When in doubt, appoint McCain.
As the Globe and Mail tells it:
Even Republicans were criticizing Mr. Bush and his administration for the sluggish relief effort. "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Newt is absolutely right of course, and he even has some moral authority on the subject being the Republicans' only genuine futurist (and, yes, I know he's also crazy). But I would have expected better than this from The Last Right Wing Atari:
He urged Mr. Bush to name former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as the White House point person for relief efforts. Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., also suggested Mr. Giuliani or former Secretary of State Colin Powell or retired Gen. Tommy Franks to take charge of the relief efforts.
Ugh. That's Washington's biggest cop-out criticism: when in doubt of something useful to say but want to be heard saying something, demand that an unpopular politican (Bush) appoint a popular politician (Guiliani, Powell, Franks, McCain) to some high-profile position, or to replace another unpopular (remember the drumbeat to replace Rumsfeld with McCain?) or obscure (the poor unqualified FEMA guy) figure. (*Update: whoops: the link was to the first unqualified FEMA guy who was replaced in 2003; it's not like I hadn't been watching Brown on the news all week.)
Even assuming that The Right Leader could make All the Difference (which just isn't true in a situation like this), what do any of these guys have to recommend them beyond good poll numbers? Guiliani's 911 performance is actually a subject of some debate. And even if we accept that he performed heroically on 911, what exactly do these two disasters have in common besides being devasting to the national spirit and resulting in a large loss of life? What does Guiliani know about the Gulf of Mexico and its levy system and how to lower the flood water levels? What does he know about basic southern culture and what people most want to hear right now, what they're most likely to respond to? What does he know about FEMA or, even more, about SELA (the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project whose funding the Bushies gutted in 2003)? Guiliani grew up in Brooklyn and has lived basically his whole life in New York. General Franks, meanwhile, is a longtime Pentagon guy most famous for commanding the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (which were military successes were for "shock and awe" reasons; what we need is someone who can manage things once the shock and awe is over...and that goes for all the current US disasters). How does having commanded foreign invasions qualify Franks for managing domestic civilian rescue and refugee operations? Oh, and then there's Colin Powell, who was last seen fudging the evidence on Iraq for the UN and later resigning from the Bush Admin in a state of thinly veiled pariahhood. What's the logic of that one? That he's a name that connotes vague notions of comfort? That op-ed columinist like him?
Even at times of national emergency, of national tragedy, of systems failures that go so alarmingly deep it seems almost callous to lay the blame on the hapless president, there's a certain type of pol (and, perhaps even more prominently, a certain type of pundit) who has to keep tossing out a steady stream of pointless "advice" like this. I guess Newt Gingrich is that type of pol too.
Even Republicans were criticizing Mr. Bush and his administration for the sluggish relief effort. "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Newt is absolutely right of course, and he even has some moral authority on the subject being the Republicans' only genuine futurist (and, yes, I know he's also crazy). But I would have expected better than this from The Last Right Wing Atari:
He urged Mr. Bush to name former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as the White House point person for relief efforts. Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., also suggested Mr. Giuliani or former Secretary of State Colin Powell or retired Gen. Tommy Franks to take charge of the relief efforts.
Ugh. That's Washington's biggest cop-out criticism: when in doubt of something useful to say but want to be heard saying something, demand that an unpopular politican (Bush) appoint a popular politician (Guiliani, Powell, Franks, McCain) to some high-profile position, or to replace another unpopular (remember the drumbeat to replace Rumsfeld with McCain?) or obscure (the poor unqualified FEMA guy) figure. (*Update: whoops: the link was to the first unqualified FEMA guy who was replaced in 2003; it's not like I hadn't been watching Brown on the news all week.)
Even assuming that The Right Leader could make All the Difference (which just isn't true in a situation like this), what do any of these guys have to recommend them beyond good poll numbers? Guiliani's 911 performance is actually a subject of some debate. And even if we accept that he performed heroically on 911, what exactly do these two disasters have in common besides being devasting to the national spirit and resulting in a large loss of life? What does Guiliani know about the Gulf of Mexico and its levy system and how to lower the flood water levels? What does he know about basic southern culture and what people most want to hear right now, what they're most likely to respond to? What does he know about FEMA or, even more, about SELA (the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project whose funding the Bushies gutted in 2003)? Guiliani grew up in Brooklyn and has lived basically his whole life in New York. General Franks, meanwhile, is a longtime Pentagon guy most famous for commanding the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (which were military successes were for "shock and awe" reasons; what we need is someone who can manage things once the shock and awe is over...and that goes for all the current US disasters). How does having commanded foreign invasions qualify Franks for managing domestic civilian rescue and refugee operations? Oh, and then there's Colin Powell, who was last seen fudging the evidence on Iraq for the UN and later resigning from the Bush Admin in a state of thinly veiled pariahhood. What's the logic of that one? That he's a name that connotes vague notions of comfort? That op-ed columinist like him?
Even at times of national emergency, of national tragedy, of systems failures that go so alarmingly deep it seems almost callous to lay the blame on the hapless president, there's a certain type of pol (and, perhaps even more prominently, a certain type of pundit) who has to keep tossing out a steady stream of pointless "advice" like this. I guess Newt Gingrich is that type of pol too.
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