... while New Orleans burns

As dozens die needlessly in the apocalyptic mess of the New Orleans Convention Center and other area sites, the Federal response continues to boggle the mind in its incompetence and heartlessness. Bill in Portland Maine over at Daily Kos sums it up well:

President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Well, no one except the entire world and even Mr. Bill.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went shoe shopping on Fifth Avenue, but not before she played tennis and yukked it up at Spamalot.

The Viceroy in charge of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff said "We're much better prepared than we've ever been." I'm not sure if that was before or after he reminded us that September is National Preparedness Month, so be sure to stock up on duct tape.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown leapt into action, mustering all the emergency disaster management skills he learned as a lawyer for the International Arabian Horse Association Legal Department (from which he was fired). His money quote: "Paula, the federal government did not even know about the Convention Center people until today."

[...]

And Vice President Dick Cheney was still on vacation.

You can check out Bill's full comments here.

But the worst, the very worst - even worse than Chertoff's demented assertion that the relief efforts have been "magnificent" - is FEMA chief Michael Brown's assertion that the victims are partly to blame. The death toll is expected to reach into the thousands, and Brown told CNN, "Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings."

Nevermind that half of New Orleans residents don't have cars and there were nowhere near enough buses to evacuate them all. Nevermind that most of them are poor and were waiting for their end-of-the-month paychecks and welfare checks so they could afford to, you know, eat. And nevermind that many of them stayed behind to protect ill parents or grandparents who couldn't safely be moved.

Nevermind all that. How about a federal government that didn't heed advance warnings that exactly this sort of catastrophe was in the offing? Warnings that said Homeland Security was trumping hurricane readiness, and that predicted the levees would fail, and that the city would flood, and that many people would not be able to be evacuated? And how about a federal government that cut funding to shore up the levees in order to help pay for the war in Iraq, and that's unremittingly hostile to environmental initiatives that would preserve and restore New Orlean's natural coastal barriers?

So isn't it rather more accurate to say, "Unfortunately the death toll is going to be attributable a lot to the President, and his Cabinent, and elected officials who did not heed the advance warnings"? Isn't it rather more accurate to say, This is what happens when you fill a government with government-hating, rightwing ideologues more interested in the abstract satisfactions of political messianism than the proper functioning of public agencies? Isn't this what happens when no one in charge is even remotely acquainted with a class-based understanding of the world that might shed a little light on the reasons why so many people didn't - couldn't - evacuate?

It seems like spitting into the wind to say so, but Brown and Chertoff need to be fired. Hearings need to be held. Competent people need to be put in charge. And this administration, which has turned the avoidance of accountability into an art form, must, just this once, be held accountable for its venal, and now mortal, sins.