I like the idea of an official investigation, but…

September 6, 2005

There’s been ample discussion of congressional hearings and the possibility of some kind of independent commission to review and analyze the series of breakdowns associated with the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The good news is, the president apparently supports the idea of a formal probe. The bad news is, Bush wants to lead it.

Beset with criticism over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said Tuesday he will oversee an investigation into what went wrong and why — in part to be sure that the country would withstand more storms or even a weapons of mass destruction attack. […]

“What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong,” Bush said. “We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm.”

As Josh Marshall put it, the president is prepared to “lead [an] investigation into his own failure.”

I can’t help but wonder if this was just another rhetorical slip-up for Bush. In general, presidents don’t lead their own investigations, and in specific, this president is, shall we say, fond of delegating responsibilities. The idea that there’s going to be some kind of formal investigation, and the sitting president of the United States will run the show, just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Watch for some kind of clarification this afternoon.

Also important, Dick Cheney is apparently ready to make an appearance.

Bush also announced he is sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is doing all it can.

This will be the first time we’ve seen the vice president in how long?

Foxes guarding the henhouse… how wonderful. :-p

Re Cheney, I’m sure he has “other priorities” than making sure people are taken care of – like his oil interests – making sure the government helps them get pumpin’ again.

  • It makes sense that the administration would look into what happened at the federal level in response to Katrina. Whether or not it is an investigation may be a matter of semantics. I can see the cabinet reviewing various agency responses, but I cannot envision a very critical look. There may be a sacrificial head that will roll in all this. But it will be good PR and may actually assist agencies in future similar situations.

  • Want to hear the latest spin? A guy at work told me today that President Bush PERSONALLY called the Governor of Louisiana BEFORE the hurricane hit and personally suggested that they ought to issue an evacuation order. I told him that was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard – Bush is a supreme delegator and would not waste his time worrying about such relatively small details.

    Furthermore, I said that of the 290 or so US Senators and Representatives in Congress, at 200 could do a better job than the one you guys refuse to hold accountable for anything.

    I’m not sure of the source of this one, but this excuse takes the cake.

  • Correction – I meant to say “of the 290 or so Republican Senators and Representatives”. My blood pressure is still spiked after hearing that one.

  • There may be a sacrificial head that will roll in all this.

    On the ccontrary, I can’t wait to see who’ll get the Presidential Medal of Freedom first, Brown or Chertoff. Maybe Condi?

  • No doubt, Dick Cheney will be “scouting” the disaster areas for “business opportunities” for Halliburton. Perhaps, Cheney will lure former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh back from Iraq to help suck up some federal funds.

  • Another talking point that seems to have bubbled to the surface is that big government itself is to blame for this disaster. They (well, those who actually admit that the Feds failed here) are taking FEMA’s piss poor response and linking it with the whole “inefficient bloated beaucracy” meme and then milking it for all its worth.

    Government is not the answer…bring on the tax cuts!

  • sublime33 – JM @ talkingpointsmemo got an email from a reader reporting he heard the same thing…

    Where did this come from?

  • Posted previously, but probably equally true for Cheney: Every time Junior flies in to “show support” the area is declared a no-fly zone, no planes in or out for the duration. Add to this the time it takes to prep the assets for the photo op…so the relief efforts lose at least a couple of hours. I don’t know how many hours a person can survive in disaster conditions, but if it were me, I’d want the rescuers working every damn minute.

  • Whatever investigations ensue from the Katrina
    disaster, the results are a foregone conclusion:
    another whitewash, some agency like FEMA
    will take the blame, and that’ll be the end of
    it. We know that. No point getting excited.

    The only hope is to recapture the Senate
    and 2006, and fat chance of that, thanks
    to the spineless Democrats who simply
    will not oppose this administration. Why
    should the American people change course
    when the Democrats are apparently
    fine with it?

  • Clearly the investigation will show that the Federal response was better than perfect, but the State and Local response was terrible. Especially in those areas controlled by Dems. The areas of Mississippi controled by the GOP of course will have been positioned to do a great job, but were hampered by the Dems in LA messing up the Feds.

    Repeat with me: Not the GOPs fault (re: Federal or GOP controlled local/state gov’t), all the Dems fault.

    Apparently, Rove has decided that the Truman slogan of “The Buck Stops Here” really should be “If the buck is related to bad news it stops with the Dems, otherwise, the GOP gets credit.”

  • Bush must have received a call from Schwartznegger. Recall, Arnold hired an investigator to look into allegations of his own mysgonist behavior when he was campaigning for governor.

    I think ciclethewagons is absolutely correct and John Tierny’s column today can be seen as an opening volley in the GOP blame big government strategy. The Democrats in LA should stray away from generic references to red tape when they discussing the failures which caused the crisis in New Orleans. The reason is that red tape is viewed, by most people, as a part and parcel of a big government bureaucracy. Therefore reference to it is taken as symptomatic of the failure of bureaucracy in general, rather than the specific incompetence of the people leading the bureaucracy. If, as it now appears, there was a failure to process paperwork on time which lead to some of the problems, then it should be noted that effective leadership would have cut that red tape . Make the point,that since bureaucracies are known, by most ,to be susceptible to intertia, any good manager of a bureaucracy would take that into account when he/she can anticipate that quick action is required. Democrats should not walk into this GOP trap.

    That’s my advice. Not that anyone ever takes my advice.

  • If you listen to the clip of what Bush says, it makes perfect sense in his faith based world.

    He is going to investigate what went RIGHT (and what went wrong). He said it twice, the same way, with the emphasis on RIGHT.

    The whitewash is already starting

  • As OJ Simpson vowed to find Nicole’s real killer, Bush pledged to personally lead the investigation into this own incompetence. Unfortunately, it’s been scientifically proved that stupid people are incapable of realizing how stupid they are.

  • There has never been a President who’s used the first person singular as much as Junior. He’s always talking about how “I’ll do this” and “I’ll do that, “I’ll get to the bottom of this” and “I was affected by that,” as if he’s personally responsible for everything. It sounds inarticulate, but plays well with a large chunk of people who like to believe he’s aware of everything and literally taking charge of everything. It may also explain why early polls show he’s not taking the blame for the response to Katrina as much as a faceless “bureaucracy” is (people can thus still blame “the government” while letting him off the hook).

    Of course “I” (“he”) won’t lead the investigation (though perhaps “I”‘ll appoint the people who will). But “I” can take the credit for being bold and decisive…just like “I” was a few days ago when “I” told New Orleans, “I’ll be out of here in a minute, but I won’t forget what I’ve seen.”

  • The right wing blogs are referencing this article to absolve Bushie of any blame.

    http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

    They want to blame the local and state goverments. Nevermind that it doesn’t change his inept leadership early last week or his inappropriate demeanor (until his show this weekend, when he finally realized he shouldn’t be doing things like chuckling in GMA interviews or talking about great Trent Lott’s new house will be). It infuriates me that in a time when action and leadership from the president were absolutely essential that the right-wingers can hide behind technicalities about jurisdictions and protocol in defending bush. Whatever happened to “cutting through the red tape”? If bush was so freaking prescient about the havoc of Katrina, then the glacial federal response is even more shameful.

    Bush investigating the response is just another illustration that this administration has no concept of ethics or any desire to be accountable for any of their actions. Even if a non-partisan party were to investigate, they would certainly not take into account the effect of the Bushites tax cuts or the money and manpower diverted to the war in Iraq. I thought his response to the disaster was just awful, but I’m just as angry about the effect of these policies/decisions.

  • Interesting that after 9/11, all of us united
    behind a president that half of us found
    incompetent before 9/11, all in the national
    interest.

    Now that Bush has been exposed as
    the pitiful, pitiless, ruthless, inept,
    incompetent fraud that he is, none of
    the right wingers are prepared to unite
    behind the greater cause of our nation’s
    well being. Just continued blind obedience
    to their prejudiced attitudes and hatreds.

  • I’ll do this on a more appropriate topic
    some other time, but I just thought of it,
    and wanted to post it.

    The media equates Bush bashing
    with Clinton bashing, but the two
    are so fundamentally different.

    Basically, we attack Bush’s policies.

    Clinton was bashed personally and
    unrelentingly for eight solid years. He
    was shredded and torn to pieces.
    Hate radio never stopped talking
    about him. Yeah, his policies, but
    mostly him personally.

    But the worst thing was how they
    ripped his familly. They attacked
    Hillary viciously and continuously.
    Have you noticed how we never
    attack Laura Bush? The worst thing
    I ever said about her was that she
    was a “Stepford First Lady,” but in
    the sense that that’s what most of them
    are, Dems or Repigs.

    I”ve never said a word about Bush’s
    daughters, and they’ve presented plenty of
    opportunities. But hate radio went
    after poor Chelsea, and told so many
    ugly duckling jokes that I thought I’d
    burst at times. So cruel and pointless
    and vicious.

    There’s something really different between
    us and them. It’s not just a difference of
    opinion, a difference of political or governmental
    philosophy.

  • Why is it taking so long for Chaney to travel to the region? Because they need to stage the event. Bush didn’t make his first trip until they could get a convoy there, and 100 firefighters flown in to stand behind him. I wonder what needed efforts are being delayed in preparation for Chaney’s visit?

  • That would be like putting Nixon in charge of the Watergate investigation.

    When is the right going to realize that their President is a complete doofus?! I am so over this moron.

  • There is a more disturbing aspect to this story that needs to be
    considered. Perhaps the situation will get so out of control that the
    administration itself will implode and wreak havoc on the entire country.
    Maybe Karl Rove has finally outsmarted his evil self this time.
    What happens to the Republic then? Is a military dictatorship the
    final perverted consequence of this bastard administration?
    Hail Caesar!

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