Remember Katrina

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." --radical rightist Grover Norquist

As George W. Bush wraps up the whitewashing of Katrina -- beginning with parading a Republican activist who masqueraded as a modern Mr. Smith going to Washington and ending with more photo ops in New Orleans -- before he goes back to vacation at his Crawford ranch tonight, let's not forget what Katrina was all about.

Katrina is what happens when those supposed to govern don't believe in governance, when those supposed to lead see government as no more than a fiefdom with which to bestow favors, vanquish enemies and consolidate power.

Paul Krugman:

Apologists for the administration will doubtless claim that blame for the lack of progress rests not with Mr. Bush, but with the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracies. That's the great thing about being an antigovernment conservative: even when you fail at the task of governing, you can claim vindication for your ideology.

But bureaucracies don't have to be this inefficient. The failure to get moving on reconstruction reflects lack of leadership at the top.

[...]

In America as in Iraq, reconstruction delayed is reconstruction denied - and Mr. Bush has, once again, broken a promise.

In the drowning of Katrina, there is an underlying purpose. Frank Rich (emphasis mine):

PRESIDENT BUSH travels to the Gulf Coast this week, ostensibly to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Everyone knows his real mission: to try to make us forget the first anniversary of the downfall of his presidency.

As they used to say in the French Quarter, bonne chance! The ineptitude bared by the storm -- no planning for a widely predicted catastrophe, no attempt to secure a city besieged by looting, no strategy for anything except spin -- is indelible.

[...]

Douglas Brinkley, the Tulane University historian who wrote the best-selling account of Katrina, "The Great Deluge,' is worried that even now the White House is escaping questioning about what it is up to (and not) in the Gulf. "I don’t think anybody’s getting the Bush strategy," he said when we talked last week. "The crucial point is that the inaction is deliberate -- the inaction is the action."

[...]

The destination: a smaller city, with a large portion of its former black population permanently dispersed. "Out of the Katrina debacle, Bush is making political gains," Mr. Brinkley says incredulously. "The last blue state in the Old South is turning into a red state."

We can't let Bush and his cabal get away with this. Enough is enough from this crowd who turns everything they touch into a disaster.

Remember Katrina. Remember Iraq. Remember the lies, the corruption, the abuse of power. Then hold them accountable come November, for as long as they are in power the nightmare will not end.

More on Katrina:

When the Levees Broke, a documentary by Spike Lee on HBO.

Blogswarm at Shakespeare's Sister.

Katrina Timeline at Think Progress.

1115: A Victory Lap for Broken Promises

Andre Cherny: Katrina: What If It Wasn't "Once in A Lifetime?"

Arianna Huffington: A Creeping Feeling of Deluge A Vu

Carl Pope: One Year After Katrina -- The Good, The Bad, The Clueless

Daily Kos: We Were Americans

David Sirota: Katrina Disaster Was Your Bush Tax Cuts At Work

Digby: Diaspora Lemonade

Digby: Pimping the Victims

Firedoglake: Can't Just Wash It Away

Harry Shearer: Katrina: Something Besides Emotion

Huffington Post: Fmr. FEMA Chief: Department Of Homeland Security Is "A Bureaucratic Black Hole"...

Los Angeles Times: Katrina Aid Far From Flowing

MSNBC: It's Incompetence

Newsweek: Not Much Has Changed

Patti Davis: How Does the Heart Survive?

Political Wire: Reporting from Katrina Remembered

Relief Web: Mental Illness Up Among Katrina Survivors

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: While the President Pats Himself on the Back...

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: Katrina One Year Later

Sen. Russ Feingold: Helping People Make it Home Again, a Year after Katrina

Steve Benen: One Year Later

Steven G. Brant: Bush: "We Delivered!" New Orleans: "No, You Didn't!"

Susan Feeney: Courage, Fortitude and a Little Insanity are what it Takes to Survive in Post-K New Orleans

Susan Madrak: Rape, Pillage, Repeat

The Boston Globe: Engineers Worried On New Orleans Levees

USA Today: Former FEMA Director Says Administration Did Not Support Effective Disaster Planning



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