The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

It took very little time for the foreign press to blame, four-square, the entire hurricane mess on President Bush. Even the Telegraph in London has got in on the act.

Another world offensive has begun against the president. But first, before we heed their advice to kill the president, shouldn't we ask more questions?

Why Did It Take So Long?
Of course, with the data (empirical and otherwise) we have so far, the president seems to deserve criticism. I was dumbfounded, for instance, by his lack of urgency. By Wednesday night, I was ready to impeach him. Distressed by the tick tock of this endless, deadly evacuation, I admit I started to doubt. It was so, well, so uncharacteristic. Dubya not on it? It was too hard for me to believe.

Then my sweet husband, who is very smart, made a startling observation. What if the Feds can't go into New Orleans? Dang! I should have thought of that.

Sure enough, in a small interview on Fox, an FBI person whose team had been there since Friday, made it very clear there were national security issues in addition to the presence of opportunistic groups posing as city gangs. DEA also was there, as was INS. So, we may be able to conclude that opportunistic groups, perhaps those unfriendly to the rest of us, were in the city.

When asked if the national security problem somehow involved communications, the FBI spokesman said he couldn't go any further than acknowledging that it indeed was. Considering the proximity of important military facilities, plus New Orleans being a huge port, I had to allow that might be true.

In addition to the president's apparent security problems in the city, he seems to have made the mistake of trusting that local authorities were up to the task. Might this explain the president's gloved hand early on?

Why Else?

I've heard myriad reasons:

• The fleets usually in the gulf had to be moved out before the storm so they wouldn't sink. Carriers full of helicopters? How long does it take to return to port? Likely a few days under full steam.

• The propositioned National Guard troops, vainly anticipating the go-ahead from Governor Twit, finally had to move to the east from their former strategic position closer to New Orleans as the storm had shifted just before it hit land at the mouth of the Mississippi. The worst appeared to be over, they thought, with their fingers crossed.

• The National Guard command said quite frankly, they thought NOPD could handle their jobs. It never occurred to them the force would deplete itself by 60%! Whose responsibility is that? What if 60% of LAPD or NYPD, with their thousands of cops, decided to leave their posts in an emergency? Let's get real. Some folks in New Orleans love their city, but not enough to try to save it.

• Mobilizing a federal force takes a few hours. That's a reality.

• Clear responsibilities are defined by law, procedures and plans. Again, the locals didn't do their jobs.

Political Realities
Every leader has his own political reality that has to be reckoned with by his enemies and his supporters. Otherwise, the art of political gamesmanship descends into armed conflict.

Part of that includes making nasty decisions, right or wrong, about the emergency at hand. Sometimes those choices are home runs; sometimes not. I don't know why the president couldn't act sooner, or even if he already had. More will be revealed.

What we are watching right now is the biggest chess match we've seen in a long time. On one side is the credibility of the most powerful nation on earth; one the other is a cabal of individuals who want to president to fail at any cost.

In Texas they call it "how the cows ate the cabbage." Nagin's reality is simply defined: he will be pinned with exhibiting the worst dereliction of duty in the history of natural disasters, or he will be a nice little boy and do what the feds tell him.

As for sister, she'll be talking secretly to the president, getting on his good side. She knows how the cows eat the cabbage. She'll fade into ingnominy, unless she pitches in and hires federal people at the state's expense. In management they call that "buying your way out of trouble."

This is Bigger Than New Orleans
If the president's opponents think the United States is going to be pushed into a corner by a bunch of penny-ante politicians who don't know shoes from Shineola, they can think again.

I can imagine the president made that abundantly clear when he met with hizzoner and her idiocy, the governor, both of whom failed, failed, failed in their important duties to their people.

Moreover, other city and state officials throughout the country are on notice to take this stuff seriously and get the right, skilled people on board to plan for the worst. Their local pride isn't appropriate.

We can tell the Europeans that Americans, under the direction of the president, are in this together.

Thanks for the read.