Playing Politics With Katrina

Michael Brown reveals something ugly:

Brown said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the hurricane be federalized, making the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor and we have a chance to rub her nose in it," he said.

Blanco's reaction says it all:

"This is exactly what we were living but could not bring ourselves to believe. Karl Rove was playing politics while our people were dying," Blanco said through a spokeswoman, referring to President Bush's top political strategist. "The federal effort was delayed, and now the public knows why. It's disgusting."

I'm not surprised that the White House was thinking this way. I wouldn't put it past them, playing politics with disaster. But, why is Brown just talking about it now? And since he won't name names, what's the point?

This is why an investigation of how Katrina was handled is crucial. Yet Joe Lieberman, now that he's won re-election, no longer cares:

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman blasted the Bush administration last spring for failing to cooperate in the Senate's investigation of Hurricane Katrina. But now that he is in a key position to press the investigation, he is refusing to do so.

Spokeswoman Leslie Philips said Friday that Lieberman, the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, wouldn't issue subpoenas to the White House as he called for less than a year ago.

How can fatal mistakes and neglect be corrected if we don't get a straight answer as to what they were and how they happened? And knowing the imperial Bush White House which thinks it doesn't answer to anyone, what are the chances the truth will see the light of day without a subpoena?



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