The Blame Game

As New Orleans starts to see some relief, a more accurate accounting of responsibility for the to-date weak response of government is beginning to congeal. While the Federal government in the form of George Bush, FEMA Director Michael Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will all continue to be roasted, state and local officials should receive their fair share of scrutiny as well. And lest you think that I've fallen for Karl Rove's "blame the other" strategy, I haven't. Bush and team screwed up. Big time. And not just in the timeliness of their "emoting," either.

But a reasonable accounting would have us take a look at the performances of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, among others. I've read different accounts of Blanco's interactions with the Feds in securing relief in a timely fashion. Frankly, I'm not sure what to believe. If any readers have some good links or would like to contribute their thoughts on the State of Louisiana's response, it would be most welcome.

Nagin, however, seems clearly overmatched and his blowhard style seems ill-conceived in light of his own performance. I suppose everyone is now familiar with his profanity-laced tirade against the Feds. But when Nagin plays the race / poverty card and speaks of sending Greyhounds from all over the nation, I'm dumbfounded as I view the pictures of hundreds of empty buses sitting in a flooded New Orleans parking lot. Pre-hurricane articles suggested that as many as 100,000 in greater New Orleans would not have a means to evacuate. Response plans depended upon transit system, tourist and school buses to deliver these folks to safety. So why were the "overwhelmingly black and poor" (the media's newest catch-phrase) ordered to the Superdome and convention center rather than bused out of town to locales where FEMA had water, food, medicine, etc at the ready? If Bush knew that Katrina was a Category 4 and headed toward New Orleans, is it somehow possible that the Mayor did not? If the federal authorities showed callousness, if not overt "racism" by abandoning the masses in New Orleans, what of Nagin's Nero-like fiddling? If we are going to judge, and it seems that from the moment Katrina hit the coast we were prepared to, should we not judge everyone by similar standards?

And then there's this. After screaming from the rooftops that the Feds needed to "get off their asses," we learn that some of Nagin's officers are going to Vegas.

About 400 to 500 officers on New Orleans' 1,600-member force were unaccounted for. Some lost their homes. Some were looking for families. "Some simply left because they said they could not deal with the catastrophe," Riley said. Officers were being cycled off duty and given five-day vacations in Las Vegas and Atlanta, where they would also receive counseling.

Now, I understand that the events of the last week can test even those with the strongest mettle. The poor cops who were trying to rescue the helpless and dying while delivering supplies and trying to maintain order were surely pushed to their emotional and physical limits. But just a few days ago, Mayor Nagin could not have been any more dire in his rantings about manpower. And now his own guys are getting mini-vacations and counseling? I'm not questioning the appropriateness, I'm questioning the appropriateness of the timing.

Again, Katrina is a devastating natural disaster. But it is also a shocking and horrific human and societal disaster. When it comes to the response, there is plenty of blame to go around. I'll be the first to agree that the Federal response was insufficient and incompetent. I just think that in holding folks accountable, that we should use the same standards.

UPDATE: The New York Times details more about the police vacation story:

Mr. Nagin, who has been demanding more federal assistance for days as his city struggled with despair, death and flooding, said he had asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for the trips but the agency said it could not. He said the city, therefore, would pay the costs. He said he believed there were now enough National Guard members in the city to allow the police to take a break and still keep the city secure, and he brushed off questions about whether such a trip might look like a dereliction of duty. "I'll take the heat on that," Mr. Nagin said. "We want to cater to them."

In addition, the Times also provides us with a look at things from the perspective of the officers themselves.

Rescuing people from rooftops and attics and chasing looters since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, the discomforts have piled up, Sergeant Sandoz acknowledged. His shoulder was bruised on Wednesday when his police cruiser was rammed by someone running a stop sign on one of New Orleans's nearly deserted streets. He has been catching about three hours of sleep a night, curled up in the back seat of his patrol car, and showering with a garden hose. He did not want to talk about the blisters or funguses and rashes that have erupted - after days of wading in polluted water in wet boots and dirty socks - on the feet of most everyone in the eight-man tactical unit he commands. The last week has been a series of nonstop rescue missions, shootouts in the night and forays into foul-smelling shelters in response to gunshots and reports of rape for Sergeant Sandoz and the others on the New Orleans police force. And like most everyone else in New Orleans, police officers have been traumatized by the loss of homes and family members.

As the second article makes clear, this has been no picnic for the cops. But as many of them say in the piece, now's not the time to go to Vegas. And the disconnect between the panicking Nagin of three days ago and the "What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" Nagin of today remains crystalline.