Blind Loyalty

The horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will be dissected in thousands of commentaries on thousands of blogs, websites, newspapers and magazines. In the months and years to come we’ll be able to read insightful books and, of course, the investigations of numerous government committees, panels and commissions.

Some of these might even be helpful and insightful.

Right now we’re mostly getting gut reactions, heartfelt stories and a wealth of utter nonsense. The "hate Bush for everything" crowd is setting new standards for fiction parading as fact.

So here's my gut reaction.

For reasons the liberal ultra left cannot possibly imagine, President Bush does deserve a lot of the blame for what’s happening. Not for the Hurricane, of course, but for the botched efforts in the last 72 hours.

I'm not part of the "Hate Bush" crowd. In fact I'm a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and the overall war against terrorism. I think Bush not only has the best plan, he has the only plan.

I think most of Bush's policies have been excellent. His tax cuts and overall economic policies have given us one of the strongest economy in out history.

Attacks on his brilliant "Leave No Child Behind" education program are totally unwarranted. In fact Bush has spent more Federal Funds on education than any Democrat President ever even proposed in their wildest dreams.

And even some of his Environment Policies are overwhelming successes.

But blind loyalty is just as totally wrong as blind hatred. Bush's management style, nearly identical to Ronald Reagan's, depends on having excellent people in charge. Bush delegates authority to his people, but here his people are simply incompetent.

In addition, it's my opinion that the new gigantic Federal Bureaucracy called Homeland Security created after 9/11 is one of the greatest mistakes in the entire history of government. Of course I strongly opposed it's creation at the time, as did a pretty large number of Bush cabinet officials. But public pressure and the bizarre lobbying by the 9/11 commission and 9/11 mothers caused it to pass.

So now we have a large, incompetent, unfeeling monster of a department filled with little baby bureaucrats whose sole mission in life is to cover their asses.

It's interesting to hear people compare Nixon's fast, efficient management of Hurricane Camille with Bush's nowhere to be seen mismanagement of Katrina. Nixon had FEDERAL troops on the ground in massive numbers in 24 hours.

Bush can't get troops to Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith who are broadcasting one block away from a military checkpoint whose entire purpose seems to be to cause people to suffer and die.

You have to be a complete idiot to allow the press to cover the torture of 10,000 people on live television and not pick up the phone and tell a General his career is on the line if food and water don't arrive within one hour.

Now, if you don't want to put the blame on Bush, blame his managers. But if Bush won't make the call, heads below him had better roll.