Saturday, May 12, 2007

Katrina Redux: Bush Admin. Blames Kansas Governor

This is absolutely ridiculous. It's always the victim's fault. Why can't these people ever just admit they're incompetent and can't run a government? (Rhetorical question.)

AP via HuffPo:

The White House fought back Tuesday against criticism from Kansas' governor that National Guard deployments to Iraq are slowing the response to last week's devastating tornado.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the fault was Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius'.

In a spat reminiscent of White House finger-pointing at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco after the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Snow rapped Sebelius for not following procedure to find gaps and then asking the federal government to fill them.

"If you don't request it, you're not going to get it," he said.

One slight problem: Governor Sebelius did request it. In fact, she took her concerns to Bush personally in 2006:

Sebelius, a Democrat, has written the Pentagon twice and spoke about the issue at great length with Bush in January 2006 when they rode together from Topeka to a lecture in Manhattan.

"He assured me that he had additional equipment in his budget a year ago. What the Defense Department said then and continues to say is that states will get about 90 percent of what they had," Sebelius said. "Meanwhile, it doesn't get any better. I'm at a loss."

So apparently it doesn't matter if you "request it"; you're still not getting it. What's more, ThinkProgress notes three other times Governor Sebelius lobbied the Pentagon to replace missing equipment.

The governor is not to blame here. She didn't start the war, and she didn't decide to send to send the National Guard equipment to Iraq. And despite her constant efforts to get that equipment back in order to deal with disasters like last weekend's tornado, it's still her fault. Have they no shame? (Another rhetorical question.)

No comments: