Shame's New Name: "Michael DeWayne Brown". The former director of FEMA who was compelled to resign for his utter incompetence in dealing with the hurricane Katrina disaster testified before Congress today, and Republicans and Democrats found a rare point of agreement: the guy is slime.
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He dared to blame state and local officials, and plead helplessness to override them or even pre-position people and supplies where they might be moved into the disaster zone immediately after the storm left the region. He disowned FEMA's fundamental mission: to take care of people after a disaster. He mocked Congress, explosively objecting:

"So I guess you want me to be the superhero, to step in there and take everyone out of New Orleans," Brown said.

"What I wanted you to do is do your job and coordinate," [Connecticut Republican Representative Christopher] Shays retorted.

Casting around for someone else to blame, Brown tried to appeal to the partisan instincts of the Members of Congress present by fixing his sights on Democrats:

Brown acknowledged making mistakes during the storm and subsequent flooding that devastated the Gulf Coast. But he accused New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, both Democrats, of fostering chaos and failing to order a mandatory evacuation more than a day before Katrina hit.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown told a special panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe. Most Democrats, seeking an independent investigation, stayed away to protest what they called an unfair probe of the Republican administration by GOP lawmakers.

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin [both Demmies] to sit down, get over their differences and work together," Brown said. "I just couldn't pull that off." * * *

Blanco vehemently denied that she waited until the eve of the storm to order an evacuation of New Orleans. She said her order came on the morning of Aug. 27 – two days before the storm – resulting in 1.3 million people evacuating the city.

(See this blog's entries of September 12th and 1st, below, for mentions of other instances of Republican scapegoating of Democrats.)
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But perhaps most shocking is this quote from Slimeboy.

"And while my heart goes out to people on fixed incomes, it is primarily a state and local responsibility. And in my opinion, it's the responsibility of faith-based organizations, of churches and charities and others to help those people."

So, here you have the Republican Right's worldview: disaster victims are not entitled to help, as of right. They must beg for charity! If people feel like helping them, that's fine. If they don't, that's also fine. We are not our brother's keeper.
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The shocking, vile, and truly wicked mindset of the Bush Administration is (1) Government cannot and should not handle hurricane rescue operations; rather, private charity must provide for people; but, at the very same time, (2) private charity interferes with Government (see this blog's entry of September 12th, below)! so Government is doubly not responsible.
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Bush's home state of Texas and adjoining Louisiana, both Red States, now see the natural consequences of putting heartless, Radical Rightwing Republicans in charge of the national government. If these storm-devastated Southerners like the way they've been treated in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, they should vote Republican in the 2006 midterm Congressional elections and for President in 2008. If, however, they don't like one whit the way the Radical Right has treated them, they owe themselves the duty to vote Liberal Democratic from now on. Demmies would have saved them, of whole heart and with all deliberate speed.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,922.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:24 PM