It's still all Bush's fault...

The first thing that I want to say is this - I'm sure that there is something that the Federal Government has done wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush could have done something differently, Mike Brown could have done something differently, Mike Chertoff could have done something differently. And the state and local officials have been imperfect. Governor Barbour, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin - all have done things they shouldn't have, or failed to something they should have.

How do I know that?

Because they are all human beings, and being human, they're imperfect. None of them has perfect perception, perfect foresight, perfect understanding. Everyone involved in the relief effort has failed to perform perfectly.

Now, with that out of the way, let's get to the point. And the point is this - the criticism of President Bush and FEMA and the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina is outrageous. And out of control. The New York Times("the president's demeanor yesterday...seemed casual to the point of carelessness"), CNN's Jack Cafferty ("I have never, ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans") and NBC's Katie Couric, for example, don't like the President, and so the criticism is, at that level, understandable. But it is outrageous nonetheless.

The anti-Bush criticism that I've seen has come in three different forms. Two of them are debatable but moot.

1) The Hurricane was strengthed/caused/allowed by Global Warming! and the President failed to sign the Kyoto accord. (I referred to that as "debatable" but it isn't, really. Even if we grant that a) global warming is happening, b) human beings are causing it, c) it caused or strengthened the storm, and d) the Kyoto protocols could mitigate global warming [which I do not], there's still been nowhere near enough time since President Bush was first inaugurated less than 5 years ago to have had any significant impact on the climate of the planet, whether the US had signed on to Kyoto or not.)

2) The President cut spending by the Army Corps of Engineers that would have protected the City of New Orleans, so the levee breaks are his fault. While it appears to be true that certain funds which were requested were not allocated, this is by no means unique to the Bush administration, nor is it obvious that the funds which were allocated were spent wisely. There will be a time for this debate to take place, and it's important that it do so, but for where we are now, it's moot. It's a hammer being wielded against the President by people who don't like him.

That brings us to the third criticism, the one that I really want to address.

3) The President has failed to take the situation seriously. He was playing out in California and vacationing in Texas when he should have been overseeing disaster relief. There are people trapped who should have been rescued by now. And the National Guard troops who should be taking care of things are over getting shot at in Iraq.

As I said at the beginning, I'm certain that the response has not been perfect. But there is a huge amount of bad faith mixed in with legitimate questions about FEMA's performance. People are assuming that things are possible without taking into account what has happened, the full scale and scope of the efforts that a) are needed and b) are underway. The logistics involved with the number of people, the amount of water, the size of the area, are all staggering. There are huge areas, hundreds of square miles, that cannot be reached by car, truck or boat. How long and how many helicopters would it take to evacuate 100,000 people from a 300 square mile area, people that are bunched in 10s and 20s? As I write this, it has been approximately 96 hours since Katrina hit the Gulf coast. What, realistically has not been done which should have been done?

And contrary to the "Bush doesn't care" nonsense, he actually declared disaster areas before the storm even arrived to expedite the federal response. FEMA's been there since before the storm arrived. The Navy is moving the hospital ship USNS Comfort to New Orleans. But it takes time to travel from Baltimore to New Orleans by sea. Likewise with all of the different units that the President outlined on Wednesday, 48 hours after the catastrophe. I know that the New York Times wants him to bite his lip and "feel your pain" but what he was doing instead was making sure that actual rescue efforts were taking place.

I understand that this is an instant gratification nation. We want what we want, and we want it now. But sometimes the real world gets in the way. The laws of physics prevent everything from happening at the same time, and prevent multiple vehicles from operating in the same space simultaneously. Everyone stranded in the middle of the flood knows that a helicopter could rescue them in the next hour, but again, how many helicopters are there? Pilots? How much area is there to search? It takes time. Time while crews open roads, while work crews remove downed power lines and trees, while flood waters recede. Has FEMA reacted appropriately and fast enough? Are there enough National Guard troops to do what needs to be done?

I have no idea. Neither do the people criticizing the relief efforts. They are criticizing, not because they have legitimate criticisms to make based on legitimate facts, but because they see an opportunity to criticize the President. It's unseemly, and it is outrageously offensive.

The one criticism that can be made, I think, the one thing that we have enough information to say was poorly handled, was this - there should have been armed troops into New Orleans sooner, and they should have been shooting some of the looters. If they had to drop paratroopers into the city to implement martial law, they should have done so. But whose decision should that have been? Does the President have the authority to send US troops into a US city and declare martial law, or does that have to be done at the behest of the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana? In any event, that is the one thing that has failed to happen this week that is a fairly obvious mis-step. Otherwise, the rescue efforts proceed, and I rather suspect that none of the people making the criticisms have the legitimate facts necessary to make well-founded criticisms. And it is offensive that they've chosen this time and this manner to try to score political points.