We've seen it time and time again: Bush cronies fail miserably and get rewarded. Now we're seeing it right here in America.
Bush and his cronies say we can't start the "blame game" because America faces huge challenges in New Orleans. Uh, if the people in charge are incompetent, unqualified and have failed spectacularly, surely we should replace them with qualified professionals so those massive challenges can be faced. USA Today has had enough and blasts the cronyism at FEMA in an editorial. And this outrage happened on Bush's watch:
But a deeper review of the agency's history, the records of its top managers and internal memoranda reveal far deeper problems than a momentary burst of poor decisions. Over the past four years, the Bush administration has replaced competent leaders with people long on political connections but short on disaster management expertise. At the same time, the war on terrorism has drained the agency's resources and reduced its effectiveness.It's very simple. Bush shoved out the professionals doing their job and put in hacks who aren't even remotely qualified. It's cost innocent Americans their lives and Bush doesn't care. If he did, he'd fire the people responsible and hire people who would at least have a chance of doing the job right.
Katrina would have been devastating regardless, but those actions turned FEMA into something akin to New Orleans' famous levees — a structure sure to fail when a big disaster struck.
