BCT Editorial – 5/2/06

This page was last updated on May 2, 2006.

Bitter memory; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 2, 2006.

If you recall, most Times Katrina editorials attempted to lay most of the blame on the federal government despite evidence to the contrary. As recently as February 15, 2006, the Times published an editorial (“Asleep at the wheel”) whose purpose was to misrepresent the findings of a House of Representative report. That editorial tried to convince us the report laid “primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides” though it did not.

More recently we saw a slight change. After months of dumping just about all blame on the feds, the editorial entitled “A matter of timing” asked, “Does it really matter right now who blew it and at what level in regard to pre-Katrina preparations?” I opined the probable reason for the slight change in sentiment was, “The record is increasingly showing the Democrat controlled local and state governments dropped the ball when it came to heeding warnings from the feds and following through on their own plans, so we [the Times] need to change the action line.”

Enter the Senate report. As you will read below, the editorial actually acknowledges the local and state governments failed in carrying out their responsibilities. I guess the Times finally figured out it could no longer bury or misrepresent the results of investigation after investigation.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Post-Katrina response by government reveals internal weaknesses

“The conclusions of last week’s critical report on the Hurricane Katrina disaster leads to a troubling question: Has the ability of government in the United States to deliver essential services reached the abysmal level of the Soviet Union as it limped toward the scrap heap of history?

“The bipartisan report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was so dysfunctional it should be assigned to the scrap heap of history.”

[RWC] Not exactly. In an action typical of Congress, the ultimate effect of the recommendation is to change the name of FEMA and have its leader report directly to the President.

“While that suggestion grabbed the first-day headlines, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported the bipartisan panel ‘blamed the botched response to Hurricane Katrina on a failure of leadership that stretched from the White House to the mayor’s office in New Orleans.’

“The report found:

“* New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ‘wasted time in waiting to order a mandatory evacuation.’

“* Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco ‘submitted an inadequate and erroneous request for assistance to the president and generally failed to ask the federal government for sufficient assistance before the storm.’

“* Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff ‘failed to effectively lead the federal response’ and ‘should have been more engaged in preparations.’

“* Former FEMA director Michael Brown ‘was insubordinate, unqualified and counterproductive.’”

[RWC] I wish people would make up their minds. First, Mr. Brown was labeled an incompetent boob. More recently, he’s been portrayed as a scapegoat. Now we’re back to an incompetent.

“* President Bush ‘could have done more’ to mobilize federal resources and that the initial White House response ‘was halting and inadequate.’

“‘The suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer that it should have because of - and was in some cases exacerbated by - the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for and respond aggressively to the storm,’ The Associated Press reports the panel concluded.”

[RWC] The editorial leads us to believe the above quotes came from the Senate report. I searched the report for a couple of the quotes and didn’t find them. I didn’t search for all of the quotes. It’s possible the quotes are really a mix of what’s in the report and Knight Ridder Newspapers’ own interpretation of the report.

“Even worse, the United States is still unprepared to deal with a disaster of Katrina-like proportions. That can be seen in the report’s title - ‘Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared.’

“The systemic incompetence that was displayed in the days, weeks and months - and will we soon be counting the years? - following Katrina bring back memories of the response, or rather, nonresponse, of the Soviet bureaucracy and leadership in the wake of the Dec. 7, 1988, earthquake in Armenia that killed 25,000 people, injured another 15,000 and left more than 500,000 people homeless.

“Soviet government at all levels was paralyzed by the enormity of the earthquake and failed to act promptly to provide and to coordinate rescue work. More than anything else, this top-to-bottom failure revealed to the world the internal weakness of the Soviet Union.”

[RWC] While it’s fair to criticize the overall response to Katrina, comparisons to the Soviet Union are ridiculous. Consider the following excerpt from a report by Popular Mechanics. “Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest -- and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.”

“Americans had better hope that history isn’t repeating itself.”

[RWC] Oh please.