Friday, February 10, 2006
(9:23 AM) | Dave Belcher:
And the hits just keep coming!
This morning's New York Times has an article about the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee investigations, which have discovered that the administration--at some level, of course--knew about the levee breaking in New Orleans on Monday night. This is of course contradictory to what the White House actually said to explain its inaction--remember Bush on vaction telling reporters that he was glad New Orleans had "dodged the bullet"?--when they stated on numerous occassions (Chertoff actually said this on CBS's "Face the Nation") that the levee had not broken until Tuesday.So now we get to watch the circus act of cover-ups and constant excusatory (re-)statements like "No, what I meant by that was..." Officials have already said they were referring to the official confirmation that the levees had broken on Tuesday after reports from the Army Corps of Engineers, not to the actual break itself (Cf. Mr. Kotsko's long-lost post--I don't have a link--on "Officialness and Officiality"). Likewise, the Homeland Security spokesman, Russ Knocke is now trying to say that Chertoff was never informed of the break--even though two of his top officials received emails about it, and he probably received a phone call from (former) FEMA director Brown--but that his not being informed demonstrated "a breakdown. And through an after-action process," it is something they will "address." In other words, expect to see a fall-guy in the Homeland Security Dept. soon--full of steamy confessions of his/her failure to notify Chertoff--when in reality this person was just doing their job. Can't we just do the responsible thing and FUCKING FIRE the people who were and are accountable for the lives of thousands of people in New Orleans--not to mention the other Gulf areas like Mississippi?! No. That would be way too fucking controversial, and way damn too easy.
