart that will keep the masses scared and distracted from the fact that we're busy dismantling something that is all too rare in Washington--a government agency [FEMA] that has proven its value time and again.
Katrina gives the Democrats a chance to demonstrate that business is the only thing Bush gives a damn about, and that business is the motivating force behind his administration.
Cronyism isn't the story. It's GREED.