Posted on 08/27/2015 8:11:40 AM PDT by PROCON
Ten years later, the name ‘Brownie’ is still identified with the government’s failures. Here’s what really happened.
Had I left the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the spring of 2005, my life would be very different today. And I really wish, in retrospect, that I had. But after the 2004 hurricane season, when FEMA’s excellent responses to hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne in Florida were widely praised, White House chief of staff Andy Card persuaded me to stay on as director through the 2005 hurricane season. I didn’t want to disappoint President George W. Bush. We’d developed a good relationship. Heck, he even gave me my own nickname: “Brownie.”
By the end of the summer, it was a nickname the whole world would know. I, in turn, would have learned many lessons in how Washington fails—and how it assigns blame. People are still saying now, as they said then, that what went wrong in New Orleans a decade ago was all my fault. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. There were many dark moments in those three weeks on the Gulf Coast, and FEMA and the federal government certainly made some mistakes, but perhaps the worst part was being held responsible for the things that I didn’t control at all.
I’m often asked, as the person who was running FEMA when Hurricane Katrina hit, why I didn’t evacuate New Orleans. My response is simple—FEMA had no authority to do that under the Constitution, which clearly establishes a system of federalism in which state and local governments are autonomous governmental entities.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Exactly.
Start with a natural disaster site, New Orleans (N.O.), waiting to happen. While not entirely below sea level, much of the impoverished high-density (9th Ward) areas were and are such.
Next, have a culture that comes close to celebrating corruption and cronyism. Lagniappe is a well-known term for something extra but it also means bribery. Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards was a US Rep. & 4 term governor and still very popular politician even after being Federally convicted of racketeering with a 10 year prison term in 2001. He was popular enough to have won the 1st stage US House District 6 Primary in 2014 (plurality) but was defeated in the run-off.
Now add a multi-decade history of single-party rule with an emphasis on spreading the money for keeping various pressure group LEADERS well paid.
N.O. was getting Federal money for decades to maintain the levies and pumps yet it was a given that some to a lot of that money went elsewhere. After all, N.O. had not had anything close to a direct hit since forever and having the best float in the Mardi Gras is prime!
So now the fecal matter is about to hit the air circulation device and the city and state leaders know that they have a history of smelly actions. Now, in my honest opinion, if the President at the time had been a Democrat, I believe that the disaster would have been local. The requests for Federal assistance would have been automatic by Governor Blanco and the death toll would have been reduced. The left-leaning MSM would have crucified Mayor Nagin and N.O. corruption, but it would have mostly stopped there.
However, it being a GOP President, both Louisiana and N.O. had the fear of discovered corruption by a hostile Dept. of Justice and wanted to wait to see how bad the results of Katrina really were. This delay was deadly since, like the "Golden Hour" of Emergency Care, delay allows more time for further levy breaks and flooding. Delay keeps the size of the disaster from being better accessed.
Yet the MSM saw the disaster unfold and only took notice of the delayed Federal response. Nagin & Blanco were front and center to direct attention away from their failures and the MSM was fully coopted in their defense.
I hope he wrote a book.
It sounds to me like he feels guilty for his incompetence and he knew his job was more than he should have assumed.
If he was smart he should just say: "Bush's fault". Then he'd be a hero.
Blanco and Nagin are both criminally negligent. Bush had assets ready to roll, but needed the approval of both state and city governments. Both characters did not want to be seen taking aid from Bush, and then turned around saying Bush did nothing. For that I also throw in obstruction. Slander as well.
Yet out of state charities were turned away at the state line.
-PJ
"Had I left the Federal Emergency Management Agency …"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
As a side note to this thread, please consider the following. The states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to tax and spend for vote-winning federal relief funding.
Note that supporters of federal emergency relief will point to the Congressional Act of 1803 as proof that such legislation must be constitutional, never any mention of a clause in Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to justify such relief.
But what they overlook is that the legislation evidently didn’t provide funding for relief purposes. I understand that all that the act did for relief purposes was to move the deadline for merchants in Portsmouth, Maine to pay their federal taxes (tariffs) to a later date, these merchants undoubtedly affected by the Portsmouth fire of 1802.
Note that I think that federal emergency relief is a good idea and needs to be considered. But the states need to amend the Constitution for such things so that Congress can legitimately tax and spend for such purposes.
No, he was made a scapegoat. Of course there were things he might have done better, with 20/20 hindsight. But Blanco and Nagin were the culprits. The media, however, chose to turn Katrina into a hit piece on Bush, and Brown got caught in the line of fire.
“Bush did! He went on national television, I believe it was a Friday night, and he begged the mayor and governor to react.”
I’ve spent 30 minutes searching on the internet for any evidence Bush made a national television address Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. The only thing I could find was he pleaded with the governor to let him send more national guard troops and put them under federal control. The conversations with the governor were not public.
Can you cite a source for Bush going on TV begging the mayor and governor to act?
I’ve got a cousin that lives in Covington, LA.
Apparently it’s common knowledge in LA Blanco got a call from top dems not to act because the dems were trying to set Bush up with an impeachment trap.
I can only remember seeing it on NBC, the only Chanel we get at our camp. It was a breaking news thing, live, and he addressed the people of New Orleans. Keep checking, I know I saw it and I remember discussing it with others during that time. Best I can do right now. Take it or leave it but I know what I saw.
Exactly and needs repeating...HELLO MEDIA?
Not sure if it is here. I could not get the audio to play. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/08/
They would let the media paint them badly at every turn with no pushback whatsoever. On and on for years.
...
That was all part of the strategy of letting the Democrats and GOPe grow the government. W didn’t use any vetoes either.
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