12 September 2005

Via atrios, Jack Kelly:

It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.

...

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

Mr. Kelly seems very ready to defend the National Guard against what he seems to perceive as an attack against their response time or their competence. He then seems to try deflect that perceived blame on to local governments for not evacuating citizens. (Note: I've seen a hell of a lot of journalists asking about NO's failure to use their busses well.)

The funny thing about that is that I haven't heard any serious critisism of the Guard or the military in general (and I have been paying attention) except for some general feelings of unease about martial law being delcared in NOLA. The critisism I have heard has generally been going two places: 1. Local officials for not evacuating (or preventing the evacuation of) civilians and ; 2. FEMA and the civilian Federal response.

There have been some scathing indictments of New Orleans' (and the surrounding areas) failure to evacuate people, especially the poor. Worse still, it seems that people were physically prevented from leaving New Orleans by police from nearby areas.

But by far, I think, the lion's share of the critisism has been leveled at FEMA and the President for their seeming incompence and vacationing respectively. FEMA director Brown and his immediate subordinates showed their ignorance, incompetence and disregard for the situation on the Gulf Coast very publically. The President was on vacation for the entire hurricane. NOLA was formally declared a national disaster area about 70 hours before Bush came near it. The governor of Louisiana declared the state a disaster area and it took a couple days for the paperwork on the federal level. If there's shame to be handed out, it goes to the administration, not the National Guard. For timelines on all of this see ThinkProgress or NPR.

I don't know if Mr. Kelly is being partisan and trying to shore up the administration's position by blaming local officials (and using the Guard as a federal red herring), or if he has just seen a lot of media critisim of the National Guard that no one else has. Either way I think we will both agree that if there's blame to be given, it shouldn't be going to the National Guard.

posted by Interested Soldier @ 10:01