>
> Can't blame Bush for this. FEMA is an executive agency.
>
> Doug
>
> ----------
>
> I sure can. FEMA, OE, and many of the rest of the executive branch agencies
> were reorganized by Bush and Cheney using hatchets and chainsaws.
>
> I thought at the time, it would take the next administration a full term or
> more just re-reorganizing the system to get it to do its intended work.
>
> Getting rid of Bush's executive orders was just a show piece. The damage
> that jerk did to executive branch was vast and deep. The complete inability
> of FEME to handle its job is just a small but newsworthy example.
>
> I'll bet the job Rumsfeld did on the military was even worse, because
> Rumsfeld had more experience at ruination. Then there is Health, Treasury,
> and Justice and dozens of lower levels all showing signs of Bush Syndrome,
> also know as Foobar.
>
> If Obama and Biden don't start fixing the inner workings of the executive
> branch, they will fail no matter what policy objectives they want to
> accomplish.
>
> Look at the agencies that were supposed to regulate and oversee the
> financial system. Banker greed, fraud and abuse are only one side of the
> problem. The government regulatory system for financial markets works just
> like FEMA for the same reason.
>
> CG
I was going to write the same thing... Doug's position implies, on the one hand, that eight-to-thirty years of damage to already largely-dysfunctioning bureaucracies could be reasonably expected to be repaired in four months and, on the other hand, that these local decisions are being made a) by Obama-ites and b) only after having been run up the pole for approval from DC. Undermining my own point: at the same time that institutional/bureaucratic momentum/creep is awfully hard to reverse, redirect and revamp, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that Obama's FEMA folks ought not to have made Katrina work, planning and failures a primary object of their focus and kept this offensive silliness from coming to pass. Though, of course, I'm sure its no help that this is all occuring in Louisiana...