Bamboozled

I've been lazy posting because I feel that there are so many on the web right now doing an excellent job of laying out the many many problems with the Bush administration and its raping and pillaging of the American political system. I'm exceedingly skeptical that average Americans will become incensed enough to demand accountability.

Generally speaking I'm at least as skeptical of the Democratic party as I ever will be of the folks who are in office today. The lack of wider spread support (including and especially by Hillary Clinton, et al) in demanding investigations into any and all illegal doings out of the President's office is downright criminal.

But today, I'd like to focus more on Katrina. I participate in a number of "action" groups focused on seeking Federal monies and other resources for the victims of this catastrophe. There are some good things happening in NOLA these days: People are rebuilding, Mardi Gras is going on, Nagin is running for re-election. But, now the House is failing to move on a bill to extend unemployment insurance to people screwed by the Hurricane. Typical.

NPR's Farai Chideya, (a beautiful, insightful friend of mine) has some follow up from her reporting there last fall. You can listen here. The scope of this is mindboggling, which is partially the reason folks find it so easy to dismiss and keep on trucking. I saw a play last night at The Evidence Room called INSIDE THE CREOLE MAFIA: POST KATRINA VERSION. It's an incomplete piece, highly entertaining and evocative. In the same way that it has taken years for us to process the 9/11 tragedy (and we are still very much weaving it into the national narrative), Katrina's impact on our hearts, minds, and political landscape has yet to be calculated. We've got to start the accounting now.

Below is a posting of the text of an AP article regarding how much Bush knew and when. It's clear from video tapes, emails and other documentation that BushCo knew how bad things could get, and chose to go about their day-to-day, enjoying their vacations while people crouched for their lives in inadequate shelters with no assurances that anyone even gave a damn. Wiretapping, for me, is a bit abstract, the ports deal is more a question of economics than a true national security issue. On the other hand, my dad's side of the family is from New Orleans and the now partially submerged Plaquemines Parish. All emphasis below is my own:

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to- be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush's bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

_Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

_Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility _ and Bush was worried too.

OK, so, what the hell went wrong? And why hasn't it been fixed yet? These questions weigh heavily on my mind. Incompetence and hubris have been the trademarks of this administration. I feel bamboozled. Again.