Kentucky GOP washes its hands of Gov. Fletcher, probably needs more soap.
--Josh Marshall
Wow! Old habits sure die hard for our man Duke Cunningham.
You remember how Duke got MZM, Inc. owner Mitchell Wade to pay (roughly) double the price for his old house. Then he took Wade's bribe and mixed it together with a few sweetheart loans from Thomas Kontogiannis to buy the new mansion in Rancho Santa Fe.
After Duke's career imploded this summer, the feds sued to take ownership of the new mansion since it was bought with the proceeds of Duke's bribes from various contractors. Presumably, that and the rest of Duke's so-so publicity over recent months has put something of a damper on his efforts to unload the mansion.
In any case, apparently the best offer Duke's gotten for the place is $2.5 million, $50,000 less than he bought it for 20 months ago. But Duke says it's real value is at least $3.3 million (a questionable level of appreciation in a decelerating real estate market).
Now, back in the old days when Duke was living large and he got into a jam like this, the standard procedure was to find a corrupt defense contractor to chip in a few hundred thousand dollars. But since that probably won't work out any more, Duke says the US Treasury should pay him $800,000 to make up for the money he should be getting for the house.
That's right. Duke says the feds should make him whole because he can't pocket the full Duke-appraised 'market' value.
Why is this guy stil in Congress?
--Josh Marshall
Just the kind of guy you want to give a lot of power to.
We mentioned a few days ago a woman named Elizabeth Reyes who was an attorney in the elections division of the Texas Secretary of state. She answered a press question about a law that Karl Rove had broken -- though she wasn't told that Rove was the person involved. She was immediately fired.
Now it turns out that Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams decided to fire the woman after getting a call from Rove himself.
But for the morons among us, Williams would like to make clear that Rove's call had nothing to do with it.
(ed.note: Special thanks to TPM Reader J for the tip.)
--Josh Marshall
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has just posted an update on the president's Gulf Coast Wage Cut over at TPMCafe. It seems the president was in such a rush to put through the cut that he may not even have followed the law.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) gives the big thumbs down to the president's Gulf Coast Wage Cut.
--Josh Marshall
As with the DeLay Rule and Social Security privatization, it seems we've got more than a few Gulf Coast Wage Cut letter-writers.
--Josh Marshall
Roll Call (sub.req.): Cheney to undergo "elective surgical procedure to treat an aneurysm in the artery behind the right knee that was discovered earlier this year."
--Josh Marshall
Hmmm. Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) seems to be a bit wobbly on the Gulf Coast Wage Cut. TPM Reader SF got a sorta weasly answer, it seems.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) gives W. a big slap on the back for pushing through the Gulf Coast Wage Cut.
--Josh Marshall
Can we get a show of hands on where every member of Congress stands on this one? Fine, maybe we'll use a slightly more 21st Century method of getting everyone on the record. Tell us where your representative and senators stand.
As we noted last night, and Rep. Dingell (D-MI) was shrewd enough to note right off the bat in his statement last night, President Bush's first move after Katrina was to push through a Gulf Coast Wage Cut by executive order.
He really did. It hasn't gotten a lot of discussion because it gets wrapped up in a bunch of jargon about the Davis-Bacon Act and 'prevailing wages' and a bunch of other mumbojumbo to the point where people think it's about nutritional standards or breakfast foods. But that's what it does. It allows those companies lining up for a piece of that $200 or $300 billion to cut the wages of the folks who are actually going to do the work.
What sense does that make? It amounts to wage gouging. Bad values. And actually pretty bad macro-economics since as much as these disaster-stricken regions need roads rebuilt they need people who can take their families out to dinner and buy new clothes. And lower wages for folks involved in the reconstruction -- which is going to be a big slice of the population -- has a ripple effect across the board in those regions.
Anyway, no arguments or hassles. I'm just curious to find out where everyone stands. There was a group of lawmakers who sent a letter to the president asking him to pull the trigger on the Gulf Coast wage cut. So we know where they stand (we'll get that letter and let you know who). But how about everyone else. Ring up your representative or senator and ask. Or if you see their position on their website or in the paper, send us the link.
We'll make a list and see where everyone stands on the president's Gulf Coast Wage Cut.
--Josh Marshall
A thought for some clever graphic artist: a juxtaposition.
And all you need to get is a copy of the Monday guitar image and then one from the speech last night. Caption one: "When Lives Are at Stake." Caption Two: "When Politics Is at Stake." Fiddle with the wording. But you get the idea.
Am I wrong?
Late Update: A TPM Reader has given it a try. And it looks pretty good.
--Josh Marshall
From Brian Williams' blog ...
I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.
Only surprising that <$NoAd$> it gets prominent mention.
--Josh Marshall
Interesting use of DOJ resources. From The (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger ...
Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show.The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."
Who sent out this email? And who was going to use it? <$NoAd$> Needed for analyzing new environmental law issues? Part of the 'takings' debate? Did we mention that Karl Rove has been put in charge of the reconstruction effort?
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader EE.)
--Josh Marshall
Before anything else this morning, I want to thank you, or to be more precise, a very substantial percentage of you, for filling out the survey yesterday. We ran it for twenty-four hours and got a bit more than 18,600 respondents. So we're happy with the sample size.
Like last year, there were a few complaints about the lack of a sufficient number of categories to choose when asked to define oneself politically. There were also a few exceptions taken by folks whose profession wasn't mentioned in the 'what you do' category. No listing for scientist, farmer, artist, etc.
So allow me to explain. If I were building the survey from the ground up, I'd do it differently. But this was the exact same survey we did last year. And there was a utility to having a direct apples to apples comparison, to see what if any ways the audience has changed in the last eighteen months.
More particularly, though, the point of this exercise was not self-expression. It was to gain some basic data for advertisers. And lest that come off as snide, I don't mean it that way. If I were doing this survey out of my own curiosity or to understand my audience better, I would have designed it very differently. I'd have given a more finely nuanced range of possible political self-definitions, a different way of categorizing professions, and I'd also probably have asked a series of what I'd see as defining political questions -- ones which, I think, would be more revealing than labels.
In this case, I wanted to ask as few questions as possible (so I could honestly say that it would take little time) and get the information we really needed -- not for editorial purposes, but to get some basic data for advertisers. So that's the deal.
In any case, to return to the main point, almost twenty-thousand of you took the time to fill it out. And like I said yesterday, on a personal level, I really appreciate that. So thank you.
We'll be sharing the results with you when they're ready.
--Josh Marshall
Let's see. What was the problem with Michael Brown exactly? Let's see. No expertise or experience for the job. Got the gig because he was pals with Bush's political fixer. Also a political loyalist.
So to learn the lesson and get back on track, to run the recovery, President Bush picks Karl Rove.
That's great.
Do we really all need the paint by numbers version of this picture.
Then there's the president's great line from the speech: "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces."
No, it's not. Actually, every actual fact that's surfaced in the last two weeks points to just the opposite conclusion. There was no lack of federal authority to handle the situation. There was faulty organization, poor coordination and incompetence.
Show me the instance where the federal government was prevented from doing anything that needed to be done because it lacked the requisite authority.
This is like what we were talking about a few days ago. This is how repressive governments operate -- mixing inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies.
You don't repair disorganized or incompetent government by granting it more power. You fix it by making it more organized and more competent. If conservatism can't grasp that point, what is it good for?
As for the military, same difference. The Army clearly has an important role to play in major domestic disasters. And they've been playing it in this case. But what broader role was required exactly?
As I've been saying, repressive governments mix adminsitrative clumsiness and inefficiency with authoritarian tendencies. That's almost always the pattern. The direction the president wants to go in is one in which, in emergencies, the federal government will have trouble moving water into or enabling transportation out of the disaster zone but will be well-equipped to declare martial law on a moment's notice.
Another pack of lies. Right in front of everyone.
Here's a project.
Who will be the first and who will be the last to broach the subject of whether the president's chief political operative should be in charge of the largest domestic reconstruction effort since the Civil War.
Let's list off some of the worthies ... Russert, Brian Williams, Times editorial page, Post editorial page, Stephanopoulos, Schiefer, Hume, Matthews, Wallace, Juan Williams, Will, Mitchell.
We'll make a list and put it up on a separate page. Let us know who broaches the subject and when. And we'll see who's the last one standing.
--Josh Marshall
Who will push behind the spin?
I caught the latter part of the president's speech and then a few moments of coverage on NBC afterwards. And I quickly realized why I never watch television news anymore. Russert, Gregory and Williams (who's actually been pretty good through this whole thing -- online at least) talking about how well the president did on contrition, how it was new for him, how the president took responsibility, how important it is "not to let this become a tale of two cities." And on and on.
There's real news to be reported -- how the president is approaching the reconstruction, what plans he's putting in place right now. He's put his chief political operative in charge of running the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast. Shouldn't that be raising a lot of questions -- a man whose entire professional experience is in political messaging and patronage?
He's also at the center of on-going criminal investigation and the target of a much-rumored indictment. But set that aside.
Then there's what Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI) said in his statement out this evening. "With a stroke of the pen, in one of his first Katrina directives, the President cut the wages of the workers who will undertake our largest reconstruction project since the Civil War."
That cuts right to the heart of the matter. The president's first major initiatives were deep wage cuts for the people who will do the reconstruction.
Which paper is going to dig into this?
--Josh Marshall
President Bush: "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces - the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."
--Josh Marshall
Let's all be clear about one thing.
As we suggested last night, and as President Bush has now put us on notice, the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort is going to be run as a patronage and political operation.
That's not spin or hyperbole. They're saying it themselves.
The president has put Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction, with a budget of a couple hundred billion dollars.
They've announced this in various ways over the last few days. But here's another, from today's Times ...
Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development.
Karl Rove runs political <$Ad$> operations and manages coalitions through patronage. That's what he does. And that's what this is about.
Everybody realizes that. Don't expect much if any discussion of this point in the major papers or on the networks.
It's shameless. But that's beside the point.
This is a time when the country needs an opposition party. Every Democrat should be hitting on this. Take the politics out of the reconstruction effort. He put his chief spin-doctor in charge of the biggest reconstruction and refugee crisis the country's probably ever faced. That tells you all you need to know about his values. Nothing that happened in the last couple weeks meant anything to him. And nothing has changed. Same as Iraq. Same stuff.
--Josh Marshall
Survey? Did we say survey? We're running our reader survey till just after midnight tonight. And we really want to get a good sample size. If you haven't already please take a moment to fill it out. We'd really appreciate it. More here on how we protect your privacy.
--Josh Marshall
Notice a problem?
Roll Call (sub. req.) has just posted a piece on its website with the headline: "House OKs Bipartisan Katrina Review Panel".
That's followed by these three paragraphs ...
On a near party-line vote, the House approved legislation Thursday creating a select committee to investigate the preparation for Hurricane Katrina and subsequent response effort.House lawmakers passed the bill, 224-188, easily defeating Democratic opposition to the proposal, which would create a majority-led 20-seat panel charged with investigating the events surrounding the Category Five storm that decimated much of the Gulf Coast.
During Thursday’s debate on the House floor, Democrats reiterated their objections to the panel’s composition —which would include 11 Republicans and nine Democrats, as well as Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as ex officio members — asserting it will not be able to conduct an effective investigation.
Okay, so it passed on a near <$Ad$> party-line vote. It has a majority of Republican members. And it will be controlled by the Republicans. But it's the 'Bipartisan Katrina Review Panel'.
You've really gotta wonder who has what picture of what headline writer sharing a special moment with a beloved farm animal to pull this one off.
Here's something to try. Someone find me a clip where a reporter refers to the bipartisan House Ways and Means committee. Or how about, the bipartisan House Rules committee.
Find many examples?
No one calls a committee, special or otherwise, bipartisan just because it has members of both parties among its members. Can we find other examples of publications who've fallen for this one?
--Josh Marshall
If you haven't had a chance yet, please take a moment to take our Reader Survey. It's really quick and it really helps us a lot. Click here to take the survey or here to find out more info on how your privacy is assured and how it helps TPM.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), chairman of the NRCC (the GOP House reelection committee), tells his fellow House Republicans to abandon Social Security phase-out for the rest of this Congress. And since they won't do it in this Congress, you better believe they won't try it in the next since the GOP doesn't want to make it the centerpiece issue of the next presidential campaign.
As one senior GOP lawmaker told Roll Call (sub. req.), "It's over." As indeed it is. Not forever. But at least for the next few years.
But where, I have to ask, is the affirmative effort on the part of Democrats to make this attempted betrayal of the public trust into a cudgel for the 2006 elections? Where is it? I don't see it. And I keep up on politics.
It shouldn't be hard. Many, many Republicans who will be in competitive races next year came out for this disastrous idea, which is now deeply unpopular pretty much across the country. And with very few exceptions -- I'll give Santorum his due on this one -- they ran away like scurrying rats as soon as it became clear that the president couldn't protect them and the public wouldn't stand for it.
Their own actions and words convict them twice-over. They stood up for terrible policy and then they switched or ran away from their position as soon as it was expedient. So they're happy to sell out their constituents and lack principle. They're flipfloppers.
Are we only willing to win the defensive phase of this battle?
Beyond belief.
--Josh Marshall
As I said yesterday afternoon, today we're running a TPM Reader Survey, like the one we did a <$NoAd$> little more than a year ago.
It's short, only a dozen questions, each simple and quick. The whole thing won't take you more than a minute or two tops.
As I said, we're not collecting any information about you as an individual. We don't want your name. And we're not using cookies to track who you are. All we're doing is collecting aggregate information about our audience.
TPM and TPMCafe are supported by ad revenue. And being able to tell advrtisers information about our readership, gender breakdown, age, income levels and so forth, helps us sell ads. So by taking a few moments to help us with this, you help keep this site going strong.
You have my appreciation in advance. And thanks so much for giving us a few moments of your time for this.
Click here to take the Survey now.
--Josh Marshall
This worries me. Note the added emphasis. The clip comes from a piece in tomorrow's Post about yet another huge funding bill the president will roll out tomorrow for Katrina aid, which the Post says will cost more next year than the entire cost of the Iraq war thus far ...
Bush and Republican congressional leaders, by contrast, are calculating that the U.S. economy can safely absorb a sharp spike in spending and budget deficits, and that the only way to regain public confidence after the stumbling early response to the disaster is to spend whatever it takes to rebuild the region and help Katrina's victims get back on their feet.
Regain public confidence in who? Is the nation undergoing a crisis of confidence in itself?
Put that passage together with this one in Mike Allen's piece in the Time and I think you see where we're going ...
By late last week, Administration aides were describing a three-part comeback plan. The first: Spend freely, and worry about the tab and the consequences later. "Nothing can salve the wounds like money," said an official who helped develop the strategy.
What's driving this budgetary push is not <$Ad$> a natural disaster but a political crisis, the president's political crisis. The White House is trying to undo self-inflicted political damage on the national dime.
You don't have to be a conservative or a budget-hawk to be deeply worried about what's happening here. It's not even a matter of the dollar value in itself, though this country has already been pushed to the budgetary edge and just doesn't have an infinite number of hundreds of billions of dollars it can spend.
Intentions are everything. Intentions dictate actions and actions have consequences. The two can never be teased apart.
Many people -- and to my chagrin and regret I include myself partly in this number -- were seduced into a sorta kinda support for a hypothetical Iraq war. Not the war George Bush would fight, certainly. But one that would be fought on liberal principles and with internationalist means, one about human rights and democratization, one about strengthening a concert of nations that would police malefactor states. Something on the order of NATO's war in Bosnia, perhaps.
Pick your pipe dream. It almost doesn't matter.
If there's nothing else this decade has taught us it is that there was never and never could have been any Iraq War separated from the goals and intentions of those with their foot on the accelerator. Anything else is just a sad delusion. That's why the whole mess is as it is now: fruit of the poison tree.
Same here.
Maybe you want to spend $200 billion on rebuilding the Delta region too. Fine. Something like that will probably be necessary. But don't fool yourself into thinking that what's coming is just a matter of a different chef making the same meal. This will be Iraq all over again, with the same fetid mix of graft, zeal and hubris. Cronyism like you wouldn't believe. Money blown on ideological fantasies and half-baked test-cases.
You could come up with a hundred reasons why that's true. But at root intentions drive all. You'll never separate this operation or its results from the fact that the people in charge see it as a political operation. The use of this money for political purposes, for what amounts to a political campaign, tells you everything you need to know about what's coming.
--Josh Marshall
There were votes today on the House International Relations Committee on three pieces of legislation which would have required the White House to turn over documents related to the so-called 'Downing Street Memo'. They each went down on party-line votes. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) just did a post on what happened over at TPMCafe.
--Josh Marshall
A favor.
A bit more than a year ago we ran a TPM Reader Survey. And tomorrow we're going to do another. It's a very quick survey -- only a dozen questions. And it won't take you more than a minute or two, tops, to fill out.
We'll post the link tomorrow morning. And I'd personally appreciate it a great deal if you could take just a few moments to fill it out.
A few details about how and why.
First, we are not collecting any personal information about individuals. We don't ask your name. And there are no 'cookies' involved to track who you are. All we are trying to do is collect aggregated demographic information about our audience -- the age range of our audience, gender breakdown, income levels, etc.
Second, why are we doing a survey? Simple. Advertisers want to know information about our audience. And TPM and TPMCafe aren't possible without ads. Simple as that. Compiling this information helps us keep both sites running.
--Josh Marshall
Priorities on display, from the Post ...
Bush already has dispatched his top strategist, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and other aides to assemble ideas from agencies, conservative think tanks, GOP lawmakers and state officials to guide the rebuilding of New Orleans and relocation of flood victims. The idea, aides said, is twofold: provide a quick federal response that comports with Bush's governing philosophy, and prevent Katrina from swamping his second-term ambitions on Social Security, taxes and Middle East democracy-building.
Head of effort, Karl Rove.
Sources of ideas, Agencies, conservative think tanks, GOP lawmakers.
The aim, quick response that squares with conservatism.
Aim, part II, not getting distracted from real priorities.
Anything missing that you can think of?
--Josh Marshall
A spokesman for the General in charge of Army operations in Louisiana says that the Army is not imposing any restrictions on the press operating on their own in the region.
This is in response to the article which appeared yesterday which quoted soldiers with the 82nd Airborne forbidding reporters to photograph or write about body removal.
"We don't profess to have any more authority than we have," says Lt. Col. John Cornelio. "You also have to appreciate we have 70,000 soldiers. There can be a 'Joe' or two who doesn't get it."
--Josh Marshall
Last night we noted the new Knight-Ridder article which shows DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff waiting some 36 hours to make the determination that Katrina was an 'Incident of National Significance'. Before that, Chertoff, not Michael Brown was in charge. And before Chertoff did that, Brown -- who's taken the big drubbing -- actually had little power to act.
This 'incident' finding is part of the new National Response Plan, which is supposed to govern federal responses to domestic disasters. Yet the plan appears to have been largely disregarded with Katrina.
But a TPM Reader pointed something out to me that suggests that Knight-Ridder might have gotten one detail wrong (or at least missed one) -- one which if anything makes the administration seem even more disorganized.
If you click here you can see a copy of the Chertoff memo which invoked the 'incident' finding.
But the reader points out that on page 7 of the Plan, it says quite clearly that "while all Presidentially declared disasters and emergencies under the Stafford Act are considered Incidents of National Significance, not all Incidents of National Significance necessarily result in disaster or emergency declarations under the Stafford Act.."
And if you go back to August 27th, this is just what President Bush did. He declared a state of emergency in the state of Louisiana under Title V of the Stafford Act.
Ergo, Katrina became an Incident of National Significance on August 27th -- two days before the storm. But Chertoff apparently didn't realize this and waited till a day after to make the determination on his own, one that according to the flow chart had already been made.
Lawyers and DHSers will know more about whether I've construed these sections correctly. (I certainly haven't read all 400+ pages of the document.) But they at least seem pretty clear.
--Josh Marshall
Still in the guesswork stage on the Cheney-Colonial pipeline issue noted below. But a couple readers note that -- inter alia -- that the Colonial Pipeline moves a lot of jet fuel, including military grade jet fuel. This may be a key reason for the urgency of getting that pipeline up and running. Still, though, that doesn't explain the highly irregular manner in which the orders apparently went out.
--Josh Marshall
The endlessly underrated Knight-Ridder has an important article out which places a great deal of the blame for the laggard response to Katrina on Michael Chertoff.
The crux of the article is a point we and many other outlets have been reporting for some time -- that DHS Secretary Chertoff didn't declare Katrina an 'Incident of National Significance' until late on Tuesday August 30th, almost two days after the hurricane hit.
That's the administrative trip wire that sets off the standing government plans for a coordinated national response to natural or man-made disasters.
As Jonathan Landay, et al. explain, the now-reviled and discarded Michael Brown only had limited authority to act prior to Chertoff's determination on the night of the 30th.
Chertoff was the one in charge of the response before that.
Yet documents obtained by KR suggest that Chertoff "may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department" under the National Response Plan promulgated by the administration earlier this year.
There's a lot of stuff in this piece. And the leaks behind the story suggest much afoot.
--Josh Marshall
Before getting to the meat of this post, let me stipulate that there are some cases where restoring critical infrastructure after a natural disaster is more important than restoring power to civilian neighborhoods, hospitals or even possibly saving lives.
That said, this seems awfully odd.
Today in the Post Dan Froomkin linked to an article in the Hattiesburg (Mississippi) American.
The article begins ...
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.That order - to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. - delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt.
At the time, gasoline was in short supply across the country because of Katrina. Prices increased dramatically and lines formed at pumps across the South.
"I considered it a presidential directive to get those pipelines operating," said Jim Compton, general manager of the South Mississippi Electric Power Association - which distributes power that rural electric cooperatives sell to consumers and businesses.
Later Compton is quoted as saying: "We were led to believe a national emergency was created when the pipelines were shut down."
Then it gets a bit more interesting as we hear how Compton got the word ...
Dan Jordan, manager of Southern Pines Electric Power Association, said Vice President Dick Cheney's office called and left voice mails twice shortly after the storm struck, saying the Collins substations needed power restored immediately.Jordan dated the first call the night of Aug. 30 and the second call the morning of Aug. 31. Southern Pines supplies electricity to the substation that powers the Colonial pipeline.
Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Mike Callahan said the U.S. Department of Energy called him on Aug. 31. Callahan said department officials said opening the fuel line was a national priority.
The article goes on to say that the linemen were working on restoring power to stations that supplied electricity to two rural hospitals. And the work required to get the pipeline up and running again threatened to knock out power to the only remaining hospital in the area on full power, Wesley Medical Center in Hattiesburg.
But just what was going on here? Cheney's office wouldn't talk. They referred the reporter to DHS. And they wouldn't talk either.
Is this how the national disaster response system works? Calls go out from the Vice President's office to local electric power utility operators giving national security directives on which power lines to get running first? Aren't things a bit more systematized than that?
This is also pretty early in the crisis, August 30th, the day after the storm hit. The Veep's office seemed really proactive about getting that pipeline flowing again. I trust it won't seem too persnickety to note a certain contrast between the urgency of this response and that to the rest of the crisis in the region?
The article says that "substations were crucial to Atlanta-based Colonial Pipeline, which moves gasoline and diesel fuel from Texas, through Louisiana and Mississippi and up to the Northeast." Here's the map of the Colonial pipeline on the company's website. (It basically goes from Texas to New Jersey.) And the Colonial website says the company runs the "world's largest-volume refined petroleum products pipeline system." So with that and just a quick bit of research I've done this evening, the pipeline does seem like a fairly big deal.
But why haven't we heard more about this? At a minimum this seems like an important part of the story of what happened two weeks ago. But to the best of my knowledge it's gone wholly unremarked in the major national dailies.
--Josh Marshall
Iffy and mysterious. According to ABCNews, while on a visit to flooded parts of New Orleans on September 2nd, Rep. Bill Jefferson (D-LA) had National Guard troops take him to his home on Marengo Street.
This was the Friday after Katrina struck, while troops were still actively involved in rescue operations. And, according to the article, the Guard truck Jefferson was transported in became stuck in the mud outside his house, leading the soldiers accompanying him to radio a call for help, which was answered by a Coast Guard helicopter in the midst of on-going rescue operations. The helicopter already had four evacuees on board and stayed for some 45 minutes before proceeding along to other rescues.
After entering the house, "Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck."
Last month, you may remember, Jefferson's homes in the District and New Orleans were raided as part of a federal criminal investigation, the precise nature of which has yet to become clear.
--Josh Marshall
Great catch by a new reader over at TPMCafe. A quote from Ben Stein -- one of several actually -- about the president and Katrina.
"George Bush... does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us."
W.'s apparently a regular commando Jesus.
Check out the others.
--Josh Marshall
I'm not quite sure what to make of this. But it seems worth keeping an eye on.
As we discussed a couple days ago, FEMA hired Kenyon Worldwide Disaster Management to handle the recovery and disposition of the bodies of the victims of Katrina. But they were apparently getting ready to pack up and leave the state because FEMA -- having hired them a few days ago -- had failed to finalize their contract.
"From what I understand, Kenyon had some questions about the contract," FEMA spokesman David Passey.
And now Blanco has stepped in and signed a contract with Kenyon on behalf of the state of Louisiana so that the retrieval of the dead will be delayed no longer.
Every politician who's crossed paths with Katrina is on a tightrope. They'll either be wounded beyond repair or just possibly they'll have their careers made. So I don't discount the possibility that Blanco is grandstanding here or mischaracterizing the situation.
But what happened exactly? Did FEMA bring them in and then dawdle?
--Josh Marshall
I posted a note earlier asking just who's in charge down in New Orleans. Yesterday we heard that CNN had won its brief court battle for reporting access in New Orleans. Today we see this report that reporters are again getting orders not to take photos or write stories.
But one of my right-leaning friends points out that a closer reading of the piece may be in order and, perhaps a more serious issue at stake.
The article contains this passage (emphasis added) ...
The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.
This is a description rather than a direct quote. And the specifics of just what was said matter. But if the account is accurate, the contention seems to be that an US Army policy -- presumably intended for warzones -- trumps the decision of a US federal court on American soil. And I don't think you've got to be much of a wild-eyed civil libertarian to find that a tad problematic.
There are good reasons why we place such copious restrictions on the use of combat troops on American soil -- not because there's something wrong with the Army but because the training for war-fighting and policing civilians and/or disaster relief are quite different and the two don't easily mix.
Let's get to the bottom of this.
--Josh Marshall
Seems CNN's court win didn't <$NoAd$> settle this one ...
Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state."No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.
On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.
But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.
Who's in charge?
--Josh Marshall
Let me follow up on a point I made in this post below.
Who is going to ask the president why he is taking responsibility? Every president, by definition, is responsible for what the federal government does on his watch, regardless of whether his actions specifically resulted in the consequences under discussion.
Is that what he means?
In this case, there is a growing body of evidence that he is actually responsible. As in, key failures came as direct results of decisions he made and how he managed his job. His decisions to staff critical jobs with patronage hires, his decision to politicize FEMA, his decisions about how to run DHS.
Which does he mean? How is he taking responsibility?
--Josh Marshall
The shoe drop behind the responsibility moment?
Back on September 7th, Rep. John Conyers wrote to the Congressional Research Service (one of the few parts of the government that can legitimately be called non-partisan) and asked them to review the record to see whether Gov. Blanco of Louisiana took the necessary steps in a timely fashion to secure federal assistance in the face of hurricane Katrina.
The report came back yesterday. Yes, she did. Read it yourself.
I have no brief for Gov. Blanco and none of the president's critics should either. I'm not saying dump on her. But let the chips fall where they may. My friends in Louisiana tell me that on the ground Nagin is coming off better than she is, to the extent that public opinion can be gauged under such circumstances. But the White House has been hitting her for weeks now claiming that in various ways she dropped the ball. And that seems quite simply to be false.
--Josh Marshall
John Kerry has a good line today on the president's responsibility moment: "The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn’t get away with the inexcusable."
Gitlin also has some good analysis of what the president said.
No absolution without true repentance.
No blurring the fact that the president isn't just ultimately responsible but really responsible. Making FEMA and DHS into a repository for patronage hires had consequences.
--Josh Marshall
From the First Lady's speech this morning at the Heritage Foundation: "Here at home, the No Child Left Behind Act has put a new emphasis on high standards and on eliminating the achievement gap between white students and minority students. We also want to make sure that children develop a strong character and learn important life lessons. To do that, children need caring adults in their lives. The comedian Eddie Cantor used to say in all seriousness that every time he saw the 10 Most Wanted list, he thought, maybe if we'd made them feel more wanted earlier, they wouldn't be wanted now."
--Josh Marshall
Give the president his due. His statement -- the full transcript of which we've published below -- is couched in an attempt to minimize the role of federal mismanagement in the Katrina disaster. And in the second paragraph of the response his speechwriters appear to be setting up a new line of attack -- that those who criticize the federal response are in fact criticizing the first responders on the scene. But many of us have been pointing out for more than four years President Bush's refusal to take responsibility for anything that has happened on his watch as president. So kudos for the first.
But responsibility means accountability, not just words but deeds. And that means no cover-up.
The president says he wants to know what went wrong. The public has a right to know, since their immediate safety from natural disasters and terrorist attacks is at stake. And that means an independent commission to investigate what went wrong and why.
Ethics, logic and an elementary grasp of human nature say that the person responsible for the failures can't be the person investigating them. Same goes for a commission controlled by that person's political supporters. Can anyone argue with that?
Which Democrat, building on what the president said today, will get in front of a microphone and say it?
No cover-ups, no cronyism.
--Josh Marshall
Word for word, what the president said ...
President Bush: Thank you.A couple of questions. Two a side. Nedra.
Question: Mr. President, given what happened with Katrina, shouldn't Americans be concerned if their government isn't prepared to respond to another disaster or even a terrorist attack?
President Bush: Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong. I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government, to be able to answer that very question that you asked: Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack or another severe storm. And that's a very important question. And it's in our national interest that we find out exactly what went on and -- so that we can better respond.
One thing for certain; having been down there three times and have seen how hard people are working, I'm not going to defend the process going in, but I am going to defend the people who are on the front line of saving lives. Those Coast Guard kids pulling people out of the -- out of the floods are -- did heroic work. The first responders on the ground, whether they be state folks or local folks, did everything they could. There's a lot of people that are -- have done a lot of hard work to save lives.
And so I want to know what went right and what went wrong to address those. But I also want people in America to understand how hard people are working to save lives down there in not only New Orleans, but surrounding parishes and along the Gulf Coast.
More on this in a <$NoAd$> moment.
--Josh Marshall
A news report out today says that the Inspector General of DHS, Richard L. Skinner, will keep tabs on the FEMA contracting bonanza to make sure there's no funny-business.
A quick perusal of his bio at the DHS website shows at least no obvious signs of cronydom. Before coming to DHS, says the bio, "Mr. Skinner was with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he served as the Acting Inspector General (October 2002 - February 2003) and Deputy Inspector General ( April 1996 - September 2002). From June 1991 to March 1996, Mr. Skinner served at FEMA OIG as the Assistant Inspector General for Audits."
Not definitive certainly, but shows at least that he worked in what is or should be a professional position under Bush I and Clinton.
On the other hand, word has been out for years now that DHS is a mess of insiderism and mismanagement. So his ability to intervene may be limited.
--Josh Marshall
Someone alert the Secret Service! Has the real President Bush been abducted and replaced by a stand-in?
President Bush: "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government ... To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
I guess this is an example of that old saw, "If at first your efforts to blame everybody else don't succeed, take responsibility yourself."
We'll get cracking on that four horsemen of the Apocalypse timeline.
--Josh Marshall
Good question: Presumably some fancy set is going to be put together for the president's address Thursday night. What's the taxpayer price tag for the event?
--Josh Marshall
Shame on me!
A short while back we met Duke Cunningham's most recent crony, Brent Wilkes. His place got hit in one of the more recent federal law enforcement raids tied to the Duke investigation.
With all those signs, I should have known there was a boat ("14.5-foot, 170-horsepower fiberglass boat") for Duke somewhere in the mix. The San Diego Union-Tribune has the story.
--Josh Marshall
The Post has another article this morning about the very real concerns over whether FEMA can manage administering more than $50 billion of federal relief, recovery and reconstruction contracts. We're going to rue the day on this one. Even if FEMA were a perfectly managed agency and existed in a clean administration, it is simply not an agency that is set up to handle money on this scale -- certainly not in a case like this which will involve rebuilding a substantial section of the country. And of course, it's not a well-run agency at the moment. And this administration is defined by cronyism and insider deals.
I just saw news over the wires that President Bush will address the nation tonight Thursday at 9 PM from Louisiana.
Democrats should be speaking with one voice on this one: accountability, an independent commission to investigate what went wrong and no insider deals with taxpayer money.
--Josh Marshall
Anyone out there got any more interesting info about the fundraiser Tom DeLay's ARMPAC held at Jack Abramoff's skybox at the MCI Center on December 14th, 2001? Basketball game, Wizards Knicks. Put together by Warren RoBold, the guy Ronnie Earle indicted down in Texas.
Far as I know, this one's never been publicly disclosed.
Certainly comes after that big falling out between DeLay and Abramoff.
--Josh Marshall
"U.S. Fire Administrator David Paulison said in the first 48 to 72 hours of an emergency, many Americans will likely to have to look after themselves." CNN, Feb. 10, 2003.
Maybe he was trying to give those folks in NOLA a heads up?
--Josh Marshall
Solid Waste & Recycling magazine isn't one of the sites we usually link to. But they seem to have some news relevant to recent events ...
Overlooked in many news reports about the unfolding storm disaster in the southern United States, especially in the City of New Orleans, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, is a potentially dramatic pollution issue related to a toxic landfill that sits under the flood waters right in the city's downtown, according to map overlays of the flooded area. The situation could exacerbate the already dire threat to human health and the environment from the flood waters.The Agriculture Street Landfill (ASL) is situated on a 95-acre site in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. The ASL is a federally registered Superfund site, and is on the National Priorities List of highly contaminated sites requiring cleanup and containment. A few years ago the site, which sits underneath and beside houses and a school, was fenced and covered with clean soil. However, three feet or more of flood waters could potentially cause the landfill's toxic contents – the result of decades of municipal and industrial waste dumping – to leach out.
Thanks to TPM Reader BD for <$NoAd$> the tip.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, NBC says David Paulison, Administrator of the US Fire Administration, is the new FEMA Chief.
Clearly, since they're under the gun, they're not going to pick a totally unqualified flunky. Here's what appears to be the relevant part of his bio from his government website ...
Before joining FEMA, Mr. Paulison, who has 30 years of fire/rescue services experience, was chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. In that position, he oversaw 1,900 personnel with a $200 million operating budget and a $70 million capital budget. He also oversaw the Dade County Emergency Management office.He began his career as a rescue firefighter and rose through the ranks of rescue lieutenant commander, district chief of operations, division chief, assistant chief and then deputy director for administration before becoming the Miami-Dade Fire Chief. He is a certified paramedic and, as fire chief, oversaw the Miami-Dade Urban Search and Rescue Task Force. His emergency management experience includes Hurricane Andrew and the crash of ValuJet Flight 592. He is also past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Of course, he's probably a known <$NoAd$> quantity since he's from Bush-East, Miami-Dade.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, so Michael Brown's hold on the FEMA sachemship is now officially over. The funny thing is -- though I guess maybe not to him -- is that he really was planning on leaving his FEMA post before his whole racket blew up in his face and he was forced to resign in disgrace.
See this snippet blow from the Post from August 1st of this year.
Even more telling, though, note his apparent attempt to 'pull an Allbaugh' by handing the gig off to his manifestly unqualified deputy Patrick Rhode, one-time advance man for the Bush-Cheney campaign ...
Michael D. Brown , who runs the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, sent around a memo a couple of weeks ago saying "effective immediately," his chief of staff, Patrick Rhode , was the acting deputy director. This caused some head-scratching, because there is no official deputy director position at FEMA, because there is no official director. The last person to hold such a post was Brown, before FEMA got folded into DHS. (Brown is now officially DHS undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response.)A recent strategic review called for naming a deputy director, but Congress hasn't approved that plan and agencies don't usually go ahead without congressional blessing. Even more curious, it's not clear whether DHS or the White House, which approves such personnel moves, had signed off on Brown's move. FEMA says its general counsel approved the action.
Brown is widely expected to be leaving soon, and there has been some FEMA speculation that this is his way of trying to pave the way for a successor. Rhode had been associate administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Brownie <$NoAd$>...
--Josh Marshall
As a number of you will now have noticed, we've done another update of our Katrina Timeline. We're now getting down to a more and more detailed and granular chronology of what happened and when, including links to various public documents and declarations that are available on the web.
As mentioned earlier, this is a collaborative project. We're relying on readers to find key points and events in the narrative and send them into us.
We get them, confirm them, then add them to the list in our next update.
Remember, always send a link which confirms the fact in question. Also, we're putting a big emphasis on chronology and specific, concrete factual information. A generalized failure to do something isn't something we can do much stuff with. We need specificity. And just when did it happen? When on a given day? If you see an item on our list that we haven't found a specific time for, let us know that too.
We've even set up a new email address just for timeline emails: timeline@talkingpointsmemo.com.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush answering <$NoAd$> questions this morning about Katrina ...
QUESTION: Sir, what do you make of some of the comments that have been made by quite a number of people that there was a racial component to some of the people that were left behind and left without help?PRESIDENT BUSH: My attitude is this: The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort. When those Coast Guard choppers, many of whom were first on the scene, were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin. They wanted to save lives.
I can assure people from the -- and I know from the state and local level, as well, that this recovery is going to be comprehensive. The rescue efforts were comprehensive, and the recovery will be comprehensive.
QUESTION: Mr. President, does the federal government need the authority to come in earlier, or even in advance of a storm that threatening?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think that's one of the interesting issues that Congress needs to take a look at. And it's really important that as we take a step back and learn lessons, that we are in a position to adequately answer the question, are we prepared for major catastrophes, that the system is such that we're able to work closely together and that --
QUESTION: Do you recommend that Congress consider allowing the federal government to act more quickly?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think it's very important for Congress to take a good, close look at what went on, what didn't go on, and come up with a series of recommendations. And my attitude is, is that we need to learn everything we possibly can; we need to make sure that this country is knitted up as well as it can be, in order to deal with significant problems and disasters. Meantime, we've got to keep moving forward.
And I know there's been a lot of second-guessing. I can assure you I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in is solving problems. And there will be time to take a step back and to take a sober look at what went right and what didn't go right. There's a lot of information floating around that will be analyzed in an objective way, and that's important. And it's important for the people of this country to understand that all of us want to learn lessons. If there were to be a biological attack of some kind, we've got to make sure we understand the lessons learned to be able to deal with catastrophe.
QUESTION: Will what is needed to get this area back on its feet have any impact on the timing of troop withdrawals in Iraq?
PRESIDENT BUSH: In Iraq?
QUESTION: Yes.
PRESIDENT BUSH: We've got plenty of troops to do both. Let me just -- let me just talk about that again. I've answered this question before, and you can speak to General Honore if you care to. He's the military man on the ground. It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there wasn't enough troops here, just pure and simple.
Do you care to comment on that?
GENERAL HONORE: Well, we have about 90,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard deployed, of a total force of approximately 400,000. So 90,000 are deployed. We've got the capability. We're here, we're demonstrating in deed every day. We're performing the mission with the great support of the National Guard from multiple states. The response is here. The troops are getting the job done under the conditions that you see here today, and they're making America proud that we have that capability.
We have capability. We're applying it -- air, land and sea -- our federal forces in support of the Governors of Louisiana and Mississippi under the direction of the Adjutant General. The system is working. We've got the capability, and we're looking forward to get the job done and get the job completed, until the Governors tell us otherwise.
PRESIDENT BUSH: The troop levels in Iraq will be decided by commanders on the ground. One, we're going to -- our mission is to defeat the terrorists, is to win. Secondly, the strategy is, as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And so, to answer your question about the decisions made on the ground in Iraq, they will be made based upon the ability of the Iraqis to take the fight. And more and more Iraqi units are getting more and more qualified.
There's still a lot of work to be done there. Obviously, we're going to make sure we have a troop presence to help this political process go forward. There's an election -- the ratification of the constitution -- election will be coming up, and, of course, there will be elections this -- later on this year. And we will have the troop levels necessary to make sure those elections go forward.
After all, the enemy wants to stop democracy. See, that's what they want to do. They want to kill enough people so that
-- in the hopes that democracy won't go forward. They tried that prior to -- more than eight million Iraqis voting. They were unable to stop Iraqis from voting, because people want to be free. Deep in everybody's soul, regardless of your religion or where you live, is a desire to be free. And they can't stop it. And what we're going to do is help -- and they can't stop democracy from moving. And so what we're going to do is help make sure those elections are accessible to the Iraqi people.
QUESTION: Mr. President, there is a belief that we've been hearing for two weeks now on the ground that FEMA let the people here on the ground down. And perhaps, in turn, if you look at the evidence of what it's done to your popularity, FEMA let you down. Do you think that your management style of sort of relying on the advice that you got in this particular scenario let you down? And do you think that plays at all ...
PRESIDENT BUSH: Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game. That's what you're trying to do.
QUESTION: No, I'm trying to ...
PRESIDENT BUSH: You're trying to say somebody is at fault. Look -- and I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on. And we'll continually assess inside my administration. I sent Mike Chertoff down here to make an assessment of how best to do the job. He made a decision; I accepted his decision. But we're moving on. We're going to solve these problems. And there will be ample time for people to look back and see the facts.
Now, as far as my own personal popularity goes, I don't make decisions based upon polls. I hope the American people appreciate that. You can't make difficult decisions if you have to take a poll. That's been my style ever since I've been the President. And, of course, I rely upon good people. Of course, you got to as the President of the United States. You set the space, you set the strategy, you hold people to account. But yeah, I'm relying upon good people. That's why Admiral Allen is here. He's good man. He can do the job. That's why General Honore is here. And so when I come into a briefing, I don't tell them what to do. They tell me the facts on the ground, and my question to them is, do you have what you need.
QUESTION: Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.
Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation in the moment, a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that.
QUESTION: Mr. President, where were you when you realized the severity of the storm?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I was -- I knew that a big storm was coming on Monday, so I spoke to the country on Monday* morning about it. I said, there's a big storm coming. I had pre-signed emergency declarations in anticipation of a big storm coming.
QUESTION: Mr. President ...
PRESIDENT BUSH: -- which is, by the way, extraordinary. Most emergencies the President signs after the storm has hit. It's a rare occasion for the President to anticipate the severity of a storm and sign the documentation prior to the storm hitting. So, in other words, we anticipated a serious storm coming. But as the man's question said, basically implied, wasn't there a moment where everybody said, well, gosh, we dodged the bullet, and yet the bullet hadn't been dodged.
QUESTION: Mr. President ...
PRESIDENT BUSH: Last question ...
QUESTION: This is two weeks in. You must have developed a clear image at this point of one critical thing that failed, one thing that went wrong in the first five days.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Oh, I think there will be plenty of time to analyze, particularly the structure of the relationship between government levels. But, again, there's -- what I think Congress needs to do -- I know Congress needs to do -- and we're doing this internally, as well -- is to take a sober look at the decision-making that went on.
And what I want the people of this state and the state of Mississippi to understand is that we're moving forward with relief plans. And we're going to move forward with reconstruction plans, and we're going to do so in a coordinated way. And it's very important for the folks of New Orleans to understand that, at least as far as I'm concerned, this great city has got ample talent and ample genius to set the strategy and set the vision. And our role at the federal government is
-- obviously, within the law -- is to help them realize that vision. And that's what I wanted to assure the Mayor.
Thank you all.
More soon.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush explains his <$NoAd$> claim that no one ever imagined the New Orleans levees could be breached ...
Question: Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?President Bush: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to. Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation in the moment, a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that.
More soon.
--Josh Marshall
Today we have what I think many of you will find a real treat. You probably know Anthony Shadid's byline from the Washington Post, particularly from 2003 and 2004 from Iraq.
As I wrote back in April 2003, his work always seemed to stand out for its depth, scope and nuance of reporting. (Certainly, some of the power of his coverage stemmed from the fact that he's Lebanese-American and speaks fluent Arabic.) A year later he won a Pulitzer for it, the only one awarded, to my knowledge, for reporting out of Iraq.
He has a new book out about Iraq called Night Draws Near and he's joining us this week at TPMCafe Book Club.
He's just done his first post of the week, describing how and why he came to write the book. He'll be back later today answering your questions about the book and Iraq in the comments section. So get your questions in now.
--Josh Marshall
The Post responds to criticism about allowing the top Bush official to peddle the Blanco/State of Emergency canard in its pages ...
The Washington Post, like many news organizations, says it is trying to crack down on the use of anonymous sources. But the paper allowed a "senior administration official" to spin the story of the slow response to Katrina -- with a claim that turned out to be false.On Sept. 4, the paper cited the "senior Bush official" as saying that as of the day before, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency." As The Post noted in a correction, Blanco, a Democrat, had declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26.
Liberal bloggers have unloaded on The Post. Wrote Arianna Huffington: "Why were the Post reporters so willing to blindly accept the words of an administration official who obviously had a partisan agenda -- and to grant the official anonymity?"
Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz calls the incident "a bad mistake" that happened right on deadline. "We all feel bad about that," he says. "We should not have printed the information as background information, and it should have been checked. We fell down on the desk."
Spencer Hsu, the article's co-author, says he "tried to make clear that the source came from the administration, and that he was blaming the locals, which I believe our story made clear and broke ground in explaining by uncovering the National Guard dispute."
Should the paper identify the source who provided bad information? "We don't blow sources, period, especially if we don't have reason to believe the source in this case actually lied deliberately," Hsu says.
More on this later<$NoAd$>.
--Josh Marshall
Not sure what to make of this small tidbit. But while I was confirming some new entries in our Katrina timeline tonight, I noticed something I hadn't heard before. According to Scott McClellan's August 31st gaggle, in the early days of Katrina, the White House Katrina task force was being run by Claude Allen.
Allen's title at the White House is Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. But he's basically the social policy czar, big into abstinence only education, stem-cell restrictions, stuff like that.
This may simply have been a matter of convening meetings -- I have no idea. But still it seemed an odd choice.
--Josh Marshall
First graf out of <$NoAd$> a new piece in Newsweek (emphasis added) ...
Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency have begun war-gaming scenarios for what might happen in Iraq if U.S. force levels were cut back or eliminated, say counterterrorism and defense sources. The officials, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive subject matter, declined to discuss specifics of the DIA analyses, which they indicate are in the preliminary stages. Some officials say that people in the intelligence community are leery about engaging in speculative exercises for fear of being accused by conservatives of undermining George W. Bush's administration policy. However, others say that this analysis could support staying the course in Iraq if a U.S. pullout would result in greater insurgent violence or a religious civil war.
Don't do intel work; it may undermine President Bush's policies. On the other hand, it might reinforce his policies. And that's okay.
--Josh Marshall
John from Canoga Park checks in ...
Your total lack of credibility is obvious, in your writings about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The local Levee Boards(run by Democrats, as is the City of New Orleans, for decades) stole or misspent milllions of taxpayer dollars when their sole responsibility was a prevention of the failure of the levees. The cable TV guy-turned Mayor refused to let 40 school buses (now under water) be used to evacuate people, another Dem. The Governor, a Dem as well, refused to let in American Red Cross disaster aid already waiting in trucks because she didn't want to create a "magnet" for evacuees to the Superdome and Convention Center. It goes on and on. The local government is "First Responders" in an emergency. The State is Second. The Feds are Third, only allowed in at the request of the Governor. These are important distinctions apparantly lost on a Beltway Type such as yourself. In your ramblings, you simultaneously condemn apparent inaction by FEMA and other Federal agencies, but don't want the Feds to "invade" a State without being asked to bring in whatever authority and disaster relief they may have. It is apparent that Michael Brown shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of any FEMA authority. Probably the best person to head FEMA would be someone accustomed to responding to such situations-a high ranking member of our Armed Forces. But you, being of the Left, would probably oppose that. In the end, the total collapse of local and State government was horrific. Democrat. J Nelson, Canoga Park, California
Not much of a constituency for a Michael Brown comeback, I guess<$NoAd$>.
--Josh Marshall
Mission Accomplished?
Bush spends the night on the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, stationed off New Orleans.
--Josh Marshall
Question of the day: How did this piece in Monday's Post get published?
Looks like a job for Jack Shafer.
--Josh Marshall
Our president ...
The second tactic could be summed up as, Don't look back. The White House has sent delegates to meetings in Washington of outside Republican groups who have plans to blame the Democrats and state and local officials. In the meantime, it has no plans to push for a full-scale inquiry like the 9/11 commission, which Bush bitterly opposed until the pressure from Congress and surviving families made resistance futile.
Conservatism ...
By late last week, Administration aides were describing a three-part comeback plan. The first: Spend freely, and worry about the tab and the consequences later. "Nothing can salve the wounds like money," said an official who helped develop the strategy.
That and more from Mike Allen's piece from Time.
--Josh Marshall
I just finished reading the Times lengthy front page narrative account of the Katrina response debacle. And if I had to sum up the story it would be one of overwhelmed and often frantic local officials asking for every sort of assistance available from federal authorities, but sometimes not being completely sure precisely what they needed or the exact way to ask for it. On the other side you have the feds taking a consciously passive, reactive stance, and often displaying an oddly legalistic and bean-counterish attitude when asked for specific kinds of support.
There was a bit more on the topic of Friday's Times article about the back-and-forth over whether to invoke the Insurrection Act and send combat troops into the city to restore order. But the more I hear about it, the more it seems like a diversion from the main issues.
The White House appeared to get distracted on to this all-or-nothing question of whether to send regular Army combat troops (not soldiers trained as military police or for civilian policing missions) into an American city to restore order in a legal framework of combatting a domestic insurrection. This actually would have been a pretty big deal, on a lot of different levels, and quite probably overkill -- even in such a desperate situation. But this really wasn't the most pressing issue. The real issues at that moment were getting buses into the city to ship out evacuees, getting National Guard troops more quickly into location, airlifting in relief aid, making use of the USS Bataan sitting right offshore, etc.
As I've said earlier, I'm still not sure I have a precise hold on the factual and legal issues in play on this federalization issue. Nor do I have any real confidence that the administration sources behind these articles are providing a straight story. But, again, the point seems largely a diversion from a bunch of more basic interventions that could have taken place but didn't.
Indeed, what's most shocking is not any particular mistake that was made but how often federal officials were left to brainstorm or hash out on-the-fly just what the federal government's responsibilities were, how to coordinate federal, state and local relief efforts, or even simply who was in charge.
Reading those passages of the article, there's one conclusion I think any fair-minded person would have to come to. And that is that in the four years to the day since 9/11, the administration appears to have done little if any effective planning for how to mobilize a national response to a catastrophic event on American soil.
And given all the history that has passed before us over these last four years, that verdict is devastating.
--Josh Marshall
