To Investigate

Kos at his homebase has a wonderfully illuminating post on the Repulican mouthpiece efforts to replace blame on local figures and the Red Cross and off the Federal government:

The right wing bloggers are running with claims by the Red Cross that state officials kept them from going in too soon. The geniuses at Powerline conclude:


The Democrats may need to re-think their calls for an investigation.


See, that's the difference between us and them. They put their party above the country, and would rather stiffle a real investigation than be forced to shoulder any blame.

We say, "investigate away", and let the chips fall where they may. If any Democrats share the blame, then so be it. We need to know what went wrong, who f'd up, and how we can prevent this sort of thing from happening again. If Blanco or another Democrats gets fingered in this epic screwup, that's okay.

But the wingers don't see it that way. "Rerthink their calls for an investigation"... Jeez. Talk about projection, as though our motivations are the same as theirs. As though we look at the Gulf Coast and think, "hmmm, how can we best protect Democrats who may have had a hand in this mess..."

Unlike them, we place country first, party second.

Armando is right -- one party is calling for an independent investigation, willing to get to the truth irrespective of which party's at faily. The other party wants a whitewash. We all know which is which.

Update: Oh, and here's the fact about that Red Cross allegation:

“MARTY EVANS, RED CROSS PRESIDENT AND CEO: Well, Larry, when the storm came our goal was prior to landfall to support the evacuation. It was unsafe to be in the city. We were asked by the city not to be there and the Superdome was made a shelter of last resorts and, quite frankly in retrospect, it was a good idea because otherwise those people would have had no shelter at all.”

In other words, the Red Cross was kept out before the storm, not after. But Like I said, that's just about irrelevant at this point. There's no doubt that state and city officials made blunders. Everyone would make mistakes in a disaster of this magnitude. Let's get them all out in the open so we can properly assess what went wrong and what can be done to fix it.

Kos is right. One partisan group wants to investigate, one wants to whitewash because they are the ruling party and will become deeply implicated. Were the powers reversed exactly, these parties would have simply exchanged places. Kos still falls somewhat short. The fact of the matter is that this is not a partisan need: that the response to the hurricane falls, ultimately, on the President's list of responsibilities.

But what every figure in American government needs to understand is that it was the government reaction that failed in this disaster. An investigation is utterly required. We must understand what happened. If the Red Cross faltered, so be it. If FEMA faltered, so be it. If the Federal government hesitated, so be it.

When the response to such an enourmous catastrophy, which should have been dealt with more efficiency and capability, was so horrendous and cost many lives, somebody must be held accountable.

Here's the difference between the left and the right: When these failures are as drastic as they were; when every step of the way the federal response was trifling and foolish; somebody must be held accountable. When a disaster relief effort stops working to aid and assist the citizens that it has been set up to serve, then that agency needs to be dismantled, restructured, and rebuilt with the safety and protection of Americans again at the center of the arrangement. If that agency is the Red Cross, Wal-Mart, or the American Federal Government, the equation is the same: Where the agency failed its populace, it must be held accountable, dismantled, and rebuilt with a true ethic of assistance as its core.