NY Times columnist Bob Herbert writes that the Bush administration has blood on their hands for their catastrophic bungling of the Katrina disaster. Therefore, he writes, we need an independent commission to investigate the Katrina debacle, as this is too grave of an issue to be decided by partisan politics.
While Senator Russ Feingold is developing constructive solutions to help the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Herbert gives an overview of the sad mismanagement of the disaster preperation that infected all levels of government, causing a massive breakdown of trust. Why should we trust the Bush administration anymore, when they don’t have a clue when it comes to disaster relief. And neither do enablers like GOP shill David Brooks.
Senator Feingold has been proposing solutions for Katrina survivors like these:
Providing a one year grace period after the new law takes effect in which victims of Hurricane Katrina can file for bankruptcy under the law that was in effect as of August 29, 2005, the date of the hurricane: Preventing payments from FEMA or other disaster relief agencies from being treated as income under the new law. This was done in the new law for Holocaust victims and 9/11 victims; Allowing expenses incurred as a direct result of a natural disaster to be treated as legitimate expenses; Prohibiting the dismissal of a Chapter 7 case or conversion to a Chapter 13 case under the means test if the debtor is the victim of a natural disaster. This was done in the new law for disabled veterans whose indebtedness was incurred primarily during active duty; Permitting victims of a natural disaster to file for bankruptcy without first completing credit counseling if they are unable to satisfy that requirement of the new law because of the natural disaster. This was done in the new law for people who are serving in military combat zones and people who are disabled or incompetent; Exempting victims of natural disasters from the provisions of the new law that make it easier for landlords to evict their tenants who are in bankruptcy; Allowing courts to extend the time limits for victims of natural disasters to comply with the more onerous paperwork and documentation requirements of the new law; Providing flexibility for the courts to extend filing deadlines put into place by the new law for small businesses affected by natural disasters.
—Feingold has repeatedly called for the TV networks to devote airtime to help survivors reunite:
“Like all Americans, my thoughts are with those struggling to cope with the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina. The devastation brought by the storm is absolutely heart-wrenching and beyond description,” Feingold’s letter read. “As your news coverage has shown, one of the many struggles that the survivors of Hurricane Katrina face today is their separation from family and loved ones.”
In the letter, Feingold said that while there have been many success stories of families being brought back together by the news media and others after being displaced by the hurricane, many survivors “still carry the heavy burden of not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones, especially children.”
While there have been efforts by reporters, through the internet, to connect Hurricane survivors “the effort to bring families back together might be well served by having the news networks dedicate a substantial block of air-time… so that those survivors who are in search of loved ones could both let their voice be heard and tune in to a particular network at a specific time to connect with family members through telephone hotlines at the various staging areas.”
“Using the power of our television airwaves could go a long way in helping to bring families back together after this tragedy. It would also ease the enormous anxiety and pain many must feel not knowing the condition of their loved ones,” Feingold said. “This could do a great deal to restore hope to those who have lost so much in this national tragedy.”
—Supports a waiver of NCLB rules for schools directly affected by disasters.
—Got passed a law increasing reimbursement rates for people driving for charities.
Take a look at these measures being supported by Feingold and passing the Senate. Take a moment to picture all the good things Feingold is doing to help Katrina victims. You can visit your senator’s website and see what they are doing as well.
Now, compare that to the massive incompetence practiced by the Bush administration, as documented by Herbert.
Herbert starts out by pointing out that nothing is politically safer than thrashing Michael Brown, the disgraced former head of FEMA. This may make everybody on the GOP side feel a little better. But he writes that thrashing Brown will not address the larger issues that arose from the Hurricane. He calls for an independent commission of people not bound by partisan politics to sort out this mess, as he writes that this is too grave an issue for people to play politics with.
Nagin gets tarred and feathered by Herbert for failing to realize that a large part of his city was too poor to afford to leave. By contrast, the Houston mayor did an outstanding job by enlisting the metro bus service to evacuate hundreds of people would could not otherwise afford to leave Houston. But Herbert writes that the larger failure is with the Bush administration.
Herbert then goes on to say that the Bush administration has blood on their hands for their negligence and that Americans need answers. He starts off his indictment by asking why Bush failed to intervene. One answer, from Time, is that Bush hates recieving bad news, and that his staff did not want to disurb him.
Herbert says another reason for the failure of the relief efforts is that the Louisiana National Guard unit stationed in NO did not recognize the problem until it was too late. By then, he writes, they were reduced to a frantic struggle to sane their own men, let alone try to save other people.
The problem I see from this account is that the Louisiana National Guard in NO had no contengency plan to find and use equipment in the event of their own barracks being flooded. Not only that, they failed to monitor the weather conditions, as they could easily have done by checking the weather service’s website regularly.
And furthermore, as Herbert notes, much of their equipment and men are in Iraq, not back home. Bush’s catastrophic failure to maintain adequate troop numbers came home to roost.
Herbert then quotes Bush’s desire to head the investigation into what went wrong with Katrina himself. But there is a major problem. Why should we trust Bush, when he has lied so much in the past as documented by the Downing Street Memo, hates recieving bad news as documented by Time, and rewards loyalty over competence? Bush is totally unaware that many Americans simply do not trust him anymore.
As a result, Herbert writes that we are poorly prepared should any terrorist ever strike again. Senator Feingold made this point painfully clear:
I cannot support an Iraq policy that makes our enemies stronger and our own country weaker, and that is why I will not support staying the course the President has set. If Iraq were truly the solution to our national security challenges, this gamble with the future of the military and with our own economy might make sense. If Iraq, rather than such strategically more significant countries as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were really at the heart of the global fight against violent Islamist terrorism, this might make some sense. If it were true that fighting insurgents in Baghdad meant that we would not have to fight them elsewhere, all of the costs of this policy might make some sense. But these things are not true. Iraq is not the silver bullet in the fight against global terrorist networks. As I have argued in some detail, it is quite possible that the Administration’s policies in Iraq are actually strengthening the terrorists by helping them to recruit new fighters from around the world, giving those jihadists on-the-ground training in terrorism, and building new, transnational networks among our enemies. Meanwhile the costs of staying this course indefinitely, the consequences of weakening America’s military and America’s economy, loom more ominously before us with each passing week. There is no leadership in simply hoping for the best. We must insist on an Iraq policy that makes sense.
Bin Laden must be rubbing his hands with glee. Feingold also noted in today’s speech that the National Guard only has 34% of the equipment that they need, compared to 75% in 2001. How does this make sense, when Bush has increased military spending so dramatically? I suggest that the extra money is being sucked into the black hole of Halliburton, never to return.
Not only does this hamper our war with Iraq, it hampers our ability to cope with hurricanes like Katrina and Rita. As the Bush administration’s own figures show, hurricane intensity will increase because of global warming.
So, how should Democrats respond to all this? Not the milquetoast approach that David Brooks recommends in today’s column:
Will we learn from DeLay’s fall about the self-destructive nature of the team mentality? Of course not. The Democrats have drawn the 10-year-old conclusion that in order to win, they must be just like Tom DeLay. They need to rigidly hew to orthodoxy. They need Deaniac hyperpartisanship. They need to organize their hatreds around Bush the way the Republicans did around Clinton.
The old team is dead. Long live the new team.
Brooks’ logic is fatally flawed. People don’t want a milquetoast party which is Bush-lite, they want the party to contrast itself more from Bush. In fact, people would rather vote for the real thing than the fake Republican with the D beside his name on the ballot.
Dick Gephardt wrote the Iraq War Resolution bill; his 2004 Presidential campaign tanked in Iowa. Tom Daschle and Martin Frost ran ads of themselves and Bush together and lost as well. Jean Carnahan’s and Max Clelland’s votes for the war did not help them win their reelection bids. John Kerry struggled to explain why his stance on the war was different than Bush and lost. So, Brooks’ logic has been debunked.
It is telling that Brooks can spend a whole column bashing Tom DeLay, and then right at the end throw a cheap shot in at the Democrats and claim they are no better. I suggest that was the only real point of the whole column — to call the Democrats the moral equivalent of DeLay without any solid evidence.
The contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans in the next election will be telling. While the Democrats are proposing and passing bipartisan solutions to solve our contry’s problems, the Republicans, through their lies and corruption, have forfeited the trust of the American people. I foresee a political earthquake for the 2006 election.
