Bloodless Coup

The Leaders of Your Republican Government

In the Ezra vs. Jonah argument over whether or not Nancy Pelosi is going a good job as the Democractic leader in the US House, I am (unsurprisingly) with Ezra, particularly given his description of the GOP congressional leadership as: "a soon-to-be-indicted exterminator, a partially-evolved wrestling coach, and a weak-willed surgeon who conducted a psychic telediagnosis of a comatose political prop that turned out to be wrong." I've never been a big Pelosi fan, but I think Ezra's right in that she's been doing a perfectly adequate (or better than that) job in recent months.

Of course the GOP congressional leadership looks like the wisest of solons compared to the crew that President Bush put charge of protecting us from natural disasters. The level of partisan hackery (sadly) extends far beyond Michael Brown (and as that link notes, things appear to have been moving in the wrong direction since GW ascended to power in 2001). John Pennington is the latest name to get some coverage on the list of highly questionable appointments that this presidency made to key FEMA positions. But of course the list is a long one, and the ineptitude of these people who got their jobs - jobs central to protecting the lives of Americans - is sadly all too apparent now, after many Americans have died.

In my posts on the last election the one word I kept bringing up to describe the president was "dangerous". I felt he earned that word, in no small part, because of his lack of curiousity when it comes to thinking about potentially unpleasant realities, his long-standing record of holding no one in his government publicly accountable for gross incompetence, and his reliance upon loyal handlers and long-time friends, as opposed to people who are actually experts in their fields and might prioritize the need to deal with costly and unpleasant realities above the need to present a smiling face and another voice in favor of the President Bush's often seemingly critical-thinking-free approach to government. Sadly, with this event, among others, in my mind he continues to merit the "dangerous" label. That's not to say that Gov. Blanco didn't make a single mistake. And the president is not responsible for the appalling behavior of the police force in Gretna. But there's much he, Homeland Security and FEMA are responsible for (for a quick overview, the timeline that NPR presented during their coverage of this story yesterday was depressing beyond words, and I'm rather shocked that any president could still have faith in Michael Brown or Secretary Chertoff after their behavior in the first week of this crisis - yet again, Bush crushingly meets the exceedingly low expectations of his critics ...). And both through their actions and their inactions, the president and his aides are doing remarkably little to make Americans feel that this country will be at all prepared when the next disaster strikes.