Siezing Control

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential. [Note the Fear of the "female." We're not talking about taking Presidential control of a National Natural Disaster, we're talking about "seizing" control from a woman. -GS]

And now, thanks to Atrios, we learn that this was never even really a problem. In fact, Gov. Blanco, the women the Feds were so afraid of, was basically completely blown off. What they've portrayed as an anti-female perception issue really turns out just, simply, to be an anti-female issue!

We now know that Blanco did everything she needed to and more to get federal government help (which commander codpiece could've and should've provided even without prompting). And, we also now know that Bush was very concerned about the plight of Haley "Possibly the Worst Man in America" Barbour, and not so concerned about Louisiana. At some poiny deliberate negligence is indistinguishable from malice.

She says that two days after Katrina, desperate for help, she couldn't get through to Bush and didn't get a callback; hours later, she tried again, and they talked.

...
Barbour hasn't had to wait hours to talk to Bush. In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. "I never called him. He always called me," he said.

I mean, can you imagine how it would look if the Federal government simply chose not to accept calls from the governor of Louisiana because she was a She-Democrat instead of a He-Repub?

Pretty B.A.D.