Pat Williams - September 13, 2005
Katrina Tragedy
Commentary — KUFM
9/13/05
Now that the waters in New Orleans are receding, along with political tempers, the terrible events of those darkest days of tragedy in Louisiana and Mississippi are coming into clearer focus.
There are a few things that we now know. We know as a certainty that the levees protecting New Orleans had been predicted to fail in a hurricane with the power of Katrina.
We know that too many leaders in our federal government failed to take the necessary actions to prevent that from happening. Former Louisiana Senator John Breaux has said that some time ago, he had warned President George W. Bush of the pending tragedy. And we know that, earlier today in fact, President Bush has moved toward accepting blame for the response failures.
We also know that despite the early warnings, year-after-year Bush has cut the Corps of Engineers’ budget for improving the levee system. We know too, that his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, spent additional money to strengthen those same levees.
But wait, some say, that is the blame game. I’m not playing that game. I find enough of that from both Republicans and Democrats. At least in the beginning of this tragedy many Democrats seemed more concerned with exposing the jugular of fault than with exploring the forces of inattentiveness to color and class, and proper spending on the nation’s infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Republicans relied more on establishing the barricades of presidential defense than in discovering the administration’s errors.
Now two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, we also know the President has made three trips to the region. Among his, or someone’s accomplishment, is the resignation of the director of FEMA, Michael Brown.
We know now that Bush appointed Brown, a political crony who phonied up his bio. . . appointed him to one of the most critical jobs in the government. Brown, in turn, stacked that disaster agency with other operatives of Bush’s campaigns.
Some say, “Well, they all do it—both sides do it.” Now, that is the blame game. No, they don’t “all do it.” Past presidents have not made overtly bad “political payoff” appointments to offices as important as the head of our Federal Emergency Management Agency in times as critical as these. No, they have not. And no one can point to such an appointment by other presidents – Democrat or Republican - in such dangerous times as these.
Another thing we do know is that the Congress has quickly made two massive appropriations totaling close to 60 billion dollars for relief and that will be added to the trillion dollars of debt stacked up during the past five years. And we need to worry – now – about our financial levees breaking.
And there is more that we know…but those aside, we need to also understand that this tragedy is not the result of design but, rather, of default.
We have had too many years of lack of empathy for the less well off and political slogans substituting for thoughtful action. Americans have gone too long asking if “I am better off than I was four years ago?” and not enough time asking what “can we do for our country.”
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