Fortunately, I haven’t seen too much of it, but there are still a few voices suggesting any criticism of the president and/or the federal government’s response to Katrina’s devastation is inappropriate. I think a reasonable case could be made that holding off on Tuesday made some sense — the storm, at that point, was just striking the coast — but if there’s ever been a time to express concern about an administration’s performance, it’s now.
The most common refrain I’ve heard from the right is the idea that Bush critics are “playing politics.” Forget, for a moment, various crises and controversies that conservatives have exploited for political gain and consider a different question: what does the phrase “playing politics” really entail? If we see the government failing to meet the needs of its citizens, and say so out loud, are we “playing politics”? If we identify the administration’s failures in advance of a crisis and ask for an explanation, is this exploitation?
I realize the line is not always easy to draw. Sometimes it’s a matter of degree and emphasis. In March, for example, a Republican Senate staffer wrote and distributed a memo about the Terri Schiavo controversy, explaining, “This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue. This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.”
This, it seems to me, is playing politics. And if Dems on the Hill were to respond to the Katrina nightmare by considering what they could get out of it politically, it’d be equally shameful.
But they’re not. The discussion that’s unfolded over the last few days is about the breakdown in the effectiveness of the federal government. As Paul Krugman put it:
At a fundamental level, I’d argue, our current leaders just aren’t serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don’t like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.
Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.
So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can’t-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.
The right considers these circumstances and suggests we should remain quiet. I respectfully disagree.
Joe Conason summarized the situation nicely today.
For the third time since George W. Bush became president, Americans are paying a catastrophic price for bad government. As the costs are tallied once more in death and dollars, we are being told that the wise and patriotic thing to do is shut up — as if good citizens are obliged to remain silent about unwise and incompetent leadership.
Honest political debate over how and why we lost the great city of New Orleans, according to the latest dictates from the right, means “an excess of recrimination,” “finger-pointing” and “villain hunting.” Such a “vulgar” exercise risks overshadowing our normal national unity and generosity in confronting disaster with “divisiveness” and “partisanship.” We are piously advised instead to do good and find common ground, to “be humble, compassionate and helpful.” Thus speak the sages of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
In short, we must simply write checks to the Red Cross and choke off any critical impulse.
Following such worthless advice would require us all to keep quiet even while the president of the United States again speaks falsely about matters of the utmost importance to the nation.
I wonder, when, exactly, would the right accept criticism about Bush’s handling of this crisis, before and after the hurricane hit? Do we wait a week? A month? As far as the president’s supporters are concerned, is there ever an appropriate time to speak out and say the president is failing in his responsibilities?
I suspect it’s more likely that, as James Wolcott put it, “There is no ‘next week’ when it comes to getting answers and fixing accountability for failure under this president. Next week never comes.”
Update: An emailer writes in to suggest that I’m attacking a strawman — that no one is really suggesting that the president’s critics keep quiet aside from a stray conservative blogger or two. In response, I’d like to point to this comment from today’s NYT: “Seventy-two hours into this, to be openly posturing about this, to be attacking the president, is not only despicable and wrong, it’s not politically smart,” said one White House official who asked not to be named because he did not want to be seen as talking about the crisis in political terms. In other words, we’re supposed to just sit back and silently watch this disaster unfold. Sorry, but that’s not possible right now.