The Black Republican

Retired FEMA Director Michael Brown has been testifying before Congress, offering up a solid defense of his record in FEMA, and of his actions during the hurricane Katrina event. It is being reported that he calls his biggest mistake his failure to recognize, on Saturday before the storm hit, that the local governments were "dysfunctional", and incapable of directing an evacuation. Which is pretty much my analysis of the events when viewed in real time, and an opinion (dysfunctional) confirmed by the lame reactions of the local officials in the hurricane's aftermath.

I'm pulling for the guy, and it would not surprise me that when all of the facts are known, we would find ourselves well served to invite Mr. Brown to resume his former command. Politics are behind the abuse to which this man was subjected, and these kind of thoughtless, ignorant of the facts, destructive, politics are the diseases which infect these times. The politics of personal destruction, left wing media style.

And we know the motivation behind the MSM's hatchet job on Brown, they think if they discredit one of President Bush's nominees they are that much closer to impeaching GWB. So they ignore the total incompeptence of the Mayor, the Govenor. And, they spread every distasteful rumor they hear during the crisis, without regard to whether they are true, just so they can ratchet up the pressure on Bush. And, then when things settle down and it comes to light that the numbers of dead, and the amount of violence, were exagerated they may report the discrepancy but they refuse to back down the logic trail and reassess the events without the false assumptions in place.

I've seen the template used too many times, they take fictional events and create a scenario which is supposedly bad news for GWB. Then, when we shake them awake and tell them those were only dreams, they continue to use the imagined events/consequences to push for the changes they desire, while throwing blame at Bush for something that never happened. And, while they remain, to borrow General Honore's phrase, "stuck on stupid", we have to hear how dumb they are. Irritating.

Now, to be sure, Michael Brown is not perfect. And we can do the "monday morning quarterback" critique, as we should, but that doesn't mean we have to automatically tear the man down if he proves to be mortal. I am sure he is. As are the Mayor and Govenor. But, the reason I will keep pounding on them for the way they handled Katrina is that they were 1)incompetent, and 2)whiners who sought to blame someone else for their inadequacies. I can understand the first, I can not tolerate the second. The first means you are human, the second means you are a bad person and willing to hurt another in order to avoid the responsibility for your own actions (or, inactions). It means one is yellow.

I want to hear the rest of the story, there are lessons for many in the way Katrina was handled. For now I'm still drinking the Brown Kool-Aid. But don't spray me with that yellow Kool-Aid and tell me it is raining, I've heard too much of that fiction for this lifetime.