Last week, an editorial writer for the Seattle Times, Lance Dickie, wrote a column giving the "mainstream" media's conventional wisdom on the response to Katrina.
Before Hurricane Katrina, I looked forward to the congressional campaigns with a perverse political-science curiosity. With the Iraq war going badly and the public increasingly disenchanted by President Bush and his leadership of the war, how would the Republican Party change the discussion? Instead of Iraq, would it be the curse of meth, another foreign crisis, or more predictably, a loop back to the culture wars — guns, gays, abortion and religion?
A killer storm changed all that. A shift in conversation is coming, but not in the direction the White House and GOP-led Congress will like or control.
. . .
The same administration that cannot get bullet-proof vests and armored vehicles to the troops in Iraq cannot get water and emergency rations to the victims of a natural disaster. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army can do it, but not the federal government under current management.
. . .
The incompetence of the Bush administration violated that civic covenant and failed to provide for public safety. The license to engage in all kinds of self-serving political acts — including starting a war — comes with an ancient contract to protect the vulnerable.
(Readers of the entire column will note that neither Mayor Nagin nor Governor Blanco even appear.)
Jack Kelly looked at the same events and came to the opposite conclusion. As I mentioned yesterday, Kelly says that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Here's some of the evidence that Kelly presented for that unconventional opinion:
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
And Kelly has much more evidence, including a sensible discussion of the inescapable difficulties of moving large numbers of men, with their equipment, to a disaster area.
When you compare the columns, you will probably notice the same two things that I did. First, Kelly provides an array of facts and expert opinions, but Dickie presents only opinions. Second, Kelly makes a comparative argument, but Dickie makes an absolute argument; Kelly claims that the response to Katrina was better than the response to previous hurricanes, but Dickie says that it was not perfect, a point I would not dispute. But in judging politicians, the comparative standard is the correct one, for reasons I hope are obvious, even to editorial writers at the Seattle Times.
Who is right? I am inclined to trust the journalist who went out and dug up the facts over the journalist who merely recycled the conventional wisdom of the newsroom. But I am willing to change my mind if Dickie can supply facts that refute Kelly. He could start, for instance, with interviewing Jason van Steenwyk. And if Dickie comes back to this subject, I hope he will make comparisons, rather absolute judgments, and that he will say something about Democratic officials, definitely including Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(Both Dickie and Kelly appear to have made factual errors. Dickie's error is serious; he says, absolutely, that the Bush administration can not get armor to the troops or food and water to the Katrina refugees. Kelly's error is less serious; he says that the levees broke on Tuesday. That's what most first reports said, but authorities now believe that they broke on Monday.
If you have read my previous post, you may wonder whether Lance Dickie is European. As far as I know, he is not.)
Posted by Jim Miller at September 13, 2005 10:15 AM | Email ThisI hope that you will make your comments positive, since I think that is the best way to persuade the Seattle Times that they need improvement. For instance, if you know other columns, or articles, or blog posts that Dickie should read, point them out. If you know experts that might help him understand these issues better, name them.
Posted by: Jim Miller on September 13, 2005 10:21 AMAlan
Posted by: Alan on September 13, 2005 10:41 AM1. The federal government cannot mobilize the national guard for relief efforts in states. It must come from the Govenor of the state.
2. The whole bit about not being able to get armor to troops is a joke. Maybe if every soldier had gotten the body armor some lives may have been saved, but as I saw while i was there in Iraq every time we got new better improved armor the terrorists just continued to use bigger bombs for the IED.
Posted by: TrueSoldier on September 13, 2005 10:47 AMThe MSM is not interested in anything except blame Bush. The classic is Nagin blame Bush for the high body count, then when the count appears low Nagn blames Bush for a low count as racist because it will create lower disaster funding.
The conclusion is Bush is at fault, nothing else signifies.
Posted by: JCM on September 13, 2005 11:21 AMAnd, the reason for the failure of the flood walls is at this point a mystery.
Lance Dickie said in his Seattle Times column: "Gulf-state politicians of all stripes saw money that should have beefed up levees and flood control filched from budgets."
According to the Washington Post, plenty of federal money was spent in Louisiana -- but the political leaders of Louisiana chose not to direct it all to New Orleans. Has "pork barrel politics" now become "filching" in the eyes of Lance Dickie?
Posted by: Micajah on September 13, 2005 11:22 AMYou know the hysterical left can't be burdened with facts. It's all about selling emotion. The Bush hatred is spiraling any legitimate moderate left stance into the ground.
As many here know, I'm pretty moderate. I agree with issues from both parties, and I think that having to be forced into one party or another is a sure way to reach an extreme that is incorrect on at least half the issues. For example, as much as I believe there should be freedom of religion, I definitely don't think we should have government sponsored faith based initiatives.
All that said though, the hysteria of the left pushes me further and further from endorsing any of their candidates. I don't want to associate with people such as Lance Dickie who refuse to even acknowledge a rational debate on what happened in a disaster and instead knee-jerk to an immediate partisan, emotion based tirade.
Posted by: Jeff B. on September 13, 2005 11:27 AMDemocrats have become ambulance chasers, searching for every difficult or tragic situation they can find and then blaming it on Bush and Republicans. It's become completely silly.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on September 13, 2005 11:31 AMThe conspiracy theorists are claiming they were blown up by Bush, the Jews, the Illuminati, take your pick.
The Army Corp of Engineers thinks a barge broke loose and hit the wall.
Posted by: JCM on September 13, 2005 12:17 PMYes, and Karl Rove was secretly responsible cutting that barge loose. =P
Posted by: Mike H on September 13, 2005 12:27 PMEventually, the truth is going to come out and it will be shown that George Bush is not responsible for Hurricane Katrina, the initial lackluster local response in New Orleans, or the misappropriation of funds directed to Lousiana to address hurricane preparedness. However, do not hold your breath waiting for any retractions from guys like Dickie or others who took the easy way out and piled the criticism on President Bush before doing any real research.
Bush haters will continue to hate him no matter what he does. I am thankful that he does not let the polls or misinformed public opinion make his decisions for him. Just keep doing the right things, George.
Posted by: Gary on September 13, 2005 01:01 PM
Unfortunately Jim, I seriously doubt that anyone at the Times will take the time to read what is sent to them. They have that old mentality of "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."
The libs so hate Bush that they cannot see things any other way. They will continue to cherry pick their "facts" and use these little pits as justification of why all who voted "RED" in the presidential election, were so horribly wrong in their thinking. Bush could have been down there handing out bottles of water and stacks of hundred dollar bills personally hours afterwards and the libs would still find reasons to blame him for the devastation.
Posted by: cowboy on September 13, 2005 01:13 PMThe Seattle Times is local media, which I why put this post here, as well as on my own site. If the piece had been in, for instance, the Oregonian, I would not have cross posted.
(BTW, I said "positive", but "constructive" would have been a better word.)
Posted by: Jim Miller on September 13, 2005 02:09 PMIt is a miracle the United States of America still exists.
Posted by: swatter on September 13, 2005 02:13 PMHere's what the Army Corps of Engineers project manager is quoted as having said to the Times-Picayune (article linked above -- click "a mystery"):
Floodwalls were breached in the 17th Street Canal, at two places in the London Avenue Canal, and at two places in the Industrial Canal, Suhayda said. Naomi said last week that one of the Industrial Canal breaches likely was caused by a loose barge that broke through it.
Note that there were failures at five different places on three different canals (and none at all on the levees). Only one may have been caused by a loose barge.
Note also that the preliminary evidence indicates that neither the levees nor the flood walls were "topped" by the storm surge waters. The working hypothesis of the Corps is that the floodwalls were topped, and that the cascading water washed away the ground at the base of the wall. So far, it doesn't look as though that hypothesis is supported by the available evidence.
Note, too, the mention of ground being pushed away as though by a bulldozer:
Suhayda said that his inspection of the debris from the 17th Street Canal breach suggests the wall simply gave way. "It looks to have been laterally pushed, not scoured in back with dirt being removed in pieces," he said. "You can see levee material, some distance pushed inside the floodwall area, like a bulldozer pushed it."
Rational people would wonder if the steel that anchored the flood walls was driven deep enough into the ground at those points. Barking moonbats would, I suppose, wonder which Bush henchmen were driving bulldozers around New Orleans in the middle of a hurricane.
Posted by: Micajah on September 13, 2005 03:01 PMBush caused landslides on washington freeway due to lack of funding!
It's only a matter of time.
Posted by: TrueSoldier on September 13, 2005 03:21 PMThink we'll find the axe that cut the barge loose in the back of Cheney's Halliburton Suburban?
Posted by: JCM on September 13, 2005 05:19 PM