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Wednesday, September 07, 2005

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California Yankee

Gordon, President Bush's August 27, 2005 declaration of federal emergency assistance for Louisiana "ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing."

The President authorized FEMA to "identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."

President Bush gave FEMA its "marching orders."

California Yankee

I have addressed Matthew's comments in a new post -
FEMA: It's More Than Brown.

Gordon Jones

Stop shilling for the liberals. We know that Brown had to wait for local and state officials to institute their plans before he could do anything.

FEMA is a coordinating agency - it does not just intervene in state matters when it wants to. It has to be given marching orders.

Matthew Shugart

I can't argue with you that Brown should go. He failed badly. But in a way, that's too easy a response. I really worry that his resignation or firing would obscure the more fundamental problems, by deflecting rather than focusing accountability.

1. The chief executive himself hired this man, despite his lack of any obvious qualifications.

2. The chief executive himself apparently failed to exercise the level of command and attention that the impending disaster required.

3. But even focusing the accountablity on the President misses still more fundamental problems. As I have been arguing over at Fruits and Votes in various posts, the more significant issue is not personal, but institutional. FEMA's subordination inside DHS and attendant downgrading (a bipartisan decision, by the way) virtually guaranteed that it would have less presidential attention (thereby worsening problem 2 and perhaps being an underlying reason for problem 1).

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