The Best Use of Firefighters: Props in a Photo-Op

I'm going to have to restrict myself to one of this kind of post a day:

Joshua Micah Marshall writes about firefighters as photo-op props:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: September 04, 2005 - September 10, 2005 Archives: article from today's Salt Lake Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197 which tells the story of about a thousand firefighters from around the country who volunteered to serve in the Katrina devastation areas. But when they arrived in Atlanta to be shipped out to various disaster zones in the region, they found out that they were going to be used as FEMA community relations specialists. And they were to spend a day in Atltanta getting training on community relations, sexual harassment awareness, et al. This of course while life and death situations were still the order of the day along a whole stretch of the Gulf Coast.

It's an article you've really got a to read to appreciate the full measure of folly and surreality.

But the graf at the end of the piece really puts everything in perspective, and gives some sense what the Bush administration really has in mind when it talks about a crisis. The paper reports that one team finally was sent to the region...

As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

You can't make this stuff up.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.

Comments

[krimpet]

Hm, then we get Cheney.

[Matthew Saroff]

Impeach them both.

Pelosi in 2007!!!!

[f]

No, it would be simpler if they both resign.

[Movie Guy]

You really can't make this stuff up.

People should be raising total hell.

It continues...

And it's no better in Mississippi.

[putnam]

It's no mystery why FEMA's top three people are from Bush campaigns - advance men and media specialists. The job of FEMA is to set up media opportunities for Bush in the wake of disasters.

[WatchfulBabbler]

They took fifty firefighters out of 1,000, dressed them up as if they were doing the SAR operations the firefighters came out to do, and made them pantomime for the cameras while the other 950 public safety personnel were told to go hand out FEMA's phone numbers to those still alive enough to care.

Even Potemkin would be ill.

And that doesn't even bring into the conversation Froomkin's piece in the WaPo today.

As of today, I am forced to discard hypothesis (A) -- "this is the logical and tragic culmination of the Administration's long march to unpredecented incompetence" -- and proceed to hypothesis (B) -- "Fuck. They really don't give a damn about poor black folk." Not that they want them dead, or hate them, just that the poor drowning in their homes are less important than a photo op for the President.

If I were to continue to believe hypothesis (A), I would have to assume an average Administration IQ around that of a mentally-challenged squirrel, the kind of animal that tries to climb stumps and to which the other feral rodents feel superior from their perches atop limbs.

Quite frankly, the "evil" hypothesis is actually less scary than that conclusion.

[ogmb]

I can't help but come back to the old B-school chestnut: "A-people hire A-people. B-people hire C-people."

Our Preznit, being C-people himself...

[luci phyrr]

Pelosi is probably a better idea than Hillary.

[robert waldmann]

No Brad don't limit yourself. Bush should be impeached many many times a day until he is negative 1000 times President. Also something in the latest press conference was weird. See my link begging blog for

Was Anyone in the White House in Charge of Crisis Management ?

There was a very very odd exchange during the ferocious press conference in which McClellan flailed around attempting to find an excuse for refusing to respond to reporters questions. Most questions were very aggressive, but one was very simple and direct and apparently routine. McClellan didn't answer it.

Q There have been suggestions that the initial White House response was delayed somewhat because a number of key people were on vacation last week. During that critical 24-hour period after the levees were breached Monday, who in the White House was in charge of crisis management?

MR. McCLELLAN: Andy Card is the chief of staff, and he was in close contact with everyone. And the President is the one who's in charge at the White House.

Andy Card is indeed the chief of staff but he was not in the White House. He was in Maine

White House chief of staff Andy Card was on line from Maine

I find it impossible to believe that no one in the White House was in charge of crisis management. Still I wonder why the reporter asked the question. I would assume that the answer wouldn't be very interesting. The question is strange. The failure to answer it is very strange. Is it possible that they all went on vacation and left no one minding the store ?

[weco]

Talk about surreal. I've just seen a Bush crony defending him on BBC last night by spreading the lie that Blanco didn't declare an emergency -- only to be called on it by another interviewee on the panel with actual date and evidence.

Then she said "I don't believe in it" and "It will all be clear when we have the enquiry".

[AST]

I imagine Bush would be more than happy if he could just chuck all this and go home to Crawford. He's already up to his ass in alligators and then some bureaucrat dipstick hands him another hand grenade to juggle.

These guys volunteered in response to Mayor Nagin's plea for more firefighters. Didn't Nagin tell FEMA what he wanted them for? Whoever decided they would be used to pass out fliers should be reassigned to that duty him or herself.

Go ahead and impeach Bush. That'll really make things better, won't it? How is it that the Democrat Mayor and the Democrat Governor get to keep their jobs but Bush should be impeached? If Rudy Giuliani had been the mayor of New Orleans, Bush would be getting 90% approval.

All he can do is just keep working on it. News reporters and bloggers have the luxury of demanding people's heads, but if you're trying to get anything done, that just seems like a good way to bog things down even more.

From the inception of this whole thing, I was thinking, why would anybody live in a city that's below sea leve? Then I was thinking, why are these people still in the city? Then, why are they all just standing around expecting someone else to come and take care of them?
Why are these newsmen just standing around talking to them and asking stupid questions instead of helping people in most need to evacuate?

While everybody was screaming about FEMA, the National Guard, etc. I was wondering why the city hadn't made any apparent preparation for a hurricane. In short, where were the first responders? Maybe if New Orleans is such a basket case the government should just dissolve city and parish authorities and add it to the District of Columbia.

[coriolis]

Does it strike anyone else that there must be a basement room somewhere that is filled with pasty white republican operatives who are paid to read message boards and then repeat today's GOP talking points?

FEMA: Let's take 1000 well-seasoned volunteers and waste their time.

AST: At least that's something.

[christo]

I am beginning to think there is widespread evidence of Pentagon tax dollars at work locally. Yes, Coriolis, you are onto something.

Why wasn't Guiliani president at the time of 9/11? How much of Bush's credit for recovering from the terrorists attacks should actually be laid at the G-unit's feet rather than W's?

I say if you're north of the Mason-Dixon line and thinking of contending for the presidency as a Republican, you're dreaming. Guiliani wouldn't survive the slimestorm. I say too that the Republicans are prejudiced against Vietnam vets. Vietnam vets can have their place but they're not getting the big seat. They can serve as ignored Sec of State or serve as Senators. They can serve as parrots like Tommy Franks. Prez, VP, chair of the RNC, all off limits to northerners and vets. Northern republicans have to show some nuance. Yellow elephants get scared by the 1,000 yard stare in the vets.

Not the ironman Terminator movies, but the Dick science fiction movies that Arnie was in, Total Recall, Running Man, that's our blue print for the present and future, but the endings are going to be corrected. How much is the Running Man movie like the reality chase the nigger up the street tv shows?

[christo]

I'm counting Santorum as being the Vatican's plenipotentiary and not a senator from Pennsylvannia. I might be mistaken but conservatively Pennsylvania was a place for tolerance back in Franklin's time.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Not to justify this cluster-mess, but first we send too little help, now we have help streaming from too many directions to manage and we are about to throw $150 BILLION or so into the Gulf Coast.

Are there any grownups out there?

FIRE BROWNIE!!!

[theCoach]

From Laura Rozen:
"Mr. Five Week Vacation while Thousands Die (Twice). "

[bakho]

Rudy G would have the same problems as Nagin managing the Big Easy. On 9/11, the affected area was small and Rudy had command and control. Plus NYC has 40,000 police officers and 1000 support staff. After 9/11 NYC police still had homes with phones and electricity. NO has about 1500 police. Many no longer have homes or at least usable homes.

NO was first hit by a hurricane and then a flood. All power was lost and as soon as batteries were exhausted, most command and control was lost. The area hit was much more extensive and areas surrounding NO were also destroyed and unable to send help. Nagin has been begging for help and it has been slow in arriving. A Cat 5 hurricane causes much more devastation than can be addressed locally. Now had Rudy G been running FEMA, there might have been a better response. The Feds are the ones that can add manpower. The locals just don't have the resources.

[ricardo]

It's time for cooler heads in both Republican and Democraticic parties to face the troubling facts, come together, and prepare for a change of president and vice-president...the reason is simple - Bush is out of the loop and unable to cope during times of emergencies...the office of the presidency under the Bush administration is now for all purposes set up as that of a constitutional monarch - photo ops, ribbon cuttings, attending to the affairs of state with a signature at dilatory intervals...something our Constitution makes no provision for...rather, our Constitution provides for a Commander-in-Chief...someone to whom the Cabinet directly reports...hence, when Bush is absent or on vacation, as he so frequently is, there is literally no one to sign off on decisions in the chain of command...evidence of the vacuum in decision making has been made abundantly clear during the response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster...

And Rove can spin it all he wants, but Bush is out of the loop by design...how far we've come from the days when LBJ used to have all three networks running on TV's in the Oval Office (not that he was able to extricate himself from Vietnam after he lost Walter Cronkite)...I can't imagine Bush troubling himself to follow breaking news on cable or online...he's too busy getting on with his life.

[christo]

ricardo and bakho just added one clear summary of what happened and one clear call forward. thanks.

[RT]

Screw impeachment - it's time for the angry mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks.

It's germane to this thread that all Department of Commerce employees received the following email last night. Thanks but no thanks, guys - if you're going to use seasoned firefighters to hand out flyers with FEMA's phone number, I've gotta wonder what even more trivial task they'd assign a cube dweller like me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR: All DOC Employees

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) anticipates needing up to 2,000 volunteers to assist in the government's response to the hurricane tragedy. Volunteers will be asked to deploy for 30-day minimum field assignments to work with Federal Emergency Management Agency(FEMA)on this effort.

Department of Commerce employees who are interested in volunteering should carefully read the information from FEMA on Frequently Asked Questions for Agencies at:

http://ohrm.os.doc.gov/Programs/PROD01_001097.html

and the Emergency Management Institute at:

http://ohrm.os.doc.gov/Programs/PROD01_001100.html

Make sure that you meet the requirements outlined and are up to the likely working conditions that you will face in New Orleans and the other affected areas. Interested employees should discuss and have the full support of their supervisors prior to volunteering.

Employees who are interested in volunteering and meet the requirements (see http://ohrm.os.doc.gov/Programs/PROD01_001099.html ), including supervisory approval, should email their stated interest to volunteer@doc.gov. Mr. Fred Fanning, from the Office of Human Resources Management is the Department's coordinator and point of contact. If you cannot e-mail your interest, you can call (202) 482-6117 or (202) 482-1445. It is important that employees not contact FEMA directly, but use volunteer@doc.gov as your primary means of expressing your interest in volunteering. To volunteer, you will need to provide the following information in your e-mail:

Your name
Work phone number
Cell phone number (if available)
Work e-mail address
Supervisor's name and phone number
Dates of availability

The Department of Commerce will pay salaries of employee volunteers. FEMA will pay travel, overtime, incidental expenses, etc. FEMA will also reimburse the Department of Commerce for any overtime expenses. Once employees are approved for volunteer service, they will receive more detailed information for in-processing.

FEMA will contact you directly if you are selected for a temporary field assignment. It is important that you let your supervisor know if you are contacted by FEMA for deployment. Volunteers are needed immediately and for future deployments so you may or may not hear back immediately from FEMA.

If contacted by FEMA, you will be scheduled for 1-day training in Emmitsburg, MD. Volunteers from outside the DC area will immediately deploy from Emmitsburg to a FEMA staging area in Orlando, Florida. Volunteers from the DC area will return home following training. FEMA will contact you with further deployment nstructions within a matter of days. The FEMA will determine specific field assignments for further deployment from Orlando.

The victims of Hurricane Katrina remain in our thoughts and prayers, and we are thankful for the many federal employees who are so anxious to provide assistance.

For further information, please visit the Hurricane Katrina Volunteers Home Page at:

http://ohrm.os.doc.gov/Programs/PROD01_001101.html

_________________________________________
This message has been authorized by OHRM.

[Chris]

I thought I was seeing double this morning when I read about the "firefighters as props" story - abhorrent enough by itself - followed by this story, from Salon (reprinted on Eschaton, with Atrios' comments):

"The fascist at FEMA (link from Salon's War Room, 9/7):

On Monday, the Tribune says, some firefighters began to take off their FEMA-issued T-shirts in protest. A FEMA spokesman responded by questioning the firefighters' willingness to help in a time of need. 'I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country,' FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak told the Tribune.

So, if you object to having yourself be flown across the country so you can be a human prop for the president instead of actually using your skills to help the citizens of this country then you need to revisit your commitment to 'the citizens of this country.'"

[Dave]

...an empty hospital ship anchored near the Gulf Coast, a hundred or so doctors and other trained professional from UNC with mobile operating rooms etc., sitting wating, and now the firemen in Atlanta...is there no bottom to this witless, callous incompetence?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html

September 7, 2005

Osama and Katrina
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

On the day after 9/11, I was in Jerusalem and was interviewed by Israeli TV. The reporter asked me, 'Do you think the Bush administration is up to responding to this attack?' As best I can recall, I answered: 'Absolutely. One thing I can assure you about these guys is that they know how to pull the trigger.'

It was just a gut reaction that George Bush and Dick Cheney were the right guys to deal with Osama. I was not alone in that feeling, and as a result, Mr. Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.

Well, if 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush's back, Katrina's put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending 'intelligent design' as a theology than practicing it as a policy....

[Roger Bigod]

The picture (at Kos or Billmon) is wonderful. The composition of the group of fireman is like the idealized working class in WPA murals or Soviet Realism. I knew there would be some use for that art history course, but staving off nausea is an unexpected bonus.

[a different chris]

ART:How is it that the Democrat Mayor and the Democrat Governor get to keep their jobs

Who said they should? And you seem to be calling the kettle black, as you seem to have forgotten a little place called Mississippi whose governor is not only Republican but a pretty high up one at that.

As per bahko, yup, we don't even have to go to Old Europe to clearly see the difference between a strong government, big-time public services city and that good old low-tax low-service world that the South is always so proud of.

[dragan]

agreed. this need not be structured as Either/Or - Nagin or Brown
but as Both/And - Nagin and Brown and Blanco and Chertoff and Screwup-in-Chief and Imelda

[ken melvin]

Fairs fair; the Mayor goes if Bush goes. If not fair a damned goood trade.

[f]

How do you manage to avoid the tinfoil hat sites when you appraise us, your loyal readers, of what is actually happening. You are beginning to admit that these matters "could not be made up". Yes. They were. Reading WWW.Rense.com is both fun and educational. Impeaching Bush is simply stupid. But then is that not the point? When the glorious new New Deal take over, you will get a job where you will truly shine. Not too difficult after this mob. So let Bush get on with his job. Were he not so spiritually strong and mentally weak, he would not have had the job. Al Gore declined. The trouble is that he may do too good a job and render subtle responses impossible for several succeeding admins.... to all our loss.