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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Steyn With A Brutal Assessment

Steyn With A Brutal Assessment

by John Cole|  September 5, 20051:15 am| 28 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics

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Steyn documents the failures:

After Sept. 11, many people who should have known better argued that it was somehow a vindication of government.

“One of the things that’s changed so much since Sept. 11,” agreed Vice President Dick Cheney, “is the extent to which people do trust the government — big shift — and value it, and have high expectations for what we can do.”

Hard to see why he’d say that. Sept. 11 was an appalling comprehensive failure of just about every relevant federal agency. The only government that worked that day was local and state: The great defining image, redeeming American honor at a moment of national humiliation, is those brave New York firemen pounding up the stairs of the World Trade Center. What consolations can be drawn from the lopsided tango between slapdash bureaucrats and subhuman predators in New Orleans?

To be fair, next door, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has been the Giuliani of the hour, and there are many tales of great courage, like the teams from the Children’s Hospital of Alabama who’ve been helicoptering in to New Orleans to rescue newborn babies.

The comparison with Sept. 11 isn’t exact, but it’s fair to this extent: Katrina was the biggest disaster on American soil since that day provoked the total overhaul of the system and the devotion of billions of dollars and the finest minds in the nation to the prioritizing of homeland security. It was, thus, the first major test of the post-9/11 structures. Happy with the results? …

Those levees broke; they failed. And you think about Chicago and San Francisco and Boston and you wonder what’s waiting to fail there. The assumption was that after 9/11, big towns and small took stock and identified their weak points. That’s what they told us they were doing, and that’s what they were getting big bucks to do. But in New Orleans no one had a plan that addressed levee failure, and no one had a plan for the large percentage of vehicleless citizens who’d be unable to evacuate, and no one had a plan to deal with widespread looting. Given that all these local factors are widely known — New Orleans is a below-sea-level city with high crime and a low rate of automobile ownership — it makes you wonder how the city would cope with something truly surprising — like, say, a biological attack.

Oh, well, maybe the 9/11 commission can rename themselves the Katrina Kommission. Back in the real world, America’s enemies will draw many useful lessons from the events of this last week. Will America?

Ouch.

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Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Steve

    September 5, 2005 at 1:26 am

    Steyn apparently missed the part where GW Bush showed a complete lack of leadership ability in the follow through.

  2. 2.

    Tim F

    September 5, 2005 at 1:27 am

    9/11 is surprisingly good comparison.

    “I don’t think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center.”

    – Rice, 5/17/2002

    “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

    – Bush, 9/1/2005

    Bullshit on both counts.

    We have an administration that’s a billion times better at covering its ass after a disaster than in dealing with it in the first place.

  3. 3.

    djc

    September 5, 2005 at 1:44 am

    Ouch indeed.

    That’s the best opinion piece (Steyn, not you moonbats posting above) I’ve seen all week.

    Kudos to my fellow Soviet Canuckistani, and best political commentator on the planet.

    There is no one on the Left or Right that can write like him.

  4. 4.

    srv

    September 5, 2005 at 1:47 am

    Let’s call this the 2nd warning flag.

    It would be nice to see people asking the question they were too afraid to ask after 9/11. Instead they rallied about the flag out of fear that their government wasn’t only completely incompetent, but that it could not really protect them.

    There is a complete disconnect between what is really in our best national interest and what the political regimes have been pursuing for a long time. As long as you vote Democrat or Republican, you are just an enabler for failure.

    The very zealous pursuit of selective Pax Americana will probably reap exactly the terror Rome fears. But when you turn on your TV in 5 years and see Condi’s nightmare over DC, it will be too late to ask yourself if you willing to die for your political parties.

  5. 5.

    derek

    September 5, 2005 at 2:01 am

    I heard that Bush and Mother Nature have been talking secretly for years.

    Damn those two. It’s all politics I tell ya.

  6. 6.

    Paleocon

    September 5, 2005 at 2:02 am

    Haley Barbour has been a true hero in all of this. Thank you John for posting this so that could be brought to our attention.

    I saw footage on CNN earlier where Gov. Barbour jumped out of a helicopter and grabbed two babies right out of the water. It was really amazing. I hope that he is awarded the Medal of Freedom he so richly deserves.

  7. 7.

    Far North

    September 5, 2005 at 5:01 am

    I do not beleive that this in an indictment of the federal government. It is an indictment of the people that are currently running the federal government. Never forget that it was the Bush administration that reshaped a major section of the federal government by putting a gazillion agencies under homeland security.

    I can’t really say whether the concept of the Homeland Security Department is a sound idea or not. What I think I can conclude from the last 5 years is that Bush and the people he has chosen to surround himself with are incapable of overseeing that change. Bush and his team have proven themselves incompetent in running the very government they were elected to lead. This seems evident in so many instances.

    It’s not that some of these changes can’t be accomplished. It’s just that Bush is not capable of implementing them. Joe Allbaugh as the FEMA director? Why sure! By golly, good ole Joe ran Bush’s 2000 campaingn. GWB knows how to take care of a friend. Then it’s Mike Brown, Joe’s college roomate, as Joe’s replacement. Mike was an Arabian Horse dude. That’s the first place I’d look for a FEMA director, the Arabian Horse show industry.

    Bush’s choices to run FEMA show me that Bush doesn’t take this stuff seriously. Either that, or he doesn’t have a clue. Damn, those of us that work in emergency management and emergency response are having a hard time with comprehending the destruction of FEMA under the President’s “leadership”.

    I’m praying for accountability.

  8. 8.

    djc

    September 5, 2005 at 5:31 am

    Yeah, as though Clinton… or any of the 41 previous presidents never used political patronage to fill government appointments.

    Get a life. Read a history book before you decide to post on blog sites and make a fool out of your self.

    When were you born: 1/20/2001?

  9. 9.

    Pb

    September 5, 2005 at 6:08 am

    et tu, djc?

    Perhaps you have been in a coma since the Clinton years? No, that doesn’t make sense–because I don’t suppose you’d care to compare past FEMA directors either.

    Anyhow, 9/11 changed everything: maybe they removed that ‘competency’ requirement too.

  10. 10.

    hadenoughofthisyet

    September 5, 2005 at 9:01 am

    But in New Orleans no one had a plan that addressed levee failure, and no one had a plan for the large percentage of vehicleless citizens who’d be unable to evacuate, and no one had a plan to deal with widespread looting.

    Well, given that the last two of these functions seem to have been privatized — through IEM Inc. of Baton Rouge — it would be interesting to see exactly what they had developed as plans.

  11. 11.

    Lis Riba

    September 5, 2005 at 9:16 am

    Haley Barbour has been a true hero in all of this. Thank you John for posting this so that could be brought to our attention.
    Or is he just doing the publicity thing?
    The mayor of Hattiesburg Mississippi has “bitterly joked on CNN Sunday that he didn’t know what the Federal Emergency Management Agency is” because he’s having a similar problem getting supplies to the president of Jefferson Parish. Meanwhile his governor is yukking it up on TV saying everything’s fine…

    I saw footage on CNN earlier where Gov. Barbour jumped out of a helicopter and grabbed two babies right out of the water. It was really amazing.
    60 Minutes took a helicopter tour of the city with the mayor of New Orleans, and he personally tossed food and made notes of houses with people still inside.

  12. 12.

    Brad R.

    September 5, 2005 at 9:58 am

    And you think about Chicago and San Francisco and Boston and you wonder what’s waiting to fail there.

    Mayor Menino. He’s no Rudy. Heck, he isn’t even an Adam West.

  13. 13.

    Steve

    September 5, 2005 at 10:02 am

    djc – Moonbat is a term we use to describe those who fawn over Bush, even when it’s clear he’s a fuckup.

  14. 14.

    jobiuspublius

    September 5, 2005 at 11:07 am

    Comparing Katrina to 9/11 is like comparing the head of a pin to an elephant. Katrina wiped out entire cities. Katrina tore the ass off 3 states and nibbled a peice off florida. Katrina destroyed 1/3 of our seafood, 1/5 of our oil processing, 1/4 of our natural gas processing, and more.

  15. 15.

    jobiuspublius

    September 5, 2005 at 11:27 am

    I forgot to mention, the death toll for Katrina is expected to be ~20,000.

  16. 16.

    Lis Riba

    September 5, 2005 at 12:08 pm

    Mayor Menino. He’s no Rudy. Heck, he isn’t even an Adam West.

    On the other hand, Mayor Menino looked at New Orleans, realized the city has a significant carless population and has already started reworking evacuation plans accordingly. And the city is taking in about 2500 evacuees while we’ve got the capacity.

  17. 17.

    The Bitch In the Ditch

    September 5, 2005 at 1:24 pm

    Comparing Katrina to 9/11 is like comparing the head of a pin to an elephant. Katrina wiped out entire cities. Katrina tore the ass off 3 states and nibbled a peice off florida. Katrina destroyed 1/3 of our seafood, 1/5 of our oil processing, 1/4 of our natural gas processing, and more.

    So, in other words, it’s only a matter of time before Bush declares a “War On Nature.” Sounds like the perfect reason to invade North Korea. I hear they’re harboring Nature all over the place.

  18. 18.

    jobiuspublius

    September 5, 2005 at 2:01 pm

    Hey, North Korea could use a good Rebuilding. lol

  19. 19.

    Far North

    September 5, 2005 at 3:05 pm

    Hey djc,
    You sure showed me. Read a history book, eh? How about refuting the content of my post instead of attacking me. Are you intelligent enough to pen a response or do you just call people 4 year olds when you can’t think of anything to say.

    What a f*****g weak response.

  20. 20.

    Darrell

    September 5, 2005 at 3:05 pm

    The assumption was that after 9/11, big towns and small took stock and identified their weak points. That’s what they told us they were doing, and that’s what they were getting big bucks to do.

    That’s the crux of it.. In most cases, state and local officials are in a far better position than the feds to know where to deploy resources, how much, how best to evacuate, etc. New Orleans and Louisiana, with their lost history of corruption and inept govt, is an anomaly.. Virtually any other state would have handled things far far more competently. But unfortunately, those eager to give the feds more power and more money will use this as an excuse to give FEMA more authority over state and local officials and more money shifted from state and local to FEMA. FEMA didn’t even exist until the 1980’s I believe, as state and local govts funded and handled their own disaster relief

  21. 21.

    Darrell

    September 5, 2005 at 3:44 pm

    “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

    – Bush, 9/1/2005

    Bullshit on both counts.

    We have an administration that’s a billion times better at covering its ass after a disaster than in dealing with it in the first place.

    Dealing with it in the first place? Tim F, are you aware that Mayor Nagin predicted in at least one interview before Katrina hit that the levee would break and that he predicted NOLA would be underwater for at least a week afterwards? I heard he made that prediction calmly holding a starbucks instead of frantically doing his best to evacuate those he believed would be in danger. He believed it, he predicted it, he was in a position to do something about it. He did not issue mandatory evacuation until Sunday

    If the left had a shred of honesty, they would acknowledge the catestrophic failures of the state and local govt, the FAILURES WHICH CAUSED THE MOST loss of life. But the left doesn’t have a shred of honesty, which is why they’re screaming “it’s all Bush’s fault!!”

  22. 22.

    Richard Aubrey

    September 5, 2005 at 5:25 pm

    I suppose we can all agree to pretend to not know about the Mayor Nagin Memorial Bus Parking Lot?

    For those beginning on their exercise of Deliberate Obtuseness, that’s an overhead picture of about 200 school busses sitting in a flooded parking lot. They were supposed–by plan–to be used to evacuate folks.

    Nobody ever got around to giving the order.

    Of course, the plan to find drivers was a bit flaky, on account of it was the responsibility of the worst school system in the US.

    LA and NO flunked big-time on their response. The best thing they did was contra-flow the expressways and how hard is that?

    Nope. Let’s pretend this stuff doesn’t exist because in our eight-year-old minds, Daddy is supposed to fix things, even things we break on purpose, and if the things aren’t fixed, it’s because Daddy is a meanie.

    Crap.

    You guys ought to grow up.

    P.S. By the way. You can scream all you want. That picture isn’t going away.

  23. 23.

    djc

    September 5, 2005 at 5:33 pm

    Far North Says:

    Hey djc,
    You sure showed me. Read a history book, eh? How about refuting the content of my post instead of attacking me. Are you intelligent enough to pen a response or do you just call people 4 year olds when you can’t think of anything to say.

    What a f*****g weak response

    Then why did you bother to respond?

    Have a nice day.

  24. 24.

    Far North

    September 5, 2005 at 6:14 pm

    djc,
    Im trying to get response out of you that has some substance. Tell my why I’m wrong in my post. Do you have a point? Can you make a legitimate argument?

  25. 25.

    baronelmo

    September 5, 2005 at 8:25 pm

    Look, God damn it — there is PLENTY of blame to go around here, and I for one plan to spread it far and wide.

    I’m no fan of our chuckleheaded prez, but it seems absurd to cast all the blame for this mess at him… though it’s even more absurd to absolve him of all responsibility. Many are trying.

    Without question, both Michael Brown of FEMA and Michael Chertoff of DHS should be handed their walking papers pronto…and the Bush administration shouldn’t be allowed to stop the buck there. Unfortunately, our current White House has elevated the art of buck-passing to a fine science. Too bad for them Bush made the blunder of praising Michael Brown before the guy could be asked to gracefully fall on his sword…

    So, anyhow… what the hell DID we get for the billions of dollars pumped into the Department of Homeland Security? Thoughts, please. (Anyone for an audit?)

  26. 26.

    Steve

    September 6, 2005 at 2:19 am

    baronelmo – Well, we got this swell color light system.

    Seriously, the DHS idea was liberalism at it’s worst. Respond to a major problem by realigning the deck chairs into one big thing that looks like a ship.

    Meanwhile, while you’re rearranging things… the problem isn’t being solved. The creation of the DHS probably set back Civil Defense by a good decade or more.

    It was a dumb idea when Lieberman suggested it… It was a really dumb idea when Bush, for political reasons, coopted it.

  27. 27.

    baronelmo

    September 6, 2005 at 4:14 am

    Steve — Much as I love to bitch-slap Joe Lieberman, I feel obliged to point out that he wasn’t the one who chucked FEMA into the black void of Homeland Security, nor was he the one who used FEMA as a piggy bank to be busted up for spare change for Iraq. NOR was he the one who picked meatheads like Brown and Chertoff to run the store.

    And regardless who came up with the idea of the DHS, the implementation of it was classic Bush — instead of using the structure already in place, set up your own agency… then staff it with 100% hardline party loyalists, whether or not they have the ability to get a damn thing done besides toe the White House line.

    Hell, why DON’T we shut down the DHS and go back to Civil Defense? Steve, I do think you’re onto something there. Those old fallout shelters are looking better all the time.

  28. 28.

    JoeTX

    September 6, 2005 at 8:06 pm

    “New Orleans changed everything”
    “We need to heed the lessens of New Orleans”

    And that is the republicans cannot freakin run a government

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