Politicizing hurricane aid
Considering that we’re dealing with a group of people who’ll exploit a woman in a vegetative state for partisan political gain, it’s hard to get surprised anymore by Republicans’ manipulative tactics. Having said that, even I was a taken aback by the Bushes’ politicization of hurricane aid in Florida.
As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal consultant predicted a “huge mess” that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show.
Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance “to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind.”
The records are contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush’s storm-related e-mails initially requested by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Oct. 13.
The governor’s office finally released the documents Friday, after threat of a lawsuit by the newspaper.
Remember that classic line from former Bush domestic policy advisor John DiIulio: “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm.” We just keep finding examples to bolster the statement, don’t we?
Florida was a close race in a state with 27 electoral votes. What happens when there’s a natural disaster? The powers that be immediately start wondering what they need to do to reap the biggest political rewards. Again, there is no tactic too cynical, no ploy too crass, no maneuver too callous for this gang. Everything is a political opportunity to be exploited. Everything.
FEMA is defending itself, saying politics plays no part in the agency’s work, but the Sun-Sentinel report explains that politics was very much on the mind of FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon, who wrote a three-page memo titled “Hurricane Frances — Thoughts and Suggestions,” on Sept. 2.
The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry. Winning Florida was key to the president’s re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying “the team effort theme at every opportunity” alongside state and local officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross.
“What FEMA cannot afford to do is back itself into a corner by feeling it has to be the sole explainer and defender for everything that goes wrong,” he wrote. “Further, this is not what the President would want. Plenty is going to go wrong, and his Department of Homeland Security does not want to assume responsibility for all of it.”
Garcelon, a former FEMA employee, recommended that “top-level people from FEMA and the White House need to develop a communication strategy and an agreed-upon set of themes and communications objectives.”
“Communication consultants from the President’s re-election campaign should be brought in,” he wrote. “Above all, everybody’s got to understand that no amount of flogging DHS/ FEMA will insure that the recovery will go perfectly. This is going to be a huge mess. The public needs to be prepared for it.”
The Garcelon memo ended up on Jeb Bush’s desk, who claims to have never read in or acted on it. Still, it was his office that wanted to hide it from public view. I can’t imagine why.
Let this be a lesson to all the other states: if you suffer a disaster and want top-level attention from the Bush administration, you better have some polling data showing that your state is competitive at the presidential level. Or else.