Post might read IMproPRieTies more often

A friend pointed me to new published reports which appear to bolster the allegation, made here on Aug. 22, 2004, that FEMA was entirely a political arse job, with no ulterior motive of actually doing anything whatsoever for people afflicted by "Hurricane Charley."

In part I said:

...the problem with FEMA is, it has become a Republican artifact. That is to say, its role here in Charlotte County, as far as I can see, is to help Mr. Bush win Florida in November.

And now "media" are saying things like:

Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with a keen awareness of the coming presidential election. Washington Post

FEMA Director Michael Brown himself, a sincere-ish blusterer who has the air of a Pattonesque General so in command that his troops all know better than to hint at his public display of nudity, seems to have lent credence to this view as well:

Brown cited Hurricane Andrew in 1992 as a historic failure that still looms over FEMA, which was harshly criticized for failing to deliver aid and distribute funds quickly enough to victims in Miami. That failure has long been blamed as contributing to President George H.W. Bush's defeat that year. WP

The point is not only the squinty joy of having told you so but also the fact that in nuce, the Florida disaster was responded to exactly the way 911 was responded to: with great energy, a cone of error approaching 100%, supreme public relations sensibility and an incompetence so astonishing as to induce the unavoidable conviction that something was on their minds other than the FEMA mission statement.

The point I failed to make then, but which was very much present to me, has to do with complexity. I failed to point out that the "emergency management" operation staged in Florida by Bush 2 and, BuddyJesus forbid, 3, was carried out on friendly soil, with a willing population, under optimal communications conditions, overseen by a President and Governor who happen to be brothers, with nearly unlimited resources close at hand, and it was a megabollockian fuckup of the first magnitude. If the Bushes couldn't get this one right, what makes USians conceive that these "leaders" can get anything right in the Middle East?