COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

"Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead"

Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on television screens across the U.S. and around the world

Forum: Bob Herbert's Columns

The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of thousands of American citizens SEARCH AND RESCUE IS A LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY, NOT FEDERAL who were suffering horribly and dying in agony was there for all the world to see.

Hospitals with deathly ill patients were left without power, LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY with ventilators that didn't work, LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY with floodwaters rising on the lower floors and with corpses rotting in the corridors and stairwells LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY People unable to breathe on their own LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY or with cancer or heart disease or kidney failure LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY, slipped into comas and sank into their final sleep in front of helpless doctors and relatives. These were Americans in desperate trouble.

HAD THE MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS FOLLOWED UP ON HIS DIRECTIVE TO HOSPITALS TO MOVE THEIR GENERATORS TO THE THIRD FLOORS THIS WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED

The president didn't seem to notice.

WHY? HE'S GOT THE SAME ACCESS TO NEWS MEDIA YOU DO. BUT WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF WHO NOTICES WHAT, BOB, YOU DON'T SEEM TO HAVE NOTICED THAT THERE IS A SUCH THING CALLED 'LOGISTICS,' AND THAT THE OFFICIALS PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE FOR DISASTER PREPARATION AND RELIEF - LOCAL AND STATE OFFICIALS - SUFFERED A NEAR COMPLETE PARALYSIS OF COMMAND AND CONTROL. WHEN THAT HAPPENS, ALL THE FEDERAL RESPONSE IN THE WORLD IS INEFFECTIVE, BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW MUCH FEMA COMES UP WITH, IT'S STILL THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CITY AND STATE OFFICIALS TO DIRECT WHERE IT GOES. TOO BAD YOU'RE TOO LAZY TO LEARN WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

Death and the stink of decay were all over the city. LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY Corpses were propped up in wheelchairs and on lawn furniture, or left to decompose on sunbaked sidewalks LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY. Some floated by in water fouled by human feces. DO YOU SEE FEDERAL SEALS ON UTILITY TRUCKS? NO? LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY, ASSHAT.

Degenerates roamed the city, LAW ENFORCEMENT IS A LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY shooting at rescue workers, beating and robbing distraught residents and tourists, LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY TO FIX raping women and girls DITTO, LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY. The president of the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world didn't seem to notice. YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT BUSH DID OR DID NOT NOTICE, BOB. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIS JOB IS.

Viewers could watch diabetics go into insulin shock on national television, LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY and you could see babies with the pale, vacant look of hunger that we're more used to seeing in dispatches from the third world LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY. You could see their mothers, dirty and hungry themselves, weeping THEY WERE FAILED BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Old, critically ill people were left to soil themselves and in some cases die like stray animals on the floor of an airport triage center LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY. For days the president of the United States didn't seem to notice. ASSUMES FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE. HERBERT HAS NO IDEA WHAT THE PRESIDENT DID OR DID NOT NOTICE.

He would have noticed if the majority of these stricken folks had been white and prosperous ASSUMES FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE. THIS KIND OF MUDDLEHEADED HALF-WITTERY IS THE BEST THE NY TIMES CAN DO?. But they weren't. Most were black and poor, and thus, to the George W. Bush administration, still invisible.

After days of withering criticism from white and black Americans, from conservatives as well as liberals, from Republicans and Democrats, the president finally felt compelled to act, however feebly. ACTUALLY, THE PRESIDENT LIVED UP TO HIS RESPONSIBILITY BY RELEASING FEDERAL FUNDS TWO DAYS PRIOR TO THE STORM'S LANDFALL, THEN WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND BY GETTING ON THE PHONE AND LEANING ON NEW ORLEANS TO EVACUATE WHILE LOCAL OFFICIALS DITHERED(The chorus of criticism from nearly all quarters demanding that the president do something tells me that the nation as a whole is so much better than this administration.)

"DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!" AHH, THE SWEET BLISS OF IGNORANCE.

Mr. Bush flew south on Friday and proved (as if more proof were needed) that he didn't get it. Instead of urgently focusing on the people who were stranded, hungry, sick and dying, he engaged in small talk, reminiscing at one point about the days when he used to party in New Orleans, and mentioning that Trent Lott had lost one of his houses but that it would be replaced with "a fantastic house - and I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever by a president during a dire national emergency. NO. IT WAS THE WORST EVER BY A CITY GOVERNMENT. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PRETTY MUCH MET ITS STANDARD TIMELINES, BUT THE VOLUME OF SUPPORT PROVIDED IN THE 72-96 HOUR STANDARD WINDOW WAS UNPRECEDENTED. THE FEDERAL RESPONSE HERE WAS FASTER THAN HUGO, FASTER THAN ANDREW, FASTER THAN INIKI, FASTER THAN CHARLEY, FASTER THAN FRANCINE AND JEANNE. HERBERT HAS NO CLUE WHAT IN THE WORLD HE'S TALKING ABOUT.

What we witnessed, as clearly as the overwhelming agony of the city of New Orleans, was the dangerous incompetence and the staggering indifference to human suffering of the president and his administration. BOB HERBERT HAS MADE A FOOL OF HIMSELF BEFORE WHEN WRITING ABOUT FEDERAL AGENCIES AND SECURITY ISSUES, AND IS MAKING A FOOL OF HIMSELF AGAIN. HERBERT'S INCOMPETENCE TO ASSESS THIS DISASTER FROM HIS AIR CONDITIONED NYC OFFICE DWARFS ANYTHING I'VE SEEN IN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, AND IS DWARFED ONLY BY THE INEPTITUDE OF NEW ORLEANS OFFICIALS WHO DIDN'T EVEN CRACK OPEN THEIR OWN DISASTER RELIEF PLAN.

And it is this incompetence and indifference to suffering (yes, the carnage continues to mount in Iraq) INSERT GRATUITOUS IRAQ REFERENCE HERE that makes it so hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the United States over the next few years. GIMME A BREAK! YOU LEFTIE CLOWNS HAVEN'T BEEN OPTIMISTIC ABOUT AMERICA SINCE KENNEDY GOT SHOT, LOSERS! At a time when effective, innovative leadership is desperately needed to cope with matters of war and peace, terrorism and domestic security, the economic imperatives of globalization and the rising competition for oil, the United States is being led by a man who seems oblivious to the reality of his awesome responsibilities.

Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless CLUELESS IS AS CLUELESS DOES, BOB. about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble.