It depends on what the meaning of ‘bi-partisan’ is

September 8, 2005

At first blush, yesterday’s reports about a joint bi-partisan investigation into the failures before and after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast sounds like a positive development.

Republican Congressional leaders on Wednesday announced a joint House-Senate inquiry into failures surrounding the response to Hurricane Katrina as the Bush administration requested $51.8 billion in new relief money in the face of intensifying Democratic criticism of its handling of the disaster.

“Americans deserve answers,” said Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who announced the panel with the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, adding that a report from a select group of senior lawmakers would be due by Feb. 15. “We must do all we can to learn from this tragedy, improve the system and protect all of our citizens,” he said.

The decision by House and Senate Republican leaders to press forward with a rare bicameral investigation reflected an intense push to quell the furor surrounding the hurricane relief effort and respond to worries by members of their own party that majority Republicans were suffering politically.

I don’t mean to sound picky, but this is a sham. When the panel was announced, for example, only Republicans were present at the event. There’s a reason for that — this “bi-partisan” effort is anything but bi-partisan.

* Republican leaders offered Dems literally no role in putting the joint inquiry together.

* Instead of having an equal number of participants from both parties, Republicans admitted yesterday that the “joint review committee” will have more Republican lawmakers than Dems.

* The panel will not have bi-partisan subpoena power.

In other words, this is a bi-partisan effort opposed by one party. As Harry Reid put it, “An investigation of the Republican administration by a Republican-controlled Congress is like having a pitcher call his own balls and strikes.”

What, exactly, do Dems want? An independent review, modeled after the 9/11 Commission, with an equal number of non-lawmakers from both sides. Republicans have said this is out of the question because…well, because they say so.

Dems shouldn’t give up on this. The LA Times quoted a Senate Republican aide today saying that “public outrage over the government’s perceived failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina would eventually force Congress and the administration to agree to an independent inquiry.”

Stay tuned.

It’s only marginally better than having Mike Brown investigate FEMA’s response and Michael Chertoff investigate DHS’s.

  • If the Republicans are so certain that the lion’s share of the blame should go to Blanco and Nagin, then they should not be afraid of an independent investigation. The failure to relinquish control of the investigation to an independent body puts the lie to any claim that the primary falt for this castrophy rests with state and local officials in LA. This is not to say that they are not to some degree culpable, but any failures on their parts does not excuse the failures at the top.

    On a related point, MS and AL were also hard hit. Unfortunately, most of the media focus has been on New Orleans. As a result, the hundreds of dead and millions, if not billions of dollars, in damage
    in these state,with Republican governors, is currently treated as a secondary story and has been lost in the coverage of LA. This plays into the Bush gangs hand by allowing them to exercise a strategy of focusing on New Orleans where they have convienent Democratic scapegoats.

    To defend against this the Democrats must repeatedly note that the MS and AL death tolls and property damage are large in absolute terms. They only seem minor in comparison to the devistation of LA.

  • “public outrage over the government’s perceived failures” should last until, what, the opening of the NFL season? Arnold’s veto of gay rights? Condi’s next shoe spree?

  • Someday I’ll learn to edit my posts for grammar and spelling. Don’t hold your breath.
    castrophy=catastrophe
    devistation=devastation

  • And “ecumenical” means Roman-Catholic-AND-Fundamentalist.

    And “big tent” means Fascist Republicans and Not-truly-Fascist Republicans.

    And “multi-national” means the U.S. and the U.K.

    And “Americans” means the extremely rich and obscenely rich.

    And “fair and balanced” means … oops.

  • If you read the NY TIMES article carefully, you’ll see that the word “bipartisan” is never used in the article. It’s called a “joint” inquiry and a “bicameral” inquiry, referring to the Senate and the House getting together. There’s mention of a “private bipartisan briefing” about the disaster, led by a defiant Michael Chertoff, but that’s a different event. Nancy Pelosi laments in a quote about the need for a “truly bipartisan” inquiry, but that’s a quote, not the reporter (or the GOP) talking, and in any event it illustrates that she knows the planned inquiry is NOT “bipartisan.”

    The only place the word “Bipartisan” appears in regard to the planned inquiry itself is in the HEADLINE of the article; the TIMES in-house editor has (either knowingly or unknowingly) spun the reporter’s tale in a different direction by using that headline.

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