Blame

Bush and his henchman call it the "blame game". They want to avoid it, at all costs, right now. They're too busy saving lives to assess blame right now. Later. And later, President Bush intends to lead the investigation into how his administration failed New Orleans. Not now, "Over time,"
our leader tells us today.

That makes sense to me. After all, we had Clinton lead the investigation into Lewinskyland? And Nixon lead the investigation into Watergate? And we had them look into it later. After the hubbub died down about the issues. Didn't we? Oh.

The Blame Game is anything but a game. It's deadly serious. Possibly 10,000 lives lost deadly serious. It's a have-to inquiry into what happen and didn't happen. Who did, and who didn't. And who's to blame is very important. Not just because this nation wants to vilify them. Which we do. But more importantly, we need to know where our failures happened now so we know how to fix them.

Until we know exactly who to blame and what to blame, we do not know how to prepare for another disaster. Bush won his second term based on appealing to the frightened in us. He promised to take care of us, to keep the bogeyman away at night. Now, we appear to be learning his administration is incapable of dealing with disasters, both natural and man-made. This better not be acceptable to the American people. It's sure as hell not acceptable to me.

Surely the United States Government has the resources not only to continue to answer this disaster but to assess what went wrong with the answer at the same time. Even during this time of massive Republican government cut-backs (boy, that's working out well, isn't it?), there should be ample competent bodies in DC to run this investigation. I don't think most of them are busy with Katrina, unless you count those who have run down to indulge in photo-op governing.

Want a reason why it has to happen now? The Katrina efforts continue to be less than acceptable. The EU is complaining they still can't get aid into the affected US region. Sweden has a plane full of aid that doesn't yet have US approval to enter. High speed pumps sent by Germany are not being used to due "coordination" problems. And FEMA is still refusing help in New Orleans that's been offered by numerous US aid agencies. Look at this list published over at Daily Kos of all the groups who've offered and been refused.

The Blame Game needs to happen now. Not to crucify Bush, though obviously I wouldn't mind that happening. But to fix what's wrong. For now. And for the never too distant later.

Later,
Liz