Resolute Leadership
The New York Times has a strong article this morning about the response of senior administration officials to the arrival of Katrina.
We all knew that a huge hurricane was about to strike one of our major cities. The National Weather Service was one of the few departments actually doing its job well. And predictions and scenarios of Katrina-like storms had been around for a long time.
It can't be hopelessly optimistic to imagine that an intelligent, curious, responsible President would have been waiting for word from the scene, even demanding frequent updates. He's the President of the United States, for goodness sake. If the man in that office can't find out what he wants to know whenever he wants to know it, we're in trouble. Maybe it wouldn't have been like a TV image of the man in the Situation Room, personally speaking on the phone to the guy in the helicopter, but if he'd cared, if he'd been the resolute leader he keeps claiming to be, he could have been trying to find out.
Even without having to cut another vacation short to fly back to Washington like he did for Terry Schiavo, how hard would it have been for W to call and check on the latest status before he went to bed? We keep hearing about how the President can use video conferencing and modern telecommunications to stay "plugged in" no matter where he is. So how is it that he was so out-of-the-loop?
Real leaders are able to anticipate, and they are able to make sure they know what they need to know, before they need to know it. They ask questions. They probe. They ask "what if" and "what if I'm wrong." They prioritize.
They don't fly to California for photo ops when the nation is 'under attack' by the largest storm in decades. And they don't talk about 'dodging the bullet' while a city is drowning and people are dying.
What is wrong with our country that this man still has his job?
"FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought — also a number of fires."The image of these clueless wonders failing to check their messages is even more galling when one imagines what could have been.
Michael D. Brown, who was the director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on Sept. 12, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he personally notified the White House of this news that night, though he declined to identify the official he spoke to.
White House officials have confirmed to Congressional investigators that the report of the levee break arrived there at midnight, and Trent Duffy, the White House spokesman, acknowledged as much in an interview this week, though he said it was surrounded with conflicting reports.
But the alert did not seem to register. Even the next morning, President Bush, on vacation in Texas, was feeling relieved that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet," he later recalled. Mr. Chertoff, similarly confident, flew Tuesday to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu. With power out from the high winds and movement limited, even news reporters in New Orleans remained unaware of the full extent of the levee breaches until Tuesday.
The federal government let out a sigh of relief when in fact it should have been sounding an "all hands on deck" alarm, the investigators have found.
We all knew that a huge hurricane was about to strike one of our major cities. The National Weather Service was one of the few departments actually doing its job well. And predictions and scenarios of Katrina-like storms had been around for a long time.
It can't be hopelessly optimistic to imagine that an intelligent, curious, responsible President would have been waiting for word from the scene, even demanding frequent updates. He's the President of the United States, for goodness sake. If the man in that office can't find out what he wants to know whenever he wants to know it, we're in trouble. Maybe it wouldn't have been like a TV image of the man in the Situation Room, personally speaking on the phone to the guy in the helicopter, but if he'd cared, if he'd been the resolute leader he keeps claiming to be, he could have been trying to find out.
Even without having to cut another vacation short to fly back to Washington like he did for Terry Schiavo, how hard would it have been for W to call and check on the latest status before he went to bed? We keep hearing about how the President can use video conferencing and modern telecommunications to stay "plugged in" no matter where he is. So how is it that he was so out-of-the-loop?
Real leaders are able to anticipate, and they are able to make sure they know what they need to know, before they need to know it. They ask questions. They probe. They ask "what if" and "what if I'm wrong." They prioritize.
They don't fly to California for photo ops when the nation is 'under attack' by the largest storm in decades. And they don't talk about 'dodging the bullet' while a city is drowning and people are dying.
What is wrong with our country that this man still has his job?
posted by Paul at 8:11 AM |
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