14 Comments:

wege asked the right question:

Draw whatever conclusions you like, but it’s hard not see this as a binary equation. Either Bush lied or was ignorant when he praised Brown, or they’re throwing a valuable civil servant away to take some of the heat off Bush.

...well, that's not really a question, but it needs to be asked to someone in the administration. His praise of Brownie ranks right up there with his comment about nobody thinking the levees could break.

cp

By  Anonymous, at 3:31 PM  

I suspect the answer would be that Bush was trying to inspire confidence. You go to a disaster with the FEMA chief you have, not the FEMA chief you wish you had. Right?

By  Hammer, at 3:33 PM  

Well now that Brown is a known known (as opposed to an unknown known....or did I get that backasswards), I suppose you are right.

cp

By  Anonymous, at 4:44 PM  

This all goes to show that poltical cronyism in positions so vital to national security should end. Maybe Brown was good at making sure the president's podium was straight at fundraisers, but he was obviously woefully inadequate. The guy looked like a deer in the headlights. Trent Lott is quoted as saying Brown acted like a private rather than a general. Pretty harsh stuff coming from your own party. (Trent deserves to get his licks in after Bush let him twist in the wind over his comments about Strom Thurmond. That still burns me--but I digress)

What we need in positions such as these are retired or acting apolitical military brass. People who know how to cut through the shit, get things done and scare bureaucrats. People who don't give a shit about personal relations or office politics. Those people are out there. We I see all the boneheaded bureaucratic crap FEMA pulled to actually stall relief efforts it makes me want to cry.(Briefly... then I want to rip their head off, beat them until they just a lifeless carcass... you get the picture). Bush is going to take his licks on this one and he deserves it. Also, FEMA needs to come out of Homeland Security for sure. What is needed is more indians, not more chiefs.

With that said, a warning to the Dems--Shut up. Mark my words, this race baiting crap will come back on the Dems big time and they are going to get no political capital from this at all. Just watch. Later.

By  Anonymous, at 8:28 PM  

re: "race baiting" -- I think it depends. If you're talking about Dems (or pseudo-Dems) who go on TV and say that Bush doesn't care about black people, then I agree. That's not productive, not helpful, and -- to the extent that it accuses Bush of being racist -- not correct.

On the other hand, when I read stories like this (about suburban police refusing to let NO residens leave the city) I disagree. If it's true, and the story gains more corrobatoration by the day, then the race question is in play. Not on the federal level, but on the local level, where one wonders what kind of sheriff would send people back to lawlessness and squalor rather than let them walk to safety?

By  Hammer, at 7:50 AM  

I am referring only to the criticisms intimating that Bush and the Republicans are racists. I have no doubt that what you say is true. Public Hearing shouldn't start for at least a year, but I predict that when it is all pealed back we are going to be aghast.

By  Anonymous, at 6:18 PM  

outside of Kanye West, who is saying that this is a race thing? I haven't really heard much beyond that. Most of the commentary has centered around the economic part of the equation...not so much the race.

cp

By  Anonymous, at 7:13 PM  

I've seen a couple polls where whites and blacks are asked whether they think the response to Katrina was slower because most of the people trapped in New Orleans were black. About 2/3 of blacks agree that the government responded more slowly because of race.

By  Hammer, at 7:17 AM  

We at CP suspect that race did indeed play a huge part of the on-the-ground-person-to-person type response effort. Stuff like the Gretnea sherrif telling folks at the convention center that he doesn't want folks like that over in his city reeks of racism. We don't think that the overall response was racist, but we are going to bet that when a lot of the smaller details come out about the rescue effort, race will be at the forefront of why certain people didn't get the help they needed.

However, until that time...we can only suspect.

cp

By  Anonymous, at 11:37 AM  

I suspect you are right, but I doubt that the investigation will address that point.

By  Hammer, at 12:43 PM  

of course it won't. It will be more worried about whether or not the area will be inhabitable because of toxic sludge. If it is, then hey...poor people move back in. If it is not...then we will have massive "urban redevelopment".

We can't talk about race. We've never been good at it. I doubt we ever will. Least of all congress..

cp

By  Anonymous, at 2:07 PM  

It's almost impossible to talk about race in this country. You can't talk about the future without understanding the past. You can't discuss the past without accusations and recriminations.

By  Hammer, at 3:21 PM  

You're right on those points. However, I think on a personal level, there is a tremendous sense of fear when dealing with race. Decent folks don't want to say things that may be seen as racially offensive. This doesn't matter if the feeling turns out to be true or not...people usually aren't honest with their feelings/thoughts towards race.

This cuts both ways. For instance, I was pumping gas the other way next to two black women who were talking loudly to one another swearing away right in front of my 7 year old daughter. I'm OK with a random swear here or there, but this was excessive.

I kindly asked the women to not swear in front of my daughter and I was treated to a barely English rant peppered with as many f-bombs and "crackers" as I have ever heard in my life.

I honestly couldn't understand a word of what these 2 women were saying. I expressed this to them and they called me a "fucking racist honkey".

Nice.

After talking with my daughter, she now thinks that all black people swear and ride in cars with loud stereos. I had a post about this subject a while back. Kanye West was right about the portrayal of blacks in the media. However, it ain't just in the media.

Now, can you imagine an honest back and forth conversation/report on this incident in the press? Yet, I think it firmly encapsulates some of the racial feelings that most people harbor. It is real, yet we will never talk about it. What gives?

Well, I'm pretty sure it has to do with the fear of flying off the racial edge. How close did I walk the line by saying "it ain't just in the media"? Pretty close right. Yet, the last 4 encounters my daughter has had with black people has been seeing some idiot who can barely speak English swear at someone.

Now, I can only tell her that "not all black people act that way" so much. I can only let her talk to my old military roommate James so much. Ultimately, she is going to make up her mind on her own. She is going to look at the world and if it doesn't match up with what I am telling her, she is going to...well, you know.

In order to be able to deal with race and racial issues, we have to be able to talk about what we see without fear of crossing the line. We have to be able to tell people how we view eachother in light of race.

Oh well. It would be nice to see this sort of conversation in the media. New Orleans offers a good example to begin the conversation. We won't take it.

cp

By  Anonymous, at 3:57 PM  

I'm raising my children to be misanthropes. They'll never be accused of being racist, because they'll dislike everyone.

By  Hammer, at 7:28 AM  

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