The Political Chase

William Lokey - FEMA Head for Katrina?

The Bush administration needs a simple, "Who Handles What" list and I would like a copy of it.

Yesterday I raised the question, who in the administration did not share responsibility in the Katrina recovery.  Notice, I didn’t say who did…but who did not.  Briefly the known players were the President, Chertoff (DHS), Brown (DHS) and Rumsfeld (DOD). 

Things are getting more complicated and thereby confusing to me.

Reuters is reporting another individual, William Lokey, that was (is?) responsible leading FEMA’s efforts.  According to their report, Bush put Lokey in charge of FEMA’s efforts for Hurricane Katrina on August 27.

 I’m clueless…if William Lokey has been previously noted in this ball of confusion I missed it.  I don’t know what Lokey’s permanent (?) role is and Reuters did not identify it either.

 More later.

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Not Even Parkng Meters

Parking and camping have been banned around the President’s house in Crawford, TX.

Maybe the President is using some of that political capital he referred to immediately after the 2004 election. 

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Blame and Guilt

Senator Trent Lott,  in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday night, "We’re all to blame to a degree."

Sounds like Senator Lott has a little guilt about trying to divert the Navy medical ship.

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Bush’s Katrina Reconstruction Team

President Bush, the self-proclaimed uniter, seems to have excluded a few elements from his reconstruction team.

From the Washington Post [Emphasis added]:

Bush already has dispatched his top strategist, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and other aides to assemble ideas from agencies, conservative think tanks, GOP lawmakers and state officials to guide the rebuilding of New Orleans and relocation of flood victims. The idea, aides said, is twofold: provide a quick federal response that comports with Bush’s governing philosophy, and prevent Katrina from swamping his second-term ambitions on Social Security, taxes and Middle East democracy-building.

• Conservative think tanks
• GOP lawmakers

 Conservative think tanks…does that mean Haliburton and Joe Allbaugh?

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Brown Blames Gov., Feds and Trent Lott

An interview with Michael Brown is in today’s New York Times. Brown bounces blame all around in the interview, but it is clear, according to his remarks, that he escalated the situation and received negligible response.

One interesting item in the article  is the conflict between Congressional delegations and their competing for resources for their offices and districts.

"There were also conflicts with the Congressional delegations that wanted resources for their offices and districts, FEMA officials said. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi said he ‘resisted aggressively’ a decision by Mr. Brown to dispatch a Navy medical ship to Louisiana instead of his home state."

 I noted earlier that Senator Lott was pleased with the government’s response.  Maybe now we know why.

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Bush Administration Flooded with Responsibility

I’m beginning to wonder what part of the Bush administration did not share responsibility for the federal response to Katrina.

As we know, initially the focus was on Michael Brown, who is now amongst the ranks of the departed.   Yesterday, Knight-Rider raised the bar to include Secretary Chertoff .  Knight-Rider claims that Chertoff could have taken action prior to the  hurricane’s landfall and without local authorization.  According to a memo written by Chertoff and published by Knight-Rider, Chertoff did not fully authorize Brown until 36 hours after Katrina had passed.  Why?

As I noted on Sunday of this week, Secretary Rumsfeld was making troop deployment decisions.   Today, it was revealed that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson attempted to dispatch 400 New Mexico guardsmen but was stopped by the Pentagon.  The Pentagon delayed the New Mexico guardsmen until Friday, four days after the Governor authorized their release.

"Federal paperwork" was cited as the reason for delaying the troops.

It is astounding that President Bush is not capable of managing three men - Chertoff, Rumsfeld and Brown.  President Bush has an MBA from Harvard.  What classes did he miss that teach a manager to gather subordinates and pose the appropriate questions regarding a task or project? Simple questions or directives…Who’s in charge, or you are in charge - go now.  What logistical impediments do we need to immediately address?  Tell me how you plan to approach this?  Is everybody clear on who is doing what - repeat it back to me, so that we all understand.  If there was any confusion or absence of management leadership, then why didn’t the President take the reins personally instead of strumming a guitar like Bruce Springsteen?

 Chertoff may be able to wiggle out of this mess by exploiting his short time as Secretary of Homeland Security.  It doesn’t matter about Brown now, he’s gone.  Of the two remaining involved individuals - the President and Secretary Rumsfeld, there is no escape hatch.  They’ve both been in their respective roles sufficient time.  As a matter of fact, they both have a long history of costly failures.

In a September 9 speech to the Sierra Club’s National Environmental Commission, Al Gore makes it quite clear.

"When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic floodwaters five days after a hurricane strikes, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe but to hold the processes of our nation accountable, and the leaders of our nation accountable, for the failures that have taken place."

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