Some Angry Voices

The unbelievably tardy, incompetent and generally ineffective relief efforts that immediately followed Hurricane Katrina have sparked some serious rage -- most, but not all, of it directed at the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the leadership of Bush lackey (and God help us, ex-Oklahoman) Mike Brown.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a good Republican soldier, has gone AWOL in the aftermath of his up-close-and-personal coverage of the disaster in Mississippi. The normally smug Scarborough has been bracingly blunt in his assessment:

"The bottom line is that despite the fact the president was strapped with two governors who bungled this crisis badly, in the end it is the president who sends in the National Guard and FEMA relief.

"The president's suggestion that the size of this storm caught all by surprise just doesn't get it. His administration was 48 hours late sending in the National Guard and poor Americans got raped and killed because of those mistakes ..."

But Scarborough holds state and local leaders equally responsible, calling Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco "breathtakingly clueless" and suggesting that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's lack of preparedness means "he is not to be trusted organizing his sock drawer -- let alone the most tragic natural disaster to ever hit his state."

The New Orleans Times-Picayune is mighty pissed at the White House and FEMA. In a recent open letter to the president, the paper demanded the firing of "every official" at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, particularly Mike Brown.

"In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, 'We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.'

"Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President. Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, 'You're doing a heck of a job.' That's unbelievable.

"There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too."

Keith Olbermann sees the debacle as a reflection of Bushism:

"Most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection -- or at least amelioration -- against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water."

Writing in The New York Times, David Brooks (yes, David Brooks!) muses on The State of Things:

"Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are."

Time will tell.