I watched Howell Raines, former NY Times editor, on Stephanopolous this morning. He eloquently and explictly stated that Karl Rove was desperately spinning story after story trying to deflect blame. The most popular one, so far, seems to be "Why didn't the mayor of N.O. and the governor of LA do more - there were trains, busses, etc." The variation of the story is that they didn't ask for aid or didn't ask for it properly.
While responses are spread through the numerous diaries that have been posted over the last week, I thought it would be helpful to brainstorm and consolidate defenses for the local/state officials and to develop counter-points. Hence, this diary.
More after the flip
The ones that immediately started springing to my mind are:
1) The DHS is explicitly in charge of the coordination of all aspects of an emergency response , once a national emergency is declared. The DHS home page's link is http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp
It strikes me that this is (duh) because a city like New Orleans or a state, particularly a state where 1/3 of the national guard is in Iraq -with their emergency response equipment - is simply not equipped to coordinate and muster the resources necessary to deal with such an incipient major crisis, such as evacuating a metropolis. The DHS should have been coordinating mobilization of National Guard units from other states and the Northern Command, as well as, securing fire-fighting equipment, etc. They had the overview, the command authority and the communications to carry this out...the state and the city did not.
- Perhaps a counter talking point, or perhaps an illustration of the above point - Why did the same thing happen in Mississippi? Here, Biloxi, governed by Haley Barbour, Bush pal extraordinaire (a GOP pol who by definition is incapable of making the mistakes of the Dems next door), suffered the exact same dire fate as New Orleans. Did Haley Barbour succomb to the same alleged problems of leadership that LA did, or was the DHS totally inept, unprepared and just plain AWOL.
- I think another GOP talking point will be - as per Chertoff on Russert this morning - "Don't bother us with accountability issues now. There's a real emergency at hand and you will only distract us from saving, feeding, clothing and housing the evacuees if you try to place blame. Come back in three or four years, after the Dissembler in Chief as left office and things have settled down and then we can assess responsibility."
I'm interested in people's responses to this. ANd I'm also interested in testing the first two points or adding to them. Thanks.